RBS City Branch at the G20 protests
In an attack reminiscent of the scenes at the Royal Bank of Scotland branch in the City of London during the G20 protests, anarchists in Brighton have attacked and smashed the windows of an RBS branch claiming that “With this action we want to increase the rage against the capitalist system”. This is born of a growing anti-capitalist movement against the banks and financial institutions that brought this economic crisis upon us, and many see it as a route to bring that system down. However, the attacks these people have used are a particularly ineffective way to express their professed rage against this system, and actions such as this will not contribute to changing the system at all – in fact it could even work against it, with public opinion decidedly against seemingly random vandalism.
These acts are undoubtedly the result of true anger and rage against an economic system that puts profit and growth above people and planet, that rewards its bankster leaders with pensions vastly bigger than what most people have to scrape by on, and is then bailed out along with many other similarily corrupt institutions by these people’s taxes. But vandalism such as this is a particularly unarticulated expression of this anger, and is ultimately an insignificant act that will only serve to briefly quench their desire for retribution. It certainly doesn’t bother the bank itself much – they have enough taxpayers money to reglaze their stores indefinitely. Indeed, the perpetrators don’t even pretend it will, instead seemingly hoping that this will increase other people’s rage against the system. Unfortunately I suspect the vast majority of the public, many of whom may indeed share the same anger, will be put off by such acts by what they may perceive as violent thugs, rather than be encouraged by it to change the system. And if we want to change the world, it’s the public we need to start convincing and not the small numbers of those hardcore anarchists with smashing tendencies.
So how can we really change the banking system? A physical act is tempting and works well in revolutionary fantasies, but in our situation as I have described it is generally only symbolic and even counter-productive. However, there is a much easier and perfectly legal way to direct your anger against and weaken those banks and financial institutions that prop up the system we work against, one so simple it’s staggering so few people have suggested it – stop giving them your money. They need regular depositors like us to keep feeding in capital which they can then multiply vastly using various financial tricks to trade across the world and fund continued growth. Why should we keep funding infinite economic growth when we know how its destroying people and planet? Why should we willingly be giving them the money to do this? Complete removal from the banking system may be difficult and currently impractical for most, but reducing the amount of money we stash away in the big corporate banks, investing some of that money in useful equipment necessary for the coming transition as well as for courses to reskill, and shifting the remains to more ethical and local establishments can start the process.
I’m not claiming this will bring down any banks any time soon, but funding the very system we wish to dismantle is counter-productive, and even if a trickle of people start to reduce their connection with the globalised financial webs that create continued growth it will start to help reduce their power. It’s certainly more effective than smashing a few windows in the night, and is legal too. So let’s stop funding civilisation’s grip on this planet, and get on with funding a new localised stable economy instead!
