Armed Joy by Alfredo M. Bonanno

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Alfredo M. Bonanno

Armed Joy

1977


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Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Chapter 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Chapter 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Chapter 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Chapter 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36


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Introduction

is book was wrienin1977 inthe momentum of therevolutionarystrugglestaking place in Italy at the time, and that situation, now profoundly different,

should be borne in mind when reading it today.e revolutionary movement including the anarchist one was in a developing

phase and anything seemed possible, even a generalisation of the armed clash.But itwas necessary to protectoneself fromthe dangerofspecialisation and

militarisation that a restricted minority of militants intended to impose on thetens of thousands of comrades who were struggling with every possible meansagainst repression and against the States aempt rather weak to tell the truth to reorganise the management of capital.

at was the situation in Italy, but something similar was taking place inGermany, France, Great Britain and elsewhere.

Itseemed essential to prevent the manyactions carried outagainst the men

and structures ofpowerbycomrades each day from being drawnintothe plannedlogic of an armed party such as the Red Brigades in Italy.at is the spirit of the book. To show how a practice of liberation and de-

struction can come forth from a joyful logic of struggle, not a mortal, schematicrigidity within the pre-established canons of a directing group.

Some of these problems no longer exist. ey have been solved by the hardlessons of history. e collapse of real socialism suddenly redimensioned thedirecting ambitions of Marxists of every tendency for good. On the other handit has not extinguished, but possibly inflamed, the desire for freedom and an-archist communism that is spreading everywhere especially among the younggenerations, in manycases withouthavingrecoursetothetraditionalsymbols ofanarchism, its slogans and theories also considered with an understandable butnot sharable gut refusal to be affected with ideology.

is book has become topical again, but in a different way. Not as a critiqueof a heavy monopolising structure that no longer exists, but because it can pointout the potent capabilities of the individual on his or her road, with joy, to thedestruction of all that which oppresses and regulates them.

Before ending I should mention that the book was ordered to be destroyed inItaly. e Italian Supreme Court ordered it to be burned. All the libraries whohad a copy received a circular from the Home Ministry ordering its incineration.More than one librarian refused to burn the book, considering such a practiceto be worthy of the Nazis or the Inquisition, but by law the volume cannot beconsulted. For the samereasonthe book cannotbe distributedlegally inItalyand

manycomrades had copies confiscated during avastwave of raids carried out forthat purpose.


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I was sentenced to eighteen months prison for writing this book.

Alfredo M. Bonanno Catania, 14 July 1993


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Chapter 1

In Paris, 1848, the revolution was a holiday without a beginning or an end.

Bakunin

Why on earth did these dear children shoot Montanelli in the legs? Wouldntit have been beer to have shot him in the mouth?

Of course it would. But it would also have been heavier. More vindictive andsombre. Tolame a beast likethatcan have a deeper,more meaningfulsidetoitwhich goes beyond revenge, beyond punishing him for his responsibility, fascistjournalist and bosses lackey that he is.

To lame him forces him to limp, makes him remember. Moreover, laming is amore agreeable pastimethan shootinginthe mouth with pieces ofbrain squirtingout through the eyes.

e comrade who sets off in the fog every morning and walks into the sti-fling atmosphere of thefactory,or the office, only to seethe samefaces: theforeman, the timekeeper, the spy of the moment, the Stakhanovite-with-seven-children-to-support, feels the need for revolution, the struggle and the physicalclash, even a mortal one. But he also wants to bring himself some joy now, rightaway. And he nurtures this joy in his fantasies as he walks along head down inthefog,spends hours on trains or trams,suffocatesinthe pointless goings on ofthe office oramidst the useless boltsthatserveto holdthe useless mechanisms ofcapital together.

Remunerated joy, weekends off or annual holidays paid by the boss is likepaying to make love. It seems the same but there is something lacking.

Hundreds of theories pile up in books, pamphlets and revolutionary papers.We mustdothis,dothat,seethingsthe way this one said or thatone said,becausethey are the true interpreters of the this or that ones of the past, those in capitalleers who fill up the stifling volumes of the classics.

Eventhe needto keepthem close athandis allpartof theliturgy.Not to havethem would b e a b a d sign,would be suspect. It is useful to keep them handy in anycase. Being heavy theycould always be thrownintheface ofsome nuisance. Nota new,butnevertheless a healthyconfirmation of thevalidityof therevolutionarytexts of the past (and present).

ere is never anything about joy in these tomes. e austerity of the cloisterhas nothingto envyof the atmosphere one breathesintheirpages. eirauthors,

priests of therevolution of revenge and punishment,passtheir time weighing upblame and retribution.


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Moreover, these vestals in jeans have taken a vow of chastity, so they alsoexpect and impose it. ey want to be rewarded for their sacrifice. First theyabandoned the comfortable surroundings of their class of origin, then they puttheir abilities at the disposal of the disinherited. ey have grown accustomed to

using wordsthatare not theirown andto puing up with dirty tablecloths andunmade beds. So, one might listen to them at least.

ey dreamoforderlyrevolutions, neatly drawnupprinciples, anarchy withoutturbulence. Ifthings takeadifferent turn they start screaming provocation, yellingloud enough for the police to hear them.

Revolutionaries are pious folk. e revolution is not a pious event.


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Chapter 2

I call a cat a cat

Boileau

We are all concerned with the revolutionary problem of how and what toproduce,butnobodypoints out thatproducingis a revolutionaryproblem. Ifpro-duction is at the root of capitalist exploitation, to change the mode of productionwould merely change the mode of exploitation.

A cat, even if you paint it red, is still a cat.e producer is sacred. Hands off! Sanctify his sacrifice in the name of the

revolution, andles jeux sont faits.And what will we eat? concerned people will ask. Bread and string, say the

realists,with one eye onthe potandthe otherontheirgun. Ideas, the muddlingidealists state, with one eye on the book of dreams and the other on the humanspecies.

Anyone who touches productivity has had it.Capitalism and those fighting it sit alongside each other on the producers

corpse, but production must go on.e critique ofpoliticaleconomy is arationalisation of the mode ofproduction

with the least effort (by those who enjoy the benefits of it all). Everyone else,those who sufferexploitation,must take careto see nothingislacking. Otherwise,how would we live?

When he comes out into the light the son of darkness sees nothing, just aswhen he wentgroping aroundinthe dark. Joyblinds him. Itkills him. So he says

it is a hallucination and condemns it.e flabby fat bourgeois bask in opulent idleness. So enjoyment is sinful. at

would mean sharing the same sensations as the bourgeoisie and betraying thoseof the producing proletariat.

Notso. e bourgeois goesto great lengthsto keepthe process ofexploitationgoing. He is stressedtoo and never findstimefor joy.His cruises are occasionsfornewinvestments,hisloversfih columnsforgeinginformation on competitors.

e productivity god kills even its most faithful disciples. Wrench their headsoff, nothing but a deluge of rubbish will pour out.

e hungrywretch harboursfeelings of revenge when he seestherich sur-rounded by their fawning entourage. e enemy must be destroyed before any-

thing else. But save the booty. Wealth must not be destroyed, it must be used. Itdoesnt maer what it is, what form it takes or what prospects of employment it


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allows. What counts is grabbing it from whoever is holding on to it at the timeso that everyone has access to it.

Everyone? Of course, everyone.And how will that happen?

With revolutionary violence.Good answer. But really, what will we do aer we have cut off so many heads

we are bored with it? What will we do when there are no more landlords to befound even if we go looking for them with lanterns?

en it will be the reign of the revolution. To each according to their needs,from each according to their possibilities.

Payaention,comrade. ereis a smellofbookkeeping here. We aretalking ofconsumption and production. Everythingis still inthe dimension ofproductivity.Arithmetic makesyoufeelsafe. Two andtwo makefour.Who would disputethistruth? Numbers rule the world. If they have done till now, why shouldnt theycontinue to?

We all need something solid and durable. Stones to build a wall to stem theimpulses that start choking us. We all need objectivity. e boss swears by hiswallet, the peasant by his spade, the revolutionary by his gun. Let in a glimmerof criticism and the whole scaffolding will collapse.

In its heavy objectivity, the everyday world conditions and reproduces us.We are all children of daily banality. Even when we talk of serious things likerevolution,oureyes are stillgluedtothe calendar. e bossfearstherevolutionbecauseitwould deprive him ofhis wealth, the peasantwillmakeit to geta pieceof land, the revolutionary to put his theory to test.

If the problem is seen in these terms, there is no difference between wallet,land andrevolutionary theory. ese objects are allquiteimaginary,mere mirrorsof human illusion.

Only the struggle is real.It distinguishes boss from peasant and establishes the link between the laer

and the revolutionary.e forms of organisation production takes are ideological vehicles to conceal

illusory individual identity. is identity is projected into the illusory economicconcept of value. A code establishes its interpretation. e bosses control partof this code, as we see in consumerism. e technology of psychological warfareandtotal repression also givesits contributionto strengtheningtheideathatoneis human on condition that one produces.

Other parts of the code can be modified. ey cannot undergo revolutionarychange butare simplyadjustedfromtimetotime. ink, forexample,of the mass

consumerismthathastakenthe place of theluxuryconsumerism of years goneby.


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enthere are morerefinedforms such asthe selfmanaged controlofproduc-tion. Another component of the code of exploitation.

And so on. Anyone who decides to organise my life for me can never be mycomrade. If they try to justify this with the excuse that someone must produce

otherwise we will all lose our identity as human beings and be overcome bywild, savage nature, we reply that the man-nature relationship is a product ofthe enlightened Marxist bourgeoisie. Why did they want to turn a sword into apitchfork? Why must man continually strive to distinguish himself from nature?


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Chapter 3

Men, if theycannotaain what is necessary, tirethemselves withthatwhi is

useless.

Goethe

Man needs many things.is statement is usually takento meanthatman has needs which heis obliged

to satisfy.In this way people are transformed from historically determined units into a

duality (means and end simultaneously). ey realise themselves through thesatisfaction of their needs (i.e. through work) so become the instrument of theirown realisation.

Anyone can see how much mythology is concealed in statements such as this.Ifman distinguishes himself from naturethrough work,how can hefulfilhimselfin the satisfaction of his needs? To do this he would already have become man,so have fulfilled his needs, which means he would not have to work.

Commodities have a profoundly symbolic content. ey become a point ofreference, a unit of measure, an exchange value. e spectacle begins. Roles arecast and reproduce themselves to infinity. e actors continue to play their partswithout any particular modifications.

e satisfaction ofneeds becomes no morethan areflex,marginaleffect. Whatmaers is the transformation of people into things and everything else alongwith them. Nature becomes a thing.Used, i t is corrupted and mans vital instinctsalong withit. An abyss gapes open between nature and man. Itmustbefilled,and

the expansion of the commoditymarket is seeingtoit. e spectacleis expandingto the point of devouring itself along with its contradictions. Stage and audienceenter the same dimension, proposing themselves for a higher; more far-reachinglevel of the same spectacle, and so on to infinity.

Anyone who escapes the commodity code does not become objectified andfalls outside the area of the spectacle. ey are pointed at. ey are surroundedbybarbed wire. If they refuse englobementoran alternativeform ofcodification,they are criminalized. ey are clearly mad! It is forbidden to refuse the illusoryin a world that has based reality on illusion, concreteness on the unreal.

Capitalmanagesthe spectacle accordingtothelaws ofaccumulation. Butnothing can be accumulated to infinity. Not even capital.A quantitative process in

absoluteis anillusion,a quantitativeillusionto be precise. e bosses understandthis perfectly. Exploitation adopts different forms and ideological models precisely


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to ensure this accumulation in qualitatively different ways, as it cannot continuein the quantitative aspect indefinitely.

e fact that the whole process becomes paradoxical and illusory does notmaermuchto capital, becauseit is precisely thatwhich holdsthereins and

makes the rules. If it has to sell illusion for reality and that makes money, thenlets just carry on without asking too many questions. It is the exploited whofoot the bill. So it is up to them to see the trick and worry about recognisingreality.Forcapital things arefine astheyare,eventhoughtheyare based uponthe greatest conjuring show in the world.

e exploited almost feel nostalgia for this swindle. ey have grown accus-tomedtotheirchains and have become aachedtothem. Now andthentheyhavefantasies about fascinating uprisings and blood baths, then they let themselvesbe taken in by the speeches of the new political leaders. e revolutionary partyextends capitals illusory perspective to horizons it could never reach on its own.e quantitative illusion spreads.

e exploitedjoin up,count themselves,drawtheirconclusions. Fierce slogansmake bourgeois hearts miss a beat. e greater the number, the more the leadersprance around arrogantly and the more demanding they become. ey draw upgreatprogrammesfor the conquestofpower. is new powerpreparesto spreadout on the remains of the old. Bonapartes soul smiles in satisfaction.

Of course, deep changes are being programmed in the code of illusions. Buteverything must be submied to the symbol of quantitative accumulation. edemands of the revolution increase as militant forces grow. In the same way therate of the social profit that is taking the place of private profit must grow. Socapital enters a new, illusory, spectacular, phase. Old needs press on insistentlyunder new labels. e productivity god continues to rule, unrivalled.

How good it is to count ourselves. It makes us feel strong. e unions countthemselves. e parties count themselves. e bosses count themselves. So dowe. Ring a ring o roses.

And when we stop counting wetry to ensurethat things stayastheyare.If change cannot be avoided, we will bring it about without disturbing anyone.Ghosts are easily penetrated.

Every now and then politics come to the fore. Capital oen invents ingenioussolutions. en socialpeace hits us. e silence of the graveyard. eillusionspreadsto such an extent that the spectacle absorbs nearlyall the availableforces.Nota sound. enthe defects and monotonyof themis-en-scene. e curtainriseson unforeseen situations. e capitalistmachinerybeginstofalter.Revolutionaryinvolvement is rediscovered. It happened in 68. Everyones eyes nearly fell out

of their sockets. Everyone extremely ferocious. Leaflets everywhere. Mountainsof leaflets and pamphlets and papers and books.Oldideologicaldifferenceslined


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up like tin soldiers. Even the anarchists rediscovered themselves. And theydid so historically, according to the needs of the moment. Everyone was quitedull-wied. e anarchists too. Some people woke up from their spectacularslumber and, looking around for space and air to breathe, seeing anarchists said

to themselves, At last! Heres who I want to be with. ey soon realised theirmistake. ings did notgo astheyshould have doneinthatdirection either. eretoo,stupidityand spectacle. And sothey ran away. eyclosed upinthemselves.ey fell apart. Accepted capitals game. And if they didnt accept it they werebanished, even by the anarchists.

e machinery of 68 produced the best civil servants of the new techno-bu-reaucratic State. But it also produced its antibodies. e process of quantitativeillusion became evident. On the one hand it received fresh lymph to build a newview of the commodity spectacle, on the other there was a flaw.

Ithas become blatantlyobviousthatconfrontation at thelevelofproductionisineffective. Take over the factories, and fields, and schools and neighbourhoods

and selfmanage them, the old revolutionary anarchists proclaimed. We willdestroy power in all its forms, they added. But without geing to the rootsof the problem. Although conscious of its gravity and extent, they preferred toignoreit, puingtheirhopesinthe creative spontaneityof therevolution. But inthe meantimetheywantedto maintain controlofproduction. Whateverhappens,whatever creative forms the revolution might express, we must take over themeans of production they insisted. Otherwise the enemy will defeat us at thatlevel. So they began to accept all kinds of compromise.

ey ended up creating another; even more macabre, spectacle. And spectacu-lar illusion hasits ownrules.Anyone who wantsto direct itmustabide by them.ey must know and apply them, swear by them. e first is that productionaffects everything. If you do not produce you are not a man, the revolution isnot for you. Why should we tolerate parasites? Should we go to work in placeof them perhaps? Should we see to their livelihood as well as our own? Besides,wouldntall these people withvagueideas and a claimto doing astheypleasenot turn out to beobjectivelyuseful tothe counterrevolution? Well, inthatcasebeer aack them right away. We know who our allies are, whom we want toside with. Ifwe want to scare, thenlets doitall together,organised andin perfectorder, and may no one put their feet on the table or let their trousers down.

Lets organise our specific organisations. Train militants who know the tech-niques ofstruggle at the place ofproduction. e producers willmaketherevolu-tion, we will only be there to make sure they dont do anything silly.

No, thats allwrong. How willwe be ableto stopthemfrom making mistakes?

At the spectacular leveloforganisationthere are some who are capable ofmakingfar more noise than we are. And they have breath to spare. Struggle at the


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workplace. Struggle for the defence of jobs. Struggle for production. When willwe break out of the circle?

When will we stop biting our tails?


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Chapter 4

e deformed man always finds mirrors that make him handsome.

de Sade

What madness the love of work is!With great scenic skill capital has succeeded in making the exploited love

exploitation, the hanged man the rope and the slave his chains.is idealisation of work has been the death of the revolution until now. e

movement of the exploited has been corrupted by the bourgeois morality ofproduction whichis notonly foreigntoit, it is also contrary toit. It is no accidentthat the trade unions were the first sector to be corrupted, precisely because oftheir closer proximity to the management of the spectacle of production.

It is time to oppose the non-work aesthetic to the work ethic.We must counter the satisfaction of spectacular needs imposed by consumer

society with the satisfaction of mans natural needs seen in the light of thatprimary, essential need: the need for communism.

In this way the quantitative evaluation of needs is overturned. e need forcommunism transforms all other needs and their pressures on man.

Mans poverty, the consequence ofexploitation, has been seen as the foundationof future redemption. Christianity and revolutionary movements have walkedhand in hand throughout history. We must suffer in order to conquer paradiseor to acquire the class consciousness that will take us to revolution. Without thework ethicthe Marxistnotion of proletariatwould notmake sense. But the workethic is a product of the same bourgeois rationalism that allowed the bourgeoisie

to conquer power.Corporatism resurfaces through the mesh of proletarian internationalism.

Everyone struggles withintheirown sector.Atmost theycontactsimilaronesin other countries, through the unions. e monolithic multinationals are op-posed bymonolithicinternationalunions. Lets maketherevolution butsavethemachinery, the working tool, that mythical object that reproduces the historicalvirtue of the bourgeoisie, now in the hands of the proletariat.

e heir to the revolution is destined to become the consumer and main actorof the capitalist spectacle of tomorrow. Idealised at the level of the clash as thebeneficiaryof its outcome, therevolutionaryclass disappearsintheidealisation ofproduction.When the exploited come tobeenclosed within a classall the elements

of the spectacular already exist, just as they do for the class of exploiters.


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e only way for the exploited to escape the globalising project of capital isthrough the refusal of work, production and political economy.

But refusal of work must not be confused with lack of work in a societywhichis based onthelaer. e marginalisedlookforwork. eydo not find

it. ey are pushed into gheos. ey are criminalised. en that all becomespart of the management of the productive spectacle as a whole. Producers andunemployed are equally indispensable to capital. But the balance is a delicateone. Contradictions explode and produce various kinds of crisis, and it is in thiscontext that revolutionary intervention takes place.

So, the refusal of work, the destruction of work, is an affirmation of the needfor non-work. e affirmation that man can reproduce and objectify himself innon-workthroughthevarious solicitationsthat this stimulatesin him. eideaof destroying work is absurd if it is seen from the point of view of the workethic. But how? So many people are looking for work, so many unemployed,andyoutalk aboutdestroying work? eLuddite ghostappears and puts all

the revolutionaries-who-have-read-all-the-classics to fright. e rigid model ofthe frontal aack on capitalist forces must not be touched. All the failures andsuffering of the pastareirrelevant;soisthe shame and betrayal. Ahead comrades,beer days will come, onwards again!

It would suffice to show what the concept of free time, a temporary suspen-sion ofwork, is bogged downintoday to scare proletarians backintothe stagnantatmosphere of the class organisations(parties,unions and hangers-on). e spec-tacle offered by the bureaucratic leisure organisations is deliberately designed todepress eventhe most fertileimagination. But thisis no morethan anideologicalcover,one of the many instruments of thetotalwar thatmake upthe spectacle asa whole.

e need for communism transforms everything. rough the need for com-munism the need for non-work moves from the negative aspect (opposition towork) to the positive one: the individuals complete availability to themselves,the possibility to expressthemselves absolutely freely,breaking away from allmodels,eventhose consideredto befundamentalandindispensable,such asthoseof production.

But revolutionaries are dutiful people and are afraid to break with all models,not least thatof revolution which constitutes an obstacletothefull realisation ofwhat the concept means. ey are afraid they might find themselves without aroleinlife. Haveyou evermetarevolutionarywithoutarevolutionaryproject?Aproject that is welldefined and presented clearly tothe masses? Whateverkind ofrevolutionarywould be one who claimedto destroy the model, the wrapping, the

very foundations of the revolution? By aacking concepts such as quantification,class, project, model, historical task and other such old stuff, one would run the


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risk of having nothing to do, of being obliged to act in reality, modestly, likeeveryone else. Like millions ofothers who are buildingtherevolution daybydaywithout waiting for signs of a fatal deadline. And to do this you need courage.

Withrigid models andlile quantitative gamesyouremain withintherealm of

the unreal, theillusoryprojectof therevolution,an amplification of the spectacleof capital.

By abolishing the ethic of production you enter revolutionary reality directly.It is difficulteventotalk aboutsuchthings becauseitdoes notmake senseto

mentiontheminthe pages ofatreatise. Toreducethese problemsto a completeandfinalanalysis would beto missthe point. e best thing would be aninformaldiscussion capable of bringing about the subtle magic of wordplay.

It is a real contradiction to talk of joy seriously.


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Chapter 5

Summer nights are heavy. One sleeps badly in tiny rooms. It is the Eve of the

Guillotine.

Zo dAxa

e exploited also find time to play. But their play is not joy. It is a macabreritual. An awaiting death. A suspension of work in order to lighten the pressureof the violence accumulated during the activity of production. In the illusoryworld of commodities, play is also an illusion. We imagine we are playing, whileall we are really doing is monotonously repeating the roles assigned to us bycapital.

When we become conscious of the process of exploitation the first thing wefeel is a sense of revenge, the last is joy. Liberation is seen as seing right abalance that has been upset by the wickedness of capitalism, not as the comingof a world of play to take the place of the world of work.

is is the first phase of the aack on the bosses. e phase of immediateawareness. What strikes us are the chains, the whip, the prison walls, sexual andracial barriers. Everything must come down. So we arm ourselves and strike theadversary to make them pay for their responsibility.

During the night of the guillotine the foundations for a new spectacle arelaid. Capital regains strength: first the bosses heads fall, then those of therevolutionaries.

It is impossible to make the revolution with the guillotine alone. Revenge isthe antechamber of power. Anyone who wants to avenge themselves requires

a leader. A leader to take them to victory and restore wounded justice. Andwhoever cries for vengeance wants to come into possession of what has beentaken away from them. Right to the supreme abstraction, the appropriation ofsurplus value.

e world of the future must be one where everyone works. Fine! So wewill have imposed slavery on everyone with the exception of those who make itfunction and who, precisely for that reason, become the new bosses.

No maer what, the bosses must pay for their wrongs. Very well! We willcarry the Christian ethic ofsin, judgementandreparationintotherevolution. Aswell as the concepts of debt and payment, clearly of mercantile origins.

at is allpartof the spectacle. Even whenit is notmanaged bypowerdirectly

it can easily be taken over. Role reversal is one of the techniques of drama.


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e substitution of the work ethic withthe aesthetic of joywould notmean anend to life as so many worried comrades would have it. To the question: Whatwill we eat? one could quite simply reply: What we produce.Only productionwould nolongerbethe dimensionin which man determines himself, asthat

would come about inthe sphere ofplayandjoy.One could produce as somethingseparate from nature, then join with it as something that is nature itself. Soit would be possible to stop producing at any moment, when there is enough.Only joy will be uncontrollable. Aforce unknown to the civilised larvae thatpopulate ourera. Aforcethatwillmultiply the creativeimpulse of therevolutiona thousand-fold.

e socialwealth of the communistworldis notmeasuredin an accumulationof surplus value, even if it turns out to be managed by a minority that calls itselfthe party of the proletariat. is situation reproduces power and denies the veryessence of anarchy. Communist social wealth comes from the potential for lifethat comes aer the revolution.

Qalitative, not quantitative, accumulation must substitute capitalist accumu-lation. e revolution of life takes the place of the merely economic revolution,productive potential takesthe place ofcrystallised production, joy takesthe placeof the spectacle.

e refusal of the spectacular market of capitalist illusions will create anotherkind of exchange. From fictitious quantitative change to a real qualitative one.Circulation ofgoods willnotbaseitselfon objects andtheir illusionist reification,butonthe meaningthat the objects havefor life. Andthis mustbe a life meaning,not a death one. So these objects will be limited to the precise moment in whichthey are exchanged, and their significance will vary according to the situationsin which this takes place.

e same objectcould have profoundlydifferent values. Itwillbe personified.Nothing to do with production as we know it now in the dimension of capital.Exchange itself will have a different meaning when seen through the refusal ofunlimited production.

ere is no such thing as freed labour. ere is no such thing as integratedlabour (manual-intellectual). What does exist is the division of labour and thesale of the workforce, i.e. the capitalist world of production. e revolution isthe negation of labourandthe affirmation of joy.Anyaempt toimposetheideaof work, fair work, work without exploitation, self-managed work where theexploited aretore-appropriatethemselves of the whole of the productive processwithout exploitation, is a mystification.

e concept of the selfmanagement of production is valid only as a form of

struggle against capitalism, in fact it cannot be separated from the idea of theselfmanagement of the struggle. If the struggle is extinguished, selfmanagement


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becomes nothing other than selfmanagementofones exploitation. If the struggleis victorious the selfmanagement of production becomes superfluous, becauseaer the revolution the organisation of production is superfluous and counter-revolutionary.


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Chapter 6

So long as you make the throw yourself everything is skill and easy winning;

only if you suddenly become the one cating the ball that the eternal playmate

throws at you, at your centre, with all her strength, in one of those arcs of great

divine bridge builders: only then is being able to cat strength, not yours but

of a world.

Rilke

We all believe we have experienced joy. Every single one of us believes wehave been happy at least once in our lives.

Only this experience of joy has always been passive. We happen to enjoyourselves. We cannot desire joy just as we cannot oblige joy to present itselfwhen we want it to.

All this separation between ourselves and joy depends on our being separatefrom ourselves, divided in two by the process of exploitation.

We work all the year round to have the joy of holidays. When these comeround wefeel obliged toenjoy thefact thatwe are on holiday.Aform of torturelike anyother. e same goesforSundays. Adreadfulday. erarefaction of theillusion of freetime shows usthe emptiness of the mercantile spectacle we areliving in.

e same empty gaze alights on the halfempty glass, the TV screen, the footballmatch, the heroin dose, the cinema screen, trafficjams,neonlights,prefabricatedhomes that have completed the killing of the landscape.

To seek joy in the depths of any of the various recitals of the capitalist

spectacle would be pure madness. But that is exactly what capital wants. eexperience of free time programmed by our exploiters is lethal. It makes youwant to go to work. To apparent life one ends up preferring certain death.

Noreal joycanreach usfromtherationalmechanism ofcapitalistexploitation.Joy does not have fixed rules to catalogue it. Even so, we must be able to desirejoy. Otherwise we would be lost.

esearch for joy is thereforeanact ofwill, a firm refusal of the fixed conditionsof capital and its values. e first of these refusals is that of work as a value. esearch for joy can only come about through the search for play.

So,playmeans something different to whatwe are usedto consideringit to bein the dimension of capital. Like serene idleness, the play that opposes itself to

the responsibilities of life is an artificial, distorted image of what it really is. At


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the presentstage of the clash andtherelative constrictionsinthe struggle againstcapital play is not a pastime but a weapon.

By a strange twist of irony the roles are reversed. If life is something seriousdeath is an illusion in the sense that so long as we are alive death does not exist.

Now, the reign of death, i.e. the reign of capital, which denies our very existenceas human beings and reduces us to things, seems very serious, methodical anddisciplined. But its possessive paroxysm, its ethical rigorousness, its obsessionwithdoingallhide a great illusion: thetotalemptiness of the commodityspecta-cle, the uselessness of indefinite accumulation and the absurdity of exploitation.So the great seriousness of the world of work and productivity hides a total lackof seriousness.

On the contrary, the refusal of this stupid world, the pursuit of joy, dreams,utopia in its declared lack of seriousness, hides the most serious thing in life:the refusal of death.

In the physical confrontation with capital play can take different forms even

on this side of the fence. Many things can be done playfully yet most of thethings we do, we do very seriously wearing the death mask we have borrowedfrom capital.

Play is characterised byavital impulsethat is always new,alwaysin movement.By acting as though we are playing, we charge our action with this impulse. Wefree ourselvesfrom death. Playmakes usfeelalive. Itgives usthe excitementoflife. In the other model of acting we do everything as though it were a duty, asthough we had to do it.

It is in the ever new excitement of play, quite the opposite to the alienationand madness of capital, that we are able to identify joy.

Hereliesthe possibility to break withthe old world andidentifywith new aimsand other values and needs. Even if joy cannot be considered mans aim, it isundoubtedly the privileged dimension that makes the clash with capital differentwhen it is pursued deliberately.


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Chapter 7

Life is so boring there is nothing to do except spend all our wages on the latest

skirt or shirt. Brothers and Sisters, what are your real desires? Sit in the

drugstore, look distant,empty, bored, drinking some tasteless coffee? Or perhaps

BLOW IT UP OR BURN IT DOWN.

e Angry Brigade

e greatspectacle ofcapitalhas swallowed us allupto ournecks. Actors andspectators in turn. We alternate the roles, either staring openmouthed at othersor making others stare at us. We have alighted the glass coach, even though weknow it is only a pumpkin. e fairy godmothers spell has beguiled our criticalawareness. Now we must play the game. Until midnight, at least.

Poverty and hunger are still the driving forces of the revolution. But capital iswideningthe spectacle. Itwants new actors on stage. e greatestspectacleintheworld willcontinueto surprise us.Always more complicated,beerand beerorganised. New clowns are geing ready to mount the rostrum. New species ofwild beasts will be tamed.

e supporters of quantity, lovers of arithmetic, will be first on and will beblinded by the limelight, dragging the masses of necessity and the ideologies ofredemption along behind them.

But one thing they will not be able to get rid of is their seriousness. egreatestdanger they face willbe alaugh. Inthe spectacle ofcapital, joy is deadly.Everything is gloomy and funereal, everything is serious and orderly, everythingis rational and programmed, precisely because it is all false and illusory.

Beyond the crises, beyond other problems of underdevelopment, beyondpoverty and hunger, the last fight that capital will have to put up, the decisiveone, is the fight against boredom.

e revolutionary movement will also have to fight its bales. Not just thetraditionalones againstcapitalbutnew ones,against itself. Boredomis aackingit from within, is causing it to deteriorate, making it asphyxiating, uninhabitable.

Let us leave those who like the spectacle of capitalism alone. ose who arequite happy to play their parts to the end. ese people think that reforms reallycan changethings. But thisis more an ideologicalcover than anything else. eyknow only too well thatchanging bitsis one of therules of the system. It is usefulto capital to have things fixed a lile at a time.

enthereistherevolutionarymovementwherethereis no lack of those whoaackthe powerofcapital verbally. ese people cause a greatdealofconfusion.


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ey come out with grand statements but no longer impress anyone, least ofall capital which cunningly uses them for the most delicate part of its spectacle.When it needs a soloist it puts one of these performers on stage. e result ispitiful.

etruthisthat the spectacularmechanism ofcommodities mustbe broken byentering the domain of capital, its coordinating centres, right to the very nucleusof production. ink what a marvellous explosion of joy, what a great creativeleap forward, what an extraordinarily aimless aim.

Only it is difficult to enter the mechanisms ofcapital joyfully,withthe symbolsof life. Armed struggle is oen a symbol of death. Not because it gives deathto the bosses and their servants, but because it wants to impose the structuresof the dominion of death itself. Conceived differently it really would be joy inaction, capable of breaking the structural conditions imposed by the commodityspectacle such as the military party, the conquest of power; the vanguard.

isisthe otherenemyof therevolutionarymovement. Incomprehension.

Refusal to see the new conditions of the conflict. e insistence on imposingmodels of the past that have now become part of the commodity spectacle.Ignorance of the new revolutionary reality is leading to a lack of theoretical

and strategic awareness of therevolutionarycapacityof the movement itself.And it is not enough to say that there are enemies so close at hand as to make itindispensable to intervene right away without looking at questionsofa theoreticalnature. All this hides the incapacity to face the new reality of the movement andavoidthe mistakes of the past thathave serious consequencesinthe present. Andthis refusal nourishes all kinds of rationalist political illusions.

Categories such asrevenge, leaders,parties, thevanguard,quantitative growth,only mean something in the dimension of thissociety,and such a meaning favoursthe perpetuation of power. When you look at things from a revolutionary pointof view, i.e. the complete definitive elimination of all power; these categoriesbecome meaningless.

Bymovingintothe nowhere ofutopia,upseingthe work ethic, turningit intothe here and now of joy inrealisation,wefind ourselves within a structurethatis far from the historical forms of organisation.

is structure changes continually,so escapes crystallisation. It is characterisedby the self-organisation of producers at the workplace, and the self-organisationof the struggle against work. Not the taking over of the means of production,but the refusal of production through organisational forms that are constantlychanging.

e same is happening with the unemployed and the casual labourers. Stim-

ulated by boredom and alienation, structures are emerging on the basis of self-


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organisation. eintroduction ofaims programmed andimposed byan outsideorganisation would kill the movementand consignit tothe commodityspectacle.

Most of us are tied to this idea of revolutionary organisation. Even anarchists,who refuse authoritarian organisation, donot disdain it.On thisbasis w e all accept

the idea that the contradictory reality ofcapital canbeaacked with similar means.We do so because we are convinced that these means are legitimate, emerging asthey do from the same field of struggle as capital. We refuse to admit that noteveryone might see things the way we do. Our theory is identical to the practiceand strategy of our organisations.

e differences between the authoritarians and ourselves are many, but theyall collapse before a common faith in the historical organisation. Anarchy willbe reached through the work of these organisations (substantial differences onlyappear in methods ofapproach). But this faith indicates something very important:the claim of our whole rationalist culture to explain reality in progressive terms.is culture bases itself on the idea that history is irreversible, along with that of

the analyticalcapacityofscience.All this makes us seethe presentasthe pointwhere all the efforts of the pastmeet the culminating pointof the struggle againstthe powers of darkness (capitalist exploitation). Consequently, we are convincedthatwe are more advancedthan ourpredecessors,capable ofelaborating andpuinginto practicetheories and organisationalstrategiesthatarethe sum ofallthe experiences of the past.

All those who reject this interpretation automatically find themselves beyondreality,whichis bydefinition history,progress and science. Whoever refuses suchareality is anti-historicalanti-progressive and antiscientific. Sentenced withoutappeal.

Strengthened by this ideological armour wegoout into the streets.Here we runinto the reality of a struggle that is structured quite differently, from stimuli thatdo not enter the framework of our analyses. One fine morning during a peacefuldemonstration the police start shooting. e structure reacts, comrades shoottoo,policemenfall. Anathema! Itwas a peacefuldemonstration.For it to havedegeneratedintoindividualguerrilla actionsthere musthave been a provocation.Nothing can go beyondthe perfect framework ofour ideologicalorganisation asit is not just a part of reality, but is all reality. Anything beyond it is madnessand provocation.

Supermarkets are destroyed,shops andfood and arms depots arelooted, luxurycars are burned. It is an aack on the commodity spectacle in its most conspic-uous forms. e new structures are moving in that direction. ey take formsuddenly, with only the minimum strategic orientation necessary. No frills, no

long analyticalpremises,no complexsupportingtheories. eyaack. Comradesidentify with these structures. ey reject the organisations that give power,


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equilibrium, waiting, death. eir action is a critique of the wait-and-see suicidalpositions of these organisations. Anathema! ere musthave been a provocation.

ere is a break away from traditional political models which is becoming acritique of the movement itself. Ironybecomes a weapon. Notclosed within a

writers study, but en masse, in the streets. Not only the bosses servants butalso revolutionary leaders from a far off and recent past are finding themselvesin difficulty as a result. e mentality of the small-time boss and leading groupis also put in crisis. Anathema! e only legitimate critique is that against thebosses, and it must comply with the rules laid down by the historical tradition ofthe class struggle. Anyone who strays from the seminary is a provocateur.

People aretired ofmeetings, the classics,pointless marches, theoreticaldiscus-sionsthatsplithairsinfour;endless distinctions, the monotonyand povertyofcertain political analyses. ey prefer to make love, smoke, listen to music, goforwalks,sleep, laugh,play,killpolicemen, lamejournalists,kill judges,blow upbarracks. Anathema! e struggle is only legitimate when it is comprehensible

to the leaders of the revolution. Otherwise, there being a risk that the situationmight get beyond their control, there must have been a provocation.Hurry comrade, shoot the policeman, the judge, the boss. Now, before a new

police prevent you.Hurry to say No, before the new repression convinces you that saying no is

pointless, mad, and that you should accept the hospitality of the mental asylum.Hurry to aack capitalbefore a newideologymakesitsacredtoyou. Hurry to

refuse work before some new sophist tellsyouyetagainthat work makesyoufree.

Hurry to play. Hurry to arm yourself.


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Chapter 8

ere will be no revolution until the Cossas descend

Coeurderoy

Play is also enigmatic and contradictory inthelogic ofcapital,which usesitaspartof the commodityspectacle. Itacquires an ambiguity that it does not initselfpossess. is ambiguitycomesfromtheillusorystructure ofcapitalistproduction.In this way the game simply becomes a suspension of production, a parenthesisof peace in everyday life. So play comes to be programmed and used scenically.

When it is outside the dominion of capital, play is harmoniously structuredby its own creative impulse. It is not linked to this or that performance requiredby the forces of the world of production but develops autonomously. It is onlyin this reality that play is cheerful, that it gives joy. It does not suspend theunhappiness of the laceration caused by exploitation but realises it to the full,making it become a participant in the reality of life. In this way it opposes itselfto the tricks put into act by the reality of death even through play to makethe gloominess less gloomy.

e destroyers of the death reality are struggling against the mythical reignofcapitalist illusion,areign which althoughit aspiresto eternity rollsinthedust of the contingent. Joy emerges from the play of destructive action, from therecognition of the profound tragedy that this implies and an awareness of thestrength ofenthusiasmthat is capable ofslayingthe cobwebs ofdeath. It is notaquestion of opposing horror with horror, tragedy with tragedy, death with death.It is a confrontation between joy and horror, joy and tragedy, joy and death.

To killa policemanit is notnecessary to donthejudgesrobes hastilycleansedof the blood of previous sentences. Courts and sentences are always part of thespectacle of capital, even when it is revolutionaries who act them out. Whena policeman is killed his responsibility is not weighed on the scales, the clashdoes not become a question of arithmetic. One is not programming a visionof therelationship betweenrevolutionary movementand exploiters. One isresponding at theimmediatelevel to a needthathas cometo be structured withintherevolutionarymovement,a needthatall the analyses andjustifications of thisworld would never have succeeded in imposing on their own.

is needisthe aack onthe enemy, the exploiters andtheirservants. Itmatures slowly within the structures of the movement. Only when it comes

out into the open does the movement pass from the defensive phase to aack.Analysis and moral justification are upstream at the source notdownstream at the


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feetof those who come out intothe streets,poisedto makethem stumble. eyexist in the centuries of systematic violence that capital has exercised over theexploited. But theydo notnecessarilycometolight in aformthat is complete andready for use. at would be a further rationalisation of intentions, our dream of

imposing a model on reality that does not belong to it.Lets havethese Cossacks come down.We do notsupport therole of reaction,

that is not forus. Werefuseto acceptcapitals ambiguousinvitation. Rather thanshoot our comrades or each other it is always beer to shoot policemen.

ere are times in history when science exists in the consciousness of thosewho are struggling. At such times there is no need for interpreters of truth. Itemerges from things as they are. It is the reality of the struggle that producestheory.

e birth of the commodity market marked the formation of capital, the pas-sagefromfeudal forms ofproductiontothe capitalistone. Withthe entrance ofproductionintoits spectacularphasethe commodity form has extendedto every-

thing that exists: love, science, feelings, consciousness, etc. e spectacle haswidened. e second phase does not, as the marxists maintain, constitute a cor-ruption of the first. It is a different phase altogether. Capital devours everything,even the revolution. If the laer does not break from the model of production, ifitmerelyclaimstoimpose alternativeforms,capitalism willswallowit up withinthe commodity spectacle.

Only the struggle cannot be swallowed up. Some of its forms, crystallising inprecise organisational entities, can end up being drawn into the spectacle. Butwhentheybreak away fromthe deep significancethatcapitalgivesto productionthis becomes extremely difficult.

Inthe second phase questions ofarithmetic andrevenge do notmake sense. Ifthey are mentioned, they take on a metaphorical significance.

e illusory game of capital (the commodity spectacle) must be substitutedwiththerealgame of the armed aack against it for the destruction of the unrealand the spectacle.


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Chapter 9

Do it yourself

Bricoleur Manual

Its easy. You can doit yourself. Alone orwith afewtrusted comrades.Com-plicated means are not necessary. Not even great technical knowledge.

Capital is vulnerable. All you need is to be decided.Aload of talk has made us obtuse. It is nota question of fear.We arentafraid,

just stupidly full of prefabricated ideas we cannot break free from.Anyone who is determined to carry out his or her deed is not a courageous

person. ey are simply a person who has clarified their ideas, who has realisedthat it is pointless to make such an effort to play the part assigned to them bycapital inthe performance. Fullyaware, theyaack with cooldetermination. Andin doing so they realise themselves as human beings. ey realise themselves injoy. e reign ofdeath disappears before their eyes.Even if they create destructionand terror for the bosses, in their hearts and in the hearts of the exploited thereis joy and calm.

Revolutionaryorganisations have difficulty in understandingthis. ey imposea model that reproducestherealityofproduction. e quantitative destinyofthe laer prevents them from having any qualitative move to the level of theaesthetic dimension of joy. ese organisations also see armed aack in a purelyquantitative light. Objectives are decided in terms of a frontal clash.

Inthatwaycapital is ableto controlanyemergency. Itcan even allowitself theluxury of accepting the contradictions, point out spectacular objectives, exploit

the negative effects on producersin order to widenthe spectacle. Capitalacceptsthe clash in the quantitative field, because that is where it knows all the answers.It has a monopoly of the rules and produces the solutions itself.

On the contrary, the joy of the revolutionary act is contagious. It spreads likea spot of oil. Play becomes meaningful when it acts on reality. But this meaningis notcrystallisedin a model thatgovernsit from above. Itbreaks upinto athousand meanings, all productive and unstable. e internal connections ofplay work themselves out in the action of aack. But the overall sense survives,the meaning that play has for those who are excluded and want to appropriatethemselves of it. ose who decideto play firstandthose whoobserve theliberatory consequences of the game, are essential to the game itself.

e community of joy is structured in this way. It is a spontaneous wayof coming into contact, fundamental for the realisation of the most profound


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meaning of play. Play is a communitarian act. It rarely presents itself as oneisolated fact. If it does, it oen contains the negative elements of psychologicalrepression, it is nota positive acceptance ofplayas a creative momentofstruggle.

It is the communitarian sense of play that prevents arbitrariness in choice of

the significance given to the game itself. In the absence of a communitarian rela-tionshiptheindividualcouldimposetheirownrules and meaningsthatwould beincomprehensible to anyone else, simply making play become a temporary sus-pension of the negative consequences of their individual problems (the problemsof work, alienation, exploitation).

In the communitarian agreement, play is enriched by a flux of reciprocal ac-tions. Creativity is greater when it comes from reciprocally verified liberatedimaginations. Each new invention, each new possibility can be lived collectivelywithoutpre-constituted models and have a vital influence even bysimplybeing acreative moment, even if it encounters a thousand difficulties during realisation.Atraditional revolutionaryorganisation ends upimposingitstechnicians. It

tends unavoidably towards technocracy. e great importance aached to themechanical aspect of action condemns it along this road.A revolutionary structure that seeks the moment of joy in action aimed at

destroying powerconsidersthetools usedto bring about this destructionjustthat, means. ose who use these tools must not become slaves to them. Just asthose who do not know how to use them must not become slaves to those whodo.

e dictatorship of tools is the worst kind of dictatorship. Revolutionariesmost importantweapons aretheirdetermination, theirconscience, theirdecisionto act, their individuality. Arms themselves are merely tools, and as such shouldcontinually be submiedto critical evaluation. It is necessary to develo p a critiqueof arms. Too oen we have seen the sanctification of the sub machine-gun andmilitary efficiency.

Armed struggle does not concern weapons alone. ese on their own cannotrepresent the revolutionary dimension. It is dangerous to reduce complex realityto one single thing. In fact, play involves this risk. It could make the livingexperience become no more than a toy, turning it into something magical andabsolute. It is not by chance that the machine-gun appears in the symbolism ofmany revolutionary combatant organisations.

We mustgo beyondthisin order to understandjoyasthe profound significanceof the revolutionary struggle, escaping the illusions and traps of part of thecommodity spectacle through mythical and mythisized objects.

Capitalmakesitsfinaleffortwhenfaced with armed struggle. Itengagesitself

onitslast frontier. Itneedsthe supportofpublic opinionin order to act in a field


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where it is not too sure of itself. So it unleashes a psychological war using themost refined weapons of modern propaganda.

Basically, the way capital is physically organised at the present time makesit vulnerableto any revolutionarystructure capable ofdecidingits owntiming

and means of aack. It is quite aware of this weakness and is taking measuresto compensate for it. e police are not enough. Not even the army. It requiresconstant vigilance by the people themselves. Even the most humble part of theproletariat. So, to dothisitmustdividethe classfront. Itmustspreadthe myth ofthe dangerofarmed organisations amongthe poor;along withthatof the sanctityof the State, morality, the law and so on.

It indirectly pushes these organisations and their militants into assuming pre-cise roles. Once in this role, play no longer has any meaning. Everything be-comesserious,so illusory; itentersthe domain of the spectacularand becomesa commodity. Joy becomes mask. e individual becomes anonymous, lives outtheir role, no longer able to distinguish between appearance and reality.

In order to break out of the magic circle of the theatricals of commodities wemust refuse all roles, including that of the professional revolutionary.Armed struggle must not let itself become something professional, precisely

thatdivision of tasksthat the externalaspectofcapitalistproduction wantstoimpose upon it.

Doit yourself.Dontbreak upthe globalaspectofplayby reducingit toroles.Defend your right to enjoy life. Obstruct capitals death project. e laer canonlyenter the world ofcreativityand playby transforming whois playinginto aplayer theliving creator into a dead person who cheatsthemselvesinto believingthey are alive.

ere would be no sense in talking about play any longer if the world of playwere to become centralised. We must foresee this possibility of capital taking upthe revolutionary proposal again when we put forward our argument of armedjoy. And one way this could come about is through the management of theworld ofplay fromthe outside.Byestablishingtheroles of the players andthemythology of the toy.

In breaking the bonds of centralisation (the military party) one obtains theresult ofconfusing capitals ideas, tuned as they are into thecode of the spectacularproductivity of the quantitative market. Action coordinated by joy is an enigmato capital. It is nothing. Something with no precise aim, devoid of reality. Andthis is so because the essence, the aims and reality of capital are illusory, whilethe essence, aims and reality of revolution are concrete.

e code of the needforcommunismtakesthe place of the code of the needto

produce. Inthelightof this needinthe communityofplay, the decisions of the


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individual become meaningful. e unreal illusory character of the death modelsof the past is discovered.

e destruction of the bosses means the destruction of commodities, and thedestruction of commodities means the destruction of the bosses.


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Chapter 10

e owl takes flight

Athenian proverb

e owl takes flight. May actions that start off badly come to a good end.May the revolution, put off by revolutionaries for so long, be realised in spite ofthe laers residual desire for social peace.

Capital will give the last word to the white coats. Prisons will not last forlong. Fortresses of a past that survives only in the fantasies of some exaltedoldreactionary, theywill disappearalong withtheideologybased on socialorthopaedics. ere willnolongerbe convicts. e criminalisation capitalcreateswill be rationalised, it will be processed through asylums.

When the whole of reality is spectacular, to refuse the spectacle means to beoutsidereality. Anyone whorefusesthe code ofcommoditiesis mad. Refusal tobow down before the commodity god will result in ones being commied to amental asylum.

erethetreatmentwillberadical. No moreinquisitorial-styletorture orbloodon the walls; such things upset public opinion. ey cause the self-righteous tointervene,giverisetojustification and making amends,and disturbthe harmonyof the spectacle. e total annihilation of the personality, considered to be theonly radicalcureforsick minds,does notupsetanyone. Solong asthe maninthestreet feels he is surrounded by the imperturbable atmosphere of the capitalistspectacle he will feelsafefromthe asylum doors everslamming shuton him. eworld of madness will seem to him to be elsewhere, even though there is always

an asylum available next to every factory,opposite everyschool,behind everypatch of land, in the middle of every housing estate.

In our critical obtuseness we must take care not to pave the way to the civilservants in white coats.

Capital is programming a code of interpretation to be circulated at mass level.On the basis of this code public opinion will get used to seeing those who aackthe bosses order of things, that is to say revolutionaries, as practically mad.Hencethe needto havethem putaway in mentalasylums. Prisons are alsorationalisingalongthe German model.First theywill transformthemselvesinto specialprisonsfor revolutionaries, then into model prisons, then into real concentration campsfor brain manipulation, and finally, mental asylums.


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Capitals behaviour is not dictated by the need to defend itself from the strug-gles of the exploited alone. It is dictated by the logic of the code of commodityproduction.

Forcapital the asylumis a place wherethe globalityofspectacular functioning

is interrupted. Prison desperately tries to do this but does not succeed, blockedas it is by its basic ideology of social orthopaedics.

eplaceof the asylum,onthe contrary,does nothave a beginning oran end,it has no history, does not have the mutability of the spectacle. It is the place ofsilence.

e other placeofsilence, the graveyard,hasthefaculty to speak aloud. Deadmen talk. And our dead talk loudly. ey can be heavy, very heavy. at is whycapitalwill try to havefewerandfewerof them.Andthe numberof guests inasylums will increase correspondingly. e homeland of socialism has much toimpart in this field.

e asylum is theperfect therapeutic rationalisation of free time, the suspension

ofwork without traumatothe commoditystructure. Lack ofproductivitywithoutdenialof it. e madman does nothaveto work andin notdoing so he confirmsthat work is wisdom the opposite of madness.

When we say thetimeis not ripeforan armed aack onthe State we arepushing open the doors of the mental asylum for the comrades who are carryingout such aacks; when we say it is not the time for revolution we are tighten-ing the cords of the straightjacket; when we say these actions are objectively aprovocation we don the white coats of the torturers.

When the number of opponents was inconsiderable, grape-shot was effective.A dozen dead can be tolerated. irty thousand,a hundred thousand, two hundredthousand would mark a turning point in history,a revolutionary point of referenceofsuch blindingluminosityasto disrupt the peacefulharmonyof the commodityspectacle. Besides, capital is more cunning. Drugs have a neutrality that bulletsdo not possess. ey have the alibi of being therapeutic.

Maycapitals statute ofmadness bethrowninitsface. Society is oneimmensemental asylum. May the terms of the counter-positions be overturned.

e neutralisation of the individual is a constant practice in capitals reifiedtotality. e flaening of opinions is a therapeutic process, a death machine.Production cannot take place without thisflaeninginthe spectacular form ofcapitalism. And if the refusal of all that, the choice of joy in the face of death,is a sign of madness it is time everyone began to understand the trap that lurksbeneath it all.

e whole apparatus of the western cultural tradition is a death machine, the

negation of reality, a reign of the fictitious that has accumulated every kind


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of infamy and injustice, exploitation and genocide. If the refusal of this logic iscondemned as madness, then we mustdistinguish between madness and madness.

Joy is arming itself. Its aack is overcoming the commodity hallucination,machinery, vengeance, theleader, the party,quantity. Its struggleis breaking

down the logic of profit, the architecture of the market, the programming of life,the last document in the last archive. Its violent explosion is overturning theorder of dependency, the nomenclature of positive and negative, the code of thecommodity illusion.

But all this must be able to communicate itself. e passage from the worldof joy to the world of death is not easy. e codes are out of phase and end upwiping each other out. What is considered illusion in the world of joy is realityin the world of death and vice versa. Physical death, so much a preoccupation inthe death world, is less mortifying than what is peddled as life.

Hence capitals capacity to mystify messages of joy. Even revolutionaries ofthe quantitative logic are incapable of understanding experiences of joy in depth.

Sometimes they hesitantly make insignificant approaches. At other times theylet themselves go with condemnation that is not very different to that of capital.In the commodity spectacle it is goods that count. e active element of this

accumulated massis work. Nothing can be positive and negative at the sametimewithin the framework of production. It is possible to assert non-work, not thenegation of work but its temporary suspension. In the same way it is possibleto assert the non-commodity, the personalised object, but only in the context offreetime, i.e. somethingthat is produced as a hobby, inthetimelapses concededby the productive cycle. In this sense it is clear that these concepts, non-workand the non-commodity, are functional to the general model of production.

Onlybyclarifyingthe meaning of joyandthe corresponding meaning ofdeathas components of two opposing worlds struggling againsteach other isitpossibleto communicate elements of the actions of joy. Without illuding ourselves thatwe can communicate allof them. Anyone who beginsto experiencejoyevenin aperspective notdirectly linkedtothe aack on capital is more willingto graspthe significance of the aack, at least more than those who remain tied to anoutdated vision of the clash based on the illusion of quantity.

So the owl could still take wing and fly.


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Chapter 11

Forward everyone! And with arms and heart, word and pen, dagger and gun,

irony and curse, the, poisoning and arson, lets make . . . war on society!

Dejaque

Lets be done with waiting, doubts, dreams of social peace, lile compromisesand naivety. All metaphorical rubbish supplied to us in the shops of capitalism.Lets put aside the great analyses that explain everything down to the most minutedetail. Huge volumes filled with common sense and fear. Lets put aside demo-cratic and bourgeois illusions of discussion and dialogue, debate and assemblyand the enlightened capabilities of the Mafiosi bosses. Lets put aside the wis-dom that the bourgeois work ethic has dug into our hearts. Lets put aside thecenturies of Christianity that have educated us to sacrifice and obedience. Letsputaside priests,bosses, revolutionary leaders, lessrevolutionaryones andthosewho arent revolutionaryatall. Lets putaside numbers, illusions ofquantity, thelaws of the market. Let us sit for a moment on the ruins of the history of thepersecuted, and reflect. e world does not belong to us.

If ithas a masterwhois stupid enoughto want it the way it is, lethim haveit.Let him count the ruins in the place of buildings, the graveyards in the place ofcities, the mud in the place of rivers and the putrid sludge in the place of seas.

e greatest conjuring trick in the world no longer enchants us.We are certainthatcommunities of joywillemergefrom ourstruggle here and

now.And for the first time life will triumph over death.


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e Anarchist LibraryAnti-Copyright

May 21, 2012

Alfredo M.BonannoArmed Joy

1977

Translated by Jean Weir. Original title La gioia armata 1977 Edizioni Anarchismo, Catania.

1998 ElephantEditions, London. ElephantEditions,B.M.Elephant, London WC1N 3XXRetrieved onApril 8, 2009 fromwww.alphabetthreat.co.uk
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Armed Joy by Alfredo M. Bonanno

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