Writing In The Ruins 1: Working With Organisations

Once a week? Fuck off!

Is what I said in my head during my Fedcap employment appointment today. It's taken many weeks for this appointment to materialise and when they said they'd ideally want to stay in touch once a week I shrank back. Not comfortable with that.

So it's another organisation working with the terminally lazy and mentally befuddled, like me!

It wasn't an easy appointment. That is because I find I am very guarded talking with people like this, because they are part of the system. Like the Agents in the Matrix (a very cheesy analogy but it works). Whatever I reveal to them could be later used to incriminate me. It's an extreme example of what I mean. Essentially, while these organisation offer help, they do not exist to change the system. They are not revolutionary. This means that whomever I work with will always be looking to change me or, if that's impossible, coerce me. 

It's never about the system, only the individual. This is simplistic and it serves a victim blaming narrative. Some might well think that, if I do have a problem with all these organisations then, yes, the problem is me. But that is just facile. It's only partially true: I have a problem, but it's with the system and the fact that these organisations, lacking a revolutionary agenda (which I accept would be difficult), assume the system must remain and be sacrosanct. It must not change, I must instead.

Of course the government is never going to give contracts to revolutionary organisations.

It's possible that my key worker, who may very well be a decent person, may even have revolutionary or socialist views. I think it unlikely, personally, but it's possible. Even then they have to work within the programme. I'm not really comfortable with that. It may be that we develop a rapport, but even then if their programme isn't capable of addressing the systemic problems - never mind the current conditions - coercion will ultimately manifest. It is unavoidable; they will want to push me toward an outcome that's ultimately in their benefit. It may work out for me, I hope it does and I'm willing to see how far this goes, but I'm not going to tolerate being pushed into something just because "beggars can't be choosers" and you have to "earn a living".

Think about what that means: you have to earn the right to live. The things you need to live: food, shelter, clothing, health, culture, community. 

And people wonder why we hate capitalism.

I'm sure I haven't explained this well. Simply put: any systemic organisation can ultimately only reinforce the hegemony of that system, in this case capitalist society - capitalist employment, specifically. It will struggle to recognise, for example, a social model of mental health. It will struggle to accommodate those that themselves struggle to fit in with that system and its hegemony. A system that shapes society through a culture of 'strivers and skivers', 'hard work' and 'winners and losers'. A model I have struggled with, perhaps against, all my life. 

That is the revolutionary struggle in microcosm.