"Jacobin,” Magazine, Double
Issue. Fall 2014. 15/16 – Various Writers
‘Jacobin’ is a somewhat new theoretical magazine
mostly written by academics – at least if this issue is typical. Bhaskar Sunkara is publisher and Alyssa
Battistoni is the editor of Jacobin. The
former is a young person from Brooklyn by way of Westchester County,
and the latter is a political science professor at Yale, starting her
journalistic work at Mother Jones. They
claim there are more than 30 cities in the U.S. with “Jacobin Clubs,’
dedicated to a non-party approach to socialism. Do you have to wear a red cockade to go? Sort of a youthful and clever Marxism is in these pages, taking off around Occupy. This issue of
the magazine is dedicated to analyzing capitalist (and socialist) cities and real estate issues. It features an article by Mike Davis, one of the preeminent writers on this
topic. Davis
wrote the classic “City of Quartz” about Los Angeles and “Planet
of Slums” (reviewed below.)
Articles cover ostensible progressive Mayor DeBlasio’s
gentrification plan for New York disguised as providing affordable housing;
the bulldozing of public housing and the replacement of public apartments with
privatized vouchers in Chicago and Atlanta; Goldman Sach’s Urban Investment Group (which has been christened “friendly
FIRE); ”an article taking apart the game SIMCITY as a reflection of
neo-liberalism; an article humorously titled ‘the Jock Doctrine” about Brazil’s
investment in sports mega-complexes to the detriment of public needs; the over-costs
of the various Olympic Summer Games since the 1970s; invasive special economic
zones created by the ‘charter cities’ idea; Richard Florida and the self-aggrandizing
‘creative class:’ a hilarious article by Davis on what and who to destroy in
Los Angeles; the privatizing of sports stadiums; a history of Red Vienna when
it was run by Social-Democrats until the advent of fascism; ’ the link
between city design and real mass democracy; New York’s 1970’s financial crisis
as the template for direct control by neo-liberal forces intent on austerity;
workers' vacations and lastly, gay neighborhoods like the Castro and Greenwich
Village becoming prizes of capitalist urban development.
CHINA & CITIES
Of special interest is an article on the urbanization of the Chinese working
class. As of last year, more people in the world now live in urban areas than
in rural areas. This oceanic change in
living is a result of the concentration demanded by capital and will result in
a social solidarity based on urban struggle.
In China,
this change is especially significant and rushed, given the millions of new
workers in that country.
This article criticizes the Chinese Communist Party’s blind
faith in class-neutral terms like ‘progress’ and ‘development’ at the expense
of people’s real needs. It comments on
the continuing existence of ‘hukou’ or the household registration system, which
discriminates against rural migrants. It
is expected that 200 million people will still be outside urban registration
even if current CP plans are realized. China
is now attempting to get people to move to medium to small cities due to the
enormous size of the larger ones. These new
cities (many which are still mostly empty) are based on peasants giving up
their land, which leads to a loss of farm earnings and agricultural
produce. As Jacobin puts it, China
is a creepy combination of ‘neoliberal capital flows and Stalinist labor
control.’
SUBURBIA AND CLASS
Another interesting article is on the suburbanization of the
U.S.
working class – one of the most significant events in the last 50 years. Unlike prior architectural analyses of
suburbia, such as James Kuntsler’s classic “The Geography of Nowhere,” which focused
on the alienation of the suburbs, Jacobin looks at its changing class
geography. For me, the suburbs are a cultural wasteland
that makes organizing more difficult. By
dispersing workers, they are doing what the downsizing of factories has done –
geographically weakening the class.
Jacobin points out that the petit-bourgeoisie is
re-colonizing the center of the cities, forcing more workers and poor people out
to the suburbs, which have less services, parks and transport. This is a recreation of Baron Haussmann’s
reconstruction of Paris,
which pushed the proletariat into the ‘red belts’ around the city on the eve of
the 20th century. Jacobin
discounts Alinsky (‘organizing for organizing sake’), early SDS community
activity in the 1960s and instead suggests annexing inner-suburbs, or replicating what the
Communists did around Paris. They quote David Harvey’s ‘right to the city’
as the theory behind any practice.
What they ignore is that suburban office and factory parks could be sites for geographic organizing too. Housing was not the only thing spread out to suburbia – so were work sites, with devastating effect. Massive plants like River Rouge were transported to other countries, and what remained were mini-mills and shrunken factories and shops across whole metropolitan areas - including small shops in the 'enterprise zones' of suburbia.
What they ignore is that suburban office and factory parks could be sites for geographic organizing too. Housing was not the only thing spread out to suburbia – so were work sites, with devastating effect. Massive plants like River Rouge were transported to other countries, and what remained were mini-mills and shrunken factories and shops across whole metropolitan areas - including small shops in the 'enterprise zones' of suburbia.
Certainly Jacobin provides a slew of valuable facts here,
but wrapped up in a specialist and academic approach that will put some off.
The heavy bond paper, price and artsy-sterile graphics will put some off
too. Its value is in addressing some of
these neglected issues from a Marxist point of view – issues in which the
acceptable narrative is all we hear from the corporate press. I've heard its supposed to be humorous, so there is a plus. It’s sort of like a “Ted Talk” without the
breezy bourgeois assurance, instead more factual socialist assurance. One of
their fund-raising slogans, “You give us fifty. We’ll give you the thorough
Bolshevization of American Society.
Guaranteed.” sounds more like a sardonic comic line – which it is.
Other reviews that deal with class, real estate and geography
– “Guns, Germs and Steel,” “Tropic of Chaos,” “No Local,”
and two books by David Harvey, “Rebel Cities” and “The Enigma of
Capital.” Use the blog search box,
upper left.
And I bought it at May Day Books, which is now regularly
stocking Jacobin, as well as many other left magazines and newspapers – more
than anywhere else in the Twin Cities
Red Frog
October 27, 2014
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