---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John A Imani <johnaima...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 10:28 AM
Subject: RAC-LA Celebrating 5 Years of Organizing the Members of the
MacArthur Park Community
To: rac-lasupport...@lists.riseup.net
Comrades,
The Revolutionary Autonomous Communities-Los Angeles--formed in the wake of
the Police Riot in MacArthur Park on May Day 2007--was initiated as a
response to demonstrate that the right of human laborers to go where ever
it is that we might find work w/o regard to man-made inventions such as
borders.
On May Day 2007 the LAPD took a position that should one demonstrate for
this (and other) human rights then that one (and all who do so) will be
attacked by the armed power of the state. The radicals who formed RAC-LA,
in opposition to this, did so with the express intention of organizing not
only paper-less migrants but the lowest economic rung of the working class,
the homeless, the hungry, the work-less, the lowest paid members of our
class so as to:
1.) provide mutual aid with and to each other through RAC's 'Programa
Comida', our 'Food Program' which weekly provides fresh vegetables and
fruits free of charge to now over 200 of those in need; and,
2.) lay the plans and develop a model of revolutionary resistance that
ought serve as an example of new ways of thinking, new methods of work.
Below our announcement, you will find a political-economic description of
the methods and manners of RAC-LA's organization.
Join us Sunday Nov 18th to celebrate 5 years of the efforts towards
achieving these goals.
JAI
RAC-LA
RAC-LAs Participation in The Circuits of Production
*1st Circuit*
*Planning*
*(First Circulation Circuit)*
*
*
*/ \*
*4**th**Circuit
2**nd** Circuit*
* Consumption
Production*
* a. individual*
* b. productive
*
*
*
* \ /*
*3rd Circuit*
*Allocation and Distribution*
*(Second Circulation Circuit) *
The circuits of capitalist production, indeed those of any and all modes
of production (e.g. slavery, feudalism, socialism, communism, even
hunter-gathering) consist of 1.) Planning; 2.) Production; 3.) Allocation
and Distribution; and, 4.) Consumption. In Planning, decisions are made as
to what things are to be produced and therefore what factors of production
(materials, tools and labor), necessary to produce them, have to be
allocated (in capitalism this means purchased) and arrayed before
production can begin. In the circuit of Production, these factors are
combined so as to fabricate or grow or mine, etc. the desired objects. In
distribution, the items are apportioned to their end-users (in capitalism
this means sold to the end-users). And, in consumption the end-users make
use of them either for direct consumption as consumers or indirect
consumption, that is productive consumption, by making these goods
available as factors for the allocation decisions made in circuit 1 as
means of production.
Though RAC-LA hardly represents the might, mass and complexity of the
coming socialist commonwealth, it does have, albeit in microcosm, similar
economic problems in each of its circuits that it too must solve.
*The First Circulation Circuit-The Factors Market*
In order to understand RAC-LAs participation in its own Circuit 1, the
planning of production, it is necessary to understand the product that is
being produced. That product is not this or that fruit nor these or those
vegetables, rather it is the bundles of food themselves which are composed
of the fruits and vegetables. Up until this time, as we have now acquired a
small garden space, RAC-LA has not itself manufactured nor farmed any item
save T-shirts. Instead, what is planned and what is done is the assembling
of the packages that for 4 ½ years we have distributed to an average of
more than 175 people every Sunday in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Items
that, while still healthy and nutritious, might bear some blemish that make
them un-saleable but not un-consumable. These items form the raw material
for RAC-LA workers production, in our Circuit 2, of bundles that contain
items that we have salvaged from being tossed. The first phase of RAC-LAs
planning therefore consists therefore of allocation of its labor-powers to
make the pick-ups. Now, as there are no waged-workers who might do this,
nor are there bosses who might have ordered these last to do so, this is
and has been accomplished by the free and voluntary acceptance of these
tasks by comrades who take upon themselves particular assignments. Should,
for any reason, the comrade who is scheduled for a pick-up is unable to
perform, her place is immediately taken by another comrade. This voluntary
association will implicitly color much of what follows below.
The second phase of RAC-LAs planning comes with the preparations for the
assembly of the parcels. An assessment is made of 1.) the number of people
who will desire the parcels; and, 2.) the number of items of each kind that
we can allocate to each basket. The first is obtained by passing out
numbers *(boletas)* that, in addition, provides the sequence for an
orderly distribution, as those who have received their numbered tickets
earliest will also receive their parcels earlier. The second judgment comes
about as the result of consultation amongst the workers and a best guess
assessment of how many of x vegetable or y fruit to place in each box. This
is hardly exact economic calculationas the oftimes at end existence of a
surplus or deficit of this or that foodstuff that makes itself knownbut it
is economic calculation. It is a calculation decision arrived at as a
result of a Conspiracy of
Equals1<#13af5e16bf74c1b5_13af5ddd5094926f_sdfootnote1sym>as to how
best to allocate this and/or that so as to achieve a simple
economic goal: that every box ought contain an equal amount of sustenance.
However, the fact is that even with the achievement of this equal
allocation there is the certainty that all who receive these equal parcels
will not derive equal amounts of utility as one may have more dependants
than another, say, responsible only for herself. This cannot be helped as
RAC-LA, in this paradox, is caught in the vise of an ages-old quandary: the
discussion of exactly what equality is. Below it is asserted that this
riddle can be solved.
What is exceptional about what RAC-LA doing is the transformation of those
who have come to us seeking the assistance we provide, seeing what we are
doing and, while they wait, take it upon themselves to, say, help break
down the cardboard boxes (which are recycled), unload the truck or measure
out and bag the rice and beans, etc. Soon we find that we have been joined
by another *companera(o)* enamored by the self-empowerment of voluntary
workers in action without thoughts of private profits and without the boss
who takes it.
*The Second Circuit-Production*
In RAC-LAs 2nd Circuit, the production of the bundles, the first order of
business is the unloading of the vehicles bringing the raw materials of
RAC-LAs production to our location on the west side of MacArthur Park near
Wilshire Bl. In this, regular RAC-LA members and sympathizers are almost
always joined by some of those waiting to receive the foodstuffs. No one is
required to do this and, yet, it almost always occurs.
Next comes the triaging of the food whereby the items are shorn of,
perhaps, wilted outer leaves, etc. Again, comrades (and sometimes
bystanders) take up these duties on their own volition. Separately, a group
of 4-6 *companera(o)s* measure and package quart size packets of rice and
beans. And in a third sector, comrades tend to both the disposal of trash
as well as the aforementioned breaking down of the cardboard containers
that the fruits and vegetables have arrived in. No one assigns anyone to
any sector. Anyone can do any job. Of course, someone joining us for the
first or second or even a third time might inquire as to where her services
could best be used but after this they know where to go: to where they are
best used (i.e. most needed). This voluntary work *sans* the incentive of
payment (though, most workers also opt to receive baskets at end) gives
evidence that cooperative production (i.e. where one works for the benefit
of all and is, in turn, benefited by the work of all) is no
pie-in-the-sky, is no mass hallucination brought on by fits of ague borne
of a system that demeans human beings into beasts of burden activated only
by the carrot (pay) or the stick (the threat of firing) false dichotomy
of capitalism.
The workers being the judge of who is, who remains and who ought not be a
fellow in this effort is a prime fundamental of our mode of production. The
ill-fit is a serious question and not taken lightly by members and
expulsion from the program has happened only once. Decisions necessitated
by the possible ill-fit of this or that person are made in a
post-production circle wherein also are analyses of how this days work
transpired and how might things have been done better are discussed. Such
post-production worker-evaluations demonstrate how it is that
planningnormally a 1st Circuit activitycan take place after and in
light of the 2nd Circuit, Production. Indeed, because of the flexibility
inherent in worker-controlled activities such changes can occur at any time
in any phase. Such ability to change-on-the-fly initiated by those
directly involved, one might think, stamps this proto-cooperative
production as superior to the inherent inertia of one-mind, one-brain
systems dominated by a commanding will.
*The Third Circuit (2nd Circulation circuit)-Allocation and Distribution*
RAC-LAs 3rd Circuit, Allocation and Distribution, is simple. The products
assembled by RAC-LA are distributed to those who have received their *
boletas* in the order in which the tickets were obtained. In capitalism,
this *boleta*" would find its Hyde-to-its-Jekyll doppelganger in money.
Though in this micro-economy that is the RAC-LA Food Program this *boleta*,
this moneythis wherewithal to buyis in no way connected to the efforts
required to obtain it. Although one may work, one is not required to do so.
By cutting this tie between effort and reward, the 3rd Circuit of
Distribution, in the Food Programs circuits of production, is RAC-LAs
microcosmic on-going experiment in the realms and regions of pure
anarchic-communism.
The exchange which occurs is that of the bundles for the return of the *
boleta* and, most-times a smile. There is a codicil to this in that there
is a syndicalist aspect to one feature of the program, the bags rice and
beans. Upon signing up for their *boleta* the patrons are asked for a $1
donation. Inability or unwillingness to part with this sum is no grounds
for denial of aid. Those who do not donate receive exactly the same as the
others save for the rice and beans (which means that these are still
rationed (i.e. to be exchanged for a requisite chit, in this case the
dollar.)) With these contributions (averaging appx $60/week) RAC-LA
purchases 50lb sacks of the staples. What the donor receives back, if
purchased separately by the individuals, would be rice and beans that would
have cost appx $2-2.50. And when we find that the collections from our
various points of salvage are lacking, then alleven those who did not
part with the donationreceive these staples.
*The Fourth Circuit-Consumption*
In RAC-LAs 4th Circuit, consumption of the boxes of foodstuffs handed out
to the Food Programs clients and workers not only aid in the reproduction
of these workers labor-powers, it increases it beyond what it would have
been without such aid. By providing free of charge healthy, if not pretty,
vegetables and staples, the parcels consumption injects needed nutrition
into these under-paid, and thereby ill-fed, members of the world-wide
working class and their dependents. It is as if an additional (ballpark
figure) $10 had been handed to each and that the money had been totally
spent upon neither soda nor chips but to obtain the vitamins richly
inhabiting vegetables.
It might also be remarked, at this point, that RAC-LAs circuits of
production though anarchist in form, are socialist/communist in their
content.
1 <#13af5e16bf74c1b5_13af5ddd5094926f_sdfootnote1anc> *
http://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/conspiracy-equals/index.htm
*
Films on RAC-LA
"We're Still Here, We Never Left" (The Founding of RAC-LA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDH3si3b-Ks
"An Experiment in Socialism: RAC's Free Food Program"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJxkQerLchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LpPUrYBSuA&feature=relmfugg&feature=related<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJxkQerLcgg&feature=related>
"R.A.C: Gentrification, Anarchism, Community Organizing"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LpPUrYBSuA&feature=relmfu
http://www.facebook.com/raclosangeles
revolutionaryautonomouscommunities.blogspot.com/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
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