Team Colors Collective, Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States

Oakland: AK Press, 2010, 420pp. ISBN 978-1-84935-016-7

Turbulence Collective, What Would It Mean to Win?

Oakland: PM Press, 2010, 128pp. ISBN 978-1-60486-110-5

It's interesting to read these collections now--after Tahrir Square, Occupy Wall Street, Los Indignados, the Tottenham riots, the Quebecois and Chilean student uprisings, and so on. Both of these collections are broadly anti-capitalist reflections on movement, and so much has moved since they both were published. It is, perhaps, especially valuable to read them now and reconsider what we--as radicals--went into the current wave of global unrest with and what we might have learned in the midst of this global whirlwind.

Uses of a Whirlwind is a collection on radical currents in the US specifically. It is a large collection and likely suffers a bit from its inclusiveness. I largely share the editors' desire to 'critique ... "community organizing"' the model centred 'on specific gains and getting those in power to bend to people's demands, working towards a delusionary and deeply limited goal of creating "equal opportunity for everyone", rather than self-determination' (p.11). In parts, I think the collection succeeds quite admirably at this (actually, both of these collections do). Much of it is written in the language of composition and recomposition--common signifiers among certain strands of Marxism--and those signifiers and concomitant analyses fit with their attempts to develop a reflexive and self-critical collection.

It was interesting seeing this put to work by a collective member at Bluestockings bookstore in New York City. The idea of collectively-run businesses that circulate commodities in the (capitalist) market being a part of radical movement is an interesting one. There have always been traditions in anarchism that stress self-management as some kind of panacea to solve the problems of capitalism (as if the problem of capital was simply one of management). So instead of transforming society or envisioning something altogether different, we're encouraged to look at the existent and think of ways to run it ourselves: anarchists enamoured of co-ops, mutual credit associations and the like come to mind. In this interview, we're given a clear insight into the dangers of this kind of practice, as we are reminded that 'just because no...