JINHA

NEWS CENTER - Marxist geographer David Harvey, in Diyarbakır for the city's recent book fair, spoke to JINHA about the prospects for alternatives to capitalism in Rojava and around the world.

The CUNY professor visited Diyarbakır for a talk and book signing of the recent Turkish translation of his 2014 book "Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism." Speaking at the Amed Book Fair, David explained that his hope for the book was that it would make every reader an anti-capitalist. While David Harvey has been unable to visit Rojava to observe the alternative to capitalism being built in the autonomous cantons, he called the reports he has read of democratic neighborhood assemblies and social provisioning "very encouraging."

He said that the possibility of rebuilding society, particularly in the city of Kobanê, was a "once in a lifetime opportunity"—but warned against the possibility that it could be wasted if the people of Kobanê do not learn from the mistakes of other reconstruction efforts.

"In the midst of the most horrific devastation, there is the possibility to rebuild in a completely different way. There is a collective coming-together to try to come up with a collective solution," he said. He cited the central emphasis on women's free education (which he called "terribly important") as a positive sign of an alliance of all oppressed groups in the effort to create an alternative economy. However, he warned, if returning Kobanê residents bring with them the same idea of exclusive property rights and land ownership, the reconstruction could simply involve the rebuilding of the existing system.

The professor noted that even within capitalism, people have developed alternative structures of property rights that could be an example for Rojava. For example, the community land trust system in New York City has provided an approach to land rights based on community and stewardship, rather than profit and speculation.

David Harvey said alternative systems to capitalism might look different in the large metropolises that have been the subject of his academic work than in relatively small Rojava. However, all alternative systems, he said, face the problem of how to coordinate infrastructure between local units—as well as the question of "who can speak for the whole." These are hardly problems that could be solved overnight.

"This notion of a revolution as storming the Winter Palace or the Bastille and it's all over—that's not my concept of revolution," said David. "I think the concept of revolution is in transformative practices that gradually shift from exchange value mechanisms to more direct use value provisioning."

Speaking on the titular end of capitalism discussed in his most recent book, he noted that capitalism was unlikely to end quickly; changing mindsets takes at least a generation. However, if neoliberalism could build a different mental universe in just 30 to 40 years, said David Harvey, "then we can get out of this world we're in right now and make something very different."

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