Abstract
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world system entered a state of chaos. The global elites resorted to authoritarianism to maintain their positions. Their principal method secured fear through order maintenance. That order, of course, meant the hierarchical social order. Two analysts of political economy, David Harvey and Immanuel Wallerstein, optimistically averred the possibility of alternatives to authoritarian repression. Wallerstein (2004) wrote of the spirit of Porto Alegre, Brazil—the site of the first World Social Forum. Harvey referred to movements against neoliberalism, mentioning worker movements begun in the 1980s in South Korea and South Africa. He assigned particular significance to the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico—the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional—which began January 1, 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. Harvey cited that one in particular because it “did not seek to take over state power or accomplish a political revolution; it sought instead a more inclusionary politics” (2005:199). In the economic arena, Marx had defined the realm of freedom as beginning where labor determined by necessity and of mundane considerations ceases and turns toward labor for the sake of human realization (1894:820). Ultimate goals of liberation aim at human realization through freedom, equality, and justice. Reaching these goals, no matter how distant, requires lucid consciousness, which entails revolt against repression, both political and psychological.
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© 2010 Geoffrey R. Skoll
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Skoll, G.R. (2010). Resistance and the Fight against Repression. In: Social Theory of Fear. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230112636_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230112636_9
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