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Revolution by the Book The AK Press Blog

Saving Detroit from Capitalism and the State

Posted on June 30th, 2014 in AK Book Excerpts, Current Events

“The story of land in Detroit is the story of people re-imaging productive, compassionate communities. The land, poisoned and abused by industrial capital for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, holds the relics of mass production. As technologies advanced and capital became more mobile, Detroit and its people were abandoned. Yet within this devastation, people began to see the opportunity to create something new. Calling on the deepest resources of memory, spirit, and imagination, abandoned land is being reclaimed as urban gardens; old factories hold the possibilities of aquaponics, art studios, and bicycle production; neighborhoods ravaged by drugs and violence are organizing to create peace zones where people take responsibility for public safety and personal problem solving. Detroit, once the symbol of industrial mass production, holds the possibility of becoming a new kind of self-sufficient, productive, creative, and life-affirming city.” [from “A Detroit Story”]

When you read mainstream media accounts of the “options” available to Detroit, remember those are generally only the options that take capitalism as a given. Matthew Birkhold, Grace Lee Boggs, Rick Feldman, and Shea Howell contributed a great chapter to our new book Grabbing Back…which offers a different take on the historical and present-day options available to Detroit, and the rest of us.

Read their chapter, “A Detroit Story: Ideas whose Time Has Come,” here.

Get the book here.