Nonviolence versus Capitalism

21.

Johan Galtung, “Principles of nonviolent action: the great chain of nonviolence hypothesis,” in Nonviolence and Israel/Palestine (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Institute for Peace, 1989), pp. 13-33.

22.

Godfrey Boyle, Peter Harper and the editors of Undercurrents (eds.), Radical Technology (London: Wildwood House, 1976); Ken Darrow and Mike Saxenian (eds.), Appropriate Technology Sourcebook: A Guide to Practical Books for Village and Small Community Technology (Stanford, CA: Volunteers in Asia, 1986); Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (London: Calder & Boyars, 1973)

23.

Johan Galtung, Peter O’Brien and Roy Preiswerk (eds.), Self-Reliance: A Strategy for Development (London: Bogle-L’Ouverture, 1980).

24.

For an excellent treatment of the psychodynamics of killing, see Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995).

25.

See especially Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973), pp. 7-62 and Gene Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1980), pp. 21-67 and 309-378. The following analysis is drawn from, and includes extracts from, Brian Martin, “Gene Sharp’s theory of power,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 26, No. 2, 1989, pp. 213-222.

26.

Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, p. 22.

27.

The term “the state” is used to refer to the system of government and government-run institutions, including the military, police, courts, government departments for taxation, welfare, education and so forth, and government-owned enterprises.

28.

Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, p. 27.

29.

Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, p. 12.

30.

Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, p. 16.

31.

On patriarchy and consent theory, see Kate McGuinness, “Gene Sharp’s theory of power: a feminist critique of consent,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 30, No. 1, 1993, pp. 101-115.

Notes to chapter 3

1.

The word “capitalism” is used here to refer to a set of social relations which have significant regularity and are constantly being both reinforced and challenged. At times I refer to “capitalism” as an entity in itself; this is just a shorthand for a persistent set of social relations and should not be taken to imply that these relations are monolithic, unchanging or autonomous. A poststructural approach might avoid the word “capitalism” altogether and refer instead to the multitude of contingent and problematic negotiations, behaviours and the like. My main aim is to raise the issue of nonviolent action as a means of challenging capitalist social relations. No doubt this analysis could be rewritten from a rigorous poststructuralist perspective. However, I doubt that it would be any more valuable in that form.