Award winning poet Joshua Clover theorises the riot as the form of the coming insurrection.
Baltimore. Ferguson. Tottenham. Clichy-sous-Bois. Oakland. Ours has become an “age of riots” as the struggle of people versus state and capital has taken to the streets. Award-winning poet and scholar Joshua Clover offers a new understanding of this present moment and its history. Rioting was the central form of protest in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was supplanted by the strike in the early nineteenth century. It returned to prominence in the 1970s, profoundly changed along with the coordinates of race and class.
From early wage demands to recent social justice campaigns pursued through occupations and blockades, Clover connects these protests to the upheavals of a sclerotic economy in a state of moral collapse. Historical events such as the global economic crisis of 1973 and the decline of organized labor, viewed from the perspective of vast social transformations, are the proper context for understanding these eruptions of discontent. As social unrest against an unsustainable order continues to grow, this valuable history will help guide future antagonists in their struggles toward a revolutionary horizon.
Author(s): Joshua Clover
Edition: 1
Publisher: Verso
Year: 2016
Language: English
Commentary: Reflowable eBook ISBNs: 178478060X, 9781784780609, 1784780618, 9781784780616
Pages: 209
City: London / New York
Tags: history, politics, political theory, Marxism,
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: A Theory of Riot 1
A theory of riot. Riot-strike-riot prime. The marketplace and the factory floor. Circulation-production-circulation-prime. Riot and crisis. Circulation struggles.
RIOT
Chapter 1: What Is a Riot? 35
What is a riot? The economic and the political. The dilemma of reproduction.
Chapter 2: The Golden Age of Riot 49
The golden age of riot. The world market. Riot and class struggle.
Chapter 3: The Swing, Or, Riot to Strike 61
The swing: riot to strike. Machine-breaking. The many.
STRIKE
Chapter 4: Strike Contra Riot 77
Strike contra riot. Spectacle and discipline. Too much and too little.
Chapter 5: The General Strike 89
The general strike. Engels and Sorel. The inversion of Rosa Luxemburg.
Chapter 6: Crossed Wires, Or, Strike to Riot 103
Crossed wires, or riot and strike. Struggle and profit. Revolutions per minute. Riot as modality.
RIOT PRIME
Chapter 7: The Long Crisis 129
The Long Crisis. The arc of accumulation. The specialization of struggle. The end of the program. Overdetermination.
Chapter 8: Surplus Rebellions 153
Surplus rebellions. Proletarianization and racialization. An agenda for total disorder. The public riot.
Chapter 9: Riot Now: Square, Street, Commune 175
Riot now: square, street, commune. The square and class alliance. The street and the rift. Commune and catastrophe.
Index 195
