Riots, disobedience and the philosophy of protests | Guy Aitchison | TEDxNewcastleCollege

From Hong Kong to France, political protest is rarely off the news these days. But what tactics are morally justified when resisting injustice? A common view among media and politicians is that protest should always be “civil”, avoiding damage to property, disruption, and of course violence. Protesters, we are told, should follow the example of moral sages such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King. This talk draws on philosophy to examine the ethics of protest. It looks at three recent examples - environmental sabotage, urban riots and refugee hunger strikes - to consider the role of uncivil protest in fighting injustice.

[asdkfjasdl_kfjas]

Thank you mister Aitchison, this ted talk helped me better understand these conplex matters!

@8:57 I was wondering if you think Clifford Stott would agree with this description of group violence? (chaotic, out of control, etc) His work on group identity seems to me to point in another direction. I know it's just a small detail in your presentation, but I was still curious to hear your thoughts on this point :)

Thanks again for delivering this talk/short lexture. I think it is al- and will very probably become even more - relevant in this time of the pandemic and the climate crisis.

[mauricecornforth]

Under the pretext of the global "pandemic" the following goals are achieved by the largest capital (all of them are aimed at overcoming a massive economic crisis, at the heart of which lies the crisis of overproduction):

- closing down plants, factories and even whole industries (i.e. slowing down the production process in order to let old products gradually dissolve and stop the production of new ones; dealing with not only oversupply of products, resulting from incorrect distribution, but also services)

- downsizing workforce (because many workers are simply not needed when there is an overproduction of goods)

- killing off small and medium businesses in order to replace them on the market (this always happens during an economic crisis, a small capitalist gets eaten by a big one)

- cutting expenses on healthcare and education (millions of operations have been cancelled, medical staff has been getting laid off; schools and universities are switching to remote learning with plans to replace teachers with video lectures)

- fighting and slowing down the inevitable revolutionary uprise (protests and strikes resulting from downsizing, loss of small and medium businesses, loss of democratic rights etc) by banning social gatherings, putting muzzles on people's faces and demoralizing them

- intensifying economic exploitation (cancelling bonuses and freezing salaries; making people work overtime under the pretext of "difficult times for us all"; not paying wages for several months etc)

- maximizing profits, making billions of dollars out of thin air by forcing millions of people to buy a product they don't need (surgical masks against a respiratory virus, sanitizers, gloves, electronic thermometers etc. The daily profit from masks alone is so gigantic that they are for sure to remain with us forever now, until people abolish them)

"Capitalist crises are crises of overproduction. A crisis shows itself first of all in the’ fact that commodities cannot be sold, since they have been produced in quantities greater than can be bought by the main consumers—the mass of the people—whose purchasing power is confined under capitalist relations of production within extremely narrow limits. “Surplus" goods encumber the warehouses. The capitalists curtail production and dismiss workers. Hundreds and thousands of enterprises are closed down. Unemployment increases sharply. A great number of petty producers are ruined, in both town and country. The lack of outlet for the goods produced leads to disorganisation of trade. Credit connections are broken. The capitalists experience an acute shortage of money for payments. The exchanges crash-the prices of shares, bonds and other securities fall headlong. A wave of bankruptcies of industrial, commercial and banking concerns sweeps forward" (K.Ostrovityanov, Political Economy, chapter "Economic crises", 1954)