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"The New Freedom" by Fredy Perlman

Just started reading "The New Freedom: Corporate Capitalism" by Fredy Perlman and might share some thoughts as I continue to dig into it.

Read here:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-the-new-freedom

Has anyone else read this / thoughts? Here is the introduction to set the stage:

Reader,

At the hazard of being dismissed by you we imprudently ask you to undertake certain obligations on receiving this book. Prudence, we feel, is not the proper response to impending catastrophe which, if it is to be averted, had better be met with acute foresight, with critical appraisal, with courageous action.

This book is addressed to what the author considers the critical problems of all Humanity in our time. The problems are the current misery of mankind, and the threat of a genocidal war. The misery cannot be alleviated, nor the destruction averted, by men who are not conscious of the threat or of its causes.

The purpose of this book is to communicate the author’s understanding of these problems to readers. We feel convinced that such communication cannot be accomplished by a publishing network whose primary purpose is not communication but profit.

In view of these considerations, we turn to you, reader, and ask you to make yourself responsible for the life or the death, the enjoyment or the misery, of all humanity. We ask this by placing a small task before you, a task which is not intended to be the end of your endeavors, but merely the cue which we hope will inspire you to devise far greater projects of your own.

We do not ask you to agree with the analysis contained in this book, in whole or in part; but we do ask you to read the book and to share at least our concern.

We further ask you to share our concern over the lack of unfettered media of communication in a land where the press is a business. You and I are, we feel, responsible to devise ways of circumventing this lack. We want you to join us in a search for a free press and a free literature whose sole aim is communication.

If you share our concern, if not our interpretation, we ask you either to see to it that this book is reproduced again, and yet again, and distributed without charge, or that your own interpretation of the problem is reproduced and distributed free of charge. If you do this, reader, the business press will have been circumvented.

If you feel yourself better suited to different forms of communication, allow us to suggest free plays, free novels, posters, pamphlets; allow us to suggest that you organize your community for lectures, forums, pickets, strikes.…

If you do none of these things, and if you do not engage yourself in any of the infinite number of projects which have not occurred to us, then know, reader, that in our eyes you will have abdicated your responsibility to all living humanity, and to all the dead who have made you what you are, given you what you have, and taught you what you know.

ruin (not verified) Mon, 12/26/2022 - 17:16

I hadn’t heard of this, but I may read it simply because I find the intro so off putting. I’d say I’ve already abdicated my responsibility to all of humanity living and dead, but the mere notion of such responsibility is moralism stretched to absurd lengths to begin with.

Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/27/2022 - 22:10

In reply to by ruin (not verified)

Perlman never ceased to be a leftist, but was more so in the beginning than towards the end.

Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 02/25/2023 - 11:21

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

'Perlman never ceased to be a leftist'

Against Leviathan is leftist now? It's easy to throw one-liners out online, harder to go beyond platitudes into actual conversation. Can you say more?

The managers of Gulag’s islands tell us that the swimmers, crawlers, walkers and fliers spent their lives working in order to eat. These managers are broadcasting their news too soon. The varied beings haven’t all been exterminated yet. You, reader, have only to mingle with them, or just watch them from a distance, to see that their waking lives are filled with dances, games and feasts. Even the hunt, the stalking and feigning and leaping, is not what we call Work, but what we call Fun. The only beings who work are the inmates of Gulag’s islands, the zeks.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against-his-story…

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