Authors: Russell Brand
Revolution (38 page)
These shady, secret trade deals that Chomsky told us about are like white phosphorous-tipped arrows in the heart of this principle: “Fuck the world, fuck community, show me the money.”
So when we’re holding a group meeting on how our community should be managed, no individual would have the right to do anything that fucks on a micro level with the group or on a macro level with the planet.
On a lighter note, I was once in the back of a limo with Tom Cruise—oh, yeah, I’ve lived, baby—and he was talking to me about acting and he told me how he approached the character of Jerry Maguire, who said the famous “show me the money” line. His kids were opposite us, and we were trapped in a luxurious carriage of beige leather. He said the comedy of Jerry came from his frustrated enthusiasm, a man who believed powerfully in what he was doing but was constantly thwarted. “Help me, help you,” said Tom all passionately, repeating another one of Jerry’s famous lines. In this moment I thought, “Wow, I’m in a car with Tom Cruise and he’s doing bits from his films—how cool.” I looked round the car to see if I could get a reciprocal bit of eye contact from someone—y’know, like, “Hey, guys! This is mad, he’s doing that thing!”—but everyone else in the car was either Tom Cruise or Tom Cruise’s kids, so they weren’t as impressed by it; in fact they didn’t notice it. So I changed my “wow” face to a normal nodding, smiling face and thought, “I’ll just have to put this in a book one day if I’m going to get any juice out of it. I hope when I do, it doesn’t seem like an extraneous name drop.”
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
I love this idea: No individual has authority; the group has authority; the group conscience is expressed through voting. If I turn up and say, “I’d like a big statue of me erected in the town square, and as leader of the group, I’m going ahead with it,” everyone else can say, “Well, that’s a nice idea, Russell. You’ve been a good leader, arguing our case at the regional meetings and nationwide meetings. Let’s see if a statue is a winner: All those in favor, press the green button; all those against, press red.” If for some crazy reason there are more red votes than greens, I don’t get my fuckin’ statue, and that’s that. This principle reminds Rumsfeld or
Ed Balls or whichever risible dope in a suit is trying to wangle a conservatory or new pair of shoes out of their role in public office that we, not they, are in charge, and you only get to act on the will of the people, so if the people don’t want a war in Iraq, no war in Iraq. The bosses, the people, through the group conscience, have spoken.
3. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
This requires a bit of translation. What it means is, it don’t matter what gender, sexual persuasion, color, religion, or class you are; if you want to join the group, you can. I suppose on a global level there will be groups that want to define themselves through specificity and exclusion; the English Defence League or the Nation of Islam might want their own set-up. I suppose we’d have to tolerate that. I mean, we can’t phone up the Nation and say, Bill O’Reilly wants to join up; you’ve got to let him. That might be antagonistic.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or our organization as a whole.
This tradition deftly deals with the above problem: Have a racially, religiously, or sexually defined and exclusive group if you want, but you can’t mess with our necessary overall objective of ecological responsibility and economic equality.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
Our primary purpose is the preservation of our environment and the creation of a harmonious and inclusive democracy. We can likely only achieve this through small, self-determined communities that are run voluntarily and democratically.
6. A group ought never endorse, finance, or lend our name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
This prevents people trying to profit from communities designed with spirituality in mind. We’re all flawed and greedy and egotistical, so we have regulations in place that acknowledge that and guide us back to the better part of our individual and communal nature: our altruism, our empathy, our creativity.
7. Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
This is designed to prevent top-down authority asserting itself. The group is independent and democratically run. This tradition—even the word “tradition,” is nicer and less incendiary than the word “rule”—prevents swaggering capitalists and glamorous nitwits acquiring authority through financial means.
8. Our organization should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
This reminds me of Matt Stoller’s “no titles” policy; no one can suddenly claim to be a Professor of Revolution or an Admiral of Equality. To quote myself—always the sign of a well-managed ego—those in government are administrators; those in municipal positions are servants; our relationship to “police” or “traffic wardens,” should the community vote for such institutions, are not subordinate, they are horizontal.
9. Our organization, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Remember what
Adbusters
said about corporations? They used to be set up to do a job, then were disbanded. Then, for no other reason
than profit and individual advancement, they became ongoing immortal money-guzzling entities. This tradition prevents that. We set up a committee to build a nice juice bar or hold a World Cup, and when it’s finished, it’s disbanded. “Ta ta, Sepp, glad you enjoyed it; you can stand for reelection in four years. We’ll let you know.”
10. Our organization has no opinion on outside issues; hence the organization name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
This principle ensures the autonomy of other groups. Clearly our ideology is defined not by us wanting to be free from boozing, one day at a time, but free from our addiction to a corrupt and corrosive system. We are addicted to destructive ideas. When consent is achieved on our collective agenda, we can then determine what “the incontrovertibles” are. Likely they are based on ecological responsibility and individual freedom. I know what I’d like, but that is probably different from your requirements. As long as we both know neither of us has a hotline to God or inherent superiority, we should be cool.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
This principle is dangerously close to being transgressed right now. You’ll note that I haven’t declared my affiliation, because were I a member of organizations defined by these traditions, I’d have no right to. What is implicit in this principle is the obligation to make your primary focus your own conduct, not telling other people what to do—another big challenge for me personally. I love giving advice on how to change the world; it’s much harder to get on and live like a good man. How effective and beautiful to have a tradition to remind us of this.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
Here we see that the titular anonymity which defines these organizations is not solely in place to prevent sloshed old drunkards getting embarrassed by their condition; rather, it is to emphasize that individuals are all equally valuable and equally expendable. I like this principle very much, as it returns to the primary battlefield where Revolutions must be waged: our own consciousness. It’s not that I want to oust David Cameron or Barack Obama or Angela Merkel; it’s that we must collectively overcome the structures that promote the egocentric in all of us.
Me and you and David Cameron and everyone else have to individually yield to the divine within us so that collectively we can manifest a society worthy of beautiful beings. One day, David Cameron’s ego might be playing up, but that’ll be okay because collectively we have a system that can avert that. Another day, I might get flash; that doesn’t matter because we have principles in place which prevent anybody’s negative nature becoming dominant.
“Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance,” said the filmmaker Albert Maysles, referring to institutions or individuals who oppress truth to ensure that their version of reality dominates.
Whether that’s Philip Morris removing the nuance of the carcinogenic properties of different types of fags to perpetuate sales, or me deceptively managing information within my own relationship, or the gun lobby insisting that guns shoot peace out of them, not lead.
We have a culture where principles mean nothing and personalities mean everything. And I can see why it caught on—I’ve done very well out of it. My personality allows me to get away with all sorts of rubbish: riding the wrong way up a one-way street on a stolen bicycle (I didn’t steal it though; I bought it off a dodgy bloke), winking at the police as I pass, years of trouble-free promiscuity, tables at restaurants. But without principles, I was freewheeling away from God.
Here are some more examples of ideologies that flout the Establishment’s insistent jingle that their way is the only way:
So, many corporations will be “killed,” according to
Adbusters’
excellent suggestion. Perhaps we should use the word “cull,” like people do when they want to kill something cute.
“Are you killing that badger?”
“No, sir, culling it.”
“When you’ve finished ‘culling’ it, will it be dead?”
“A bit, yes.”
“So explain the difference between killing and culling?”
“Well, it’s a ‘u’—and a sort of tuneful sense that the creature is being gently lulled to death rather than killed with a hammer.”
“And what’s the hammer you’re holding for?”
“Culling.”
So maybe we should cull some corporations.
Once we’ve culled them, their resources and materials can be returned to communities to run themselves. Outlined here is a suggestion for how a corporation could be structured more fairly.
E
MPLOYEE
I
NVESTMENT
F
UNDS
—S
WEDEN
1970s
• Every large Swedish corporation had to give its employees shares equivalent to 20 percent of its profits every year.
Well, that’s novel—the empowerment of workers within a corporate structure. Sure, it’s limited; 20 percent isn’t enough. The workers should have 100 percent, and there should be no hierarchical distinction between any of the workers, regardless of their costume; title abolition will help towards that. We’ve begun negotiations—good. Well done, Sweden.
• The shares were not owned by individuals but were controlled by regional management boards, which were democratically accountable.
Fair enough. We’re not after a new elite—collectivization and lateral autonomy. Cool. No wonder Volvos are so safe.
• The boards had to use the shares “for social priorities and the public interest.”
That’s good. I mean, I think huge sectors of the financial industry would be entirely dispensed with, given that the whole thing is an elaborate mathematical metaphor designed to legitimize fraud and theft. Nice to know that if any form of market did remain, there’d be no unaccountable bankers getting bonuses during an economic crisis that they caused. Viva IKEA.
• As the shares in the companies grew, so did the influence of the workers’ management boards on corporate decision-making.
Clever: The destiny of the board and workers are inextricably linked. From what we’ve discovered so far, this structure still seems a bit hierarchical, but at least it proposes a form of empowerment for workers, which we could easily amplify. ABBA forever.
• Unfortunately, this scheme was never put into place, due to widespread hostility from employers.
Oh, right, they never actually did it. It was a hypothetical corporate Revolution. Typical—the sauna-dwelling, porn-watching, suicide-committing pervs.
Understandable, really. It’s a method of financial reform that could never be imposed without union power and regulation that modifies the power of corporations. Bloody ironic.
Even though I think this measure is too modest, look at how it would have an impact in a country like Britain on a company like Tesco.
• In 2014 Tesco posted profits of £3.3 billion. They would have to transfer £660 million to the employee share trust, meaning they would still keep £2.64 billion.
Well, they can’t moan about that, can they? They’d still get billions in profit. Let’s pause to recall that profit means “surfeit money that you don’t actually need after all your costs have been covered.” We know that for profit to exist in one place, deficit has to exist elsewhere, so I don’t think this goes nearly far enough. Nonetheless, let’s look at how this modest reform would impact Britain.
• The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham cost £545 million to build in 2010—and you’d have more than that amount to spend every year just from one company—and they’d still get to keep 80 percent of their profits.
Wow. That means that corporations that make huge profits, with a modest amendment, could be making life-saving contributions to the society they profiteer within. That seems so reasonable, fair, apposite, and just.
Hey, how come not one mainstream democratic party anywhere in the world has policies like that? Why could that be? Why aren’t Labour or the Democrats or even self-declared people’s parties (they’re ALL meant to be people’s parties) like Ukip proposing gentle, effective regulation of corporations? Unless … they’re all utterly supplicant to corporate tyranny. Ah, yes, that’s it.