It is certainly necessary to analyze in depth how capitalism works, in relation to its history, a necessity that was already largely put into practice by Marx in his time. And it cannot be denied that many authors of great value have since taken on this task and made valuable contributions to it. What is regrettable is that, for the most part, these critical analyses have been and continue to be carried out from particular perspectives or by affinity groups whose common characteristic is that they are not very open to dialogue, as the reflective requirement that once accompanied them is hardly conducive to this. While this is temporarily understandable at a time when a school of thought is seeking its own coherence, it becomes much less so over time when these lines of thought turn into cliques, convinced that they alone hold the truth and becoming deaf to any other line of thought.
However relevant a critical analysis may be, it should never forget that what matters most is its ability to truly achieve what it claims to radically oppose and what it seeks to overcome. This should lead all consistent theorists to be a little more modest in the face of the weakness of the results obtained, and in any case to listen more to what may have escaped them or even contradicts them. Psychological experience, and historical experience as well, leads us to observe that the demand for rigor that is necessary in the search for coherent thought can quite easily become rigidity as soon as it renounces dialectical thinking, recognizing itself in its temporality, distinguishing what is already solidifying within itself and transforming into ideology; thus losing its capacity for renewal and intervention.
The megamachine born of capitalism, in its infernal race, and although its limits are becoming increasingly apparent, has so far succeeded in constantly renewing itself while perpetuating itself. This means that if we do not succeed in stopping it in its tracks, its limits may well become our own, not only as a human species but for most life on Earth. The sum of critical analyses of the process and its rationale will then be of no use to anyone, except to satisfy ourselves with an “We told you so!” as an end result.
We do not claim, as Communalists, to have any more of a miracle solution than others for achieving this goal beyond our organizational proposals and the possibility of their implementation, but we call on all those who are aware of the extraordinary danger that threatens us not to mistake the target and not to turn the necessary debates into useless and futile polemics that will only further accentuate the divisions. Above all, we must find the right strategies to stop the megamachine in its race towards extinction.
There is nothing to demand in its world, nothing to hope for from possible negotiations that could only serve to prolong it. There is nothing to expect from its various representatives and participants, technocrats, bureaucrats, politicians, economists, media figures, and ideologically affiliated variants. These people hope for nothing more than to continue to exist for a while within the megamachine, even believing that it will protect them.
There are many of us on Earth who no longer want this world, but we have great difficulty finding the language that can connect us, make us a common force capable of targeting and overthrowing the megamachine, which is by no means inevitable but just an unfortunate historical impasse into which we have allowed ourselves to be drawn, more or less by force, and from which we must imperatively extricate ourselves. There are many ways to fight the megamachine, but the mistake is always to focus solely on this or that nuisance, this or that injustice or oppression, forgetting that it takes place within a vast totalitarian system whose dynamics are essentially automatic and which therefore does not care about individual suffering, however numerous it may be. Irresponsibility reigns supreme in such a system, from the top to the bottom of the ladder that it has itself established. The scoundrels who manage and serve the megamachine follow one another at an accelerated pace, giving way to other scoundrels whose level of individual alienation we could not even have imagined. This, if proof were needed, is a further sign of its advanced senility.