By Reece Lawton
Why is it illegal to throw a stone through the window of a department store? Yes, the law is meant to protect us, but in reality it protects private property and bourgeois interests. The law in it’s current state is a bourgeois invention, thus the legal apparatus, in fact the whole bourgeois apparatus must be opposed.
Therefore, firebombing a department store is an expression of disdain towards the bourgeois system, towards exploitation; it is an act in solidarity with the proletarians that work at that store, selling themselves daily. But it isn’t enough to commit arson as an individualistic way to convey your antipathy towards the current system, because, overall, it achieves nothing other than causing a few thousand pounds worth of damage.
If one wishes to truly have an impact upon capitalism, then they need to do more than destroy an individual link in the chain. Let us take the London riots of 2011- the underprivileged youth showing its hate for the status quo. It had potential, but since it was random acts of violence against private property, it achieved nothing, but worst of all, meant nothing. This was terror upon the bourgeois class, but the people rioting did not know this. If one wants to revolt against the bourgeois state, they must have:
1) proper theory; it would not be good to be commiting blind acts of violence
2) they must expose the exploitation in capitalism and attempt to raise class consciousness.
3) they must make it clear to the masses that they are fighting for the proletariat, and that their actions are merely a response to the class war that the bourgeoisie has been waging with the proletariat since the birth of capitalism.
