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LAC Conference a Success Despite Pitfalls

Will Weikart

The recent “Life After Capitalism” conference (at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, Aug. 20-22) was billed as “a space for activists—in the run up to the intense mobilization period of the RNC protests—to reflect on the importance of long term vision, strategy, and face-to-face relationship building…” and also “to bring together and give voice to the (non-sectarian) anti-capitalist left in the United States.”

Panelists and attendees came from across the continental US and beyond. The opening night event at Hunter College, titled Beyond Bush: An Evening of Visionary Resistance, was held at the Great Hall and brought in an audience about 1,300 with a total possible capacity of 2000. The Saturday and Sunday events at the Graduate Center featured several concurrent panels and workshops each day, and attracted about 900 registered participants. Sessions were broken down into four themes: Analysis of Contemporary Capitalism; Perspectives on Power; Visions of Post-Capitalism; and Organizing Strategies.

Friday night’s event was threatened with last-minute cancellation when Hunter College mandated that LAC obtain insurance protecting against three million dollars worth of damage and injury. This development came just after The New York Post ran an article critical of the event, alleging that the conference was a “war council” and insinuating that dangerous anarchists would be in attendance. The Post article contained several factual errors that could have easily been avoided by a cursory reading of the LAC website. Apparently it was this negative publicity - as well as various external political pressures - that prompted Hunter to require the optional insurance, which cost organizers several thousands of dollars in unexpected expenses.
To make difficult matters worse, $2,000 in cash donations to the conference were stolen from an office at the Graduate Center soon after the closing events on Sunday. LAC organizers cite this and the insurance costs as major factors in the ten thousand dollar debt that they now face. Planners had hoped that the conference would be self-sustaining, and so they had secured no outside contributions. Registration raised $18,000, which failed to cover expenses totaling about $28,000 and which largely came from the cost of renting the space and airline costs for panelists from Argentina, Canada and the US West Coast.

Several groups have also charged that the conference was plagued by censorship. The lobby area of the concourse level at the GC was designated an area for merchandise and information tables from various collectives and publishers who were represented by conference panelists. Nonetheless, a handful of groups that had not registered tables showed up on Saturday and Sunday, and proceeded to set up tables for their literature. Security was notified, but these groups were ultimately allowed to stay. LAC organizers justified their attempted exclusion of the groups on the basis that sectarian and/or vanguardist groups were not ideologically aligned with the greater foci of the conference, i.e., anti-authoritarian groups/individuals and those with various novel campaigns and projects “on the ground.” They also claimed that limitations of time and space necessitated some degree of content management. Detractors maintain that they were unfairly and hypocritically excluded, and the controversy has ignited a flurry of ongoing online debates.

The LAC organizing collective consists of a small group of anti-capitalist activists and thinkers in the NYC area. The conference was the product of over a year of planning.
Please check the website www.lifeaftercapitalism.org for more information on the content of the conference and for subsequent updates and documentation, as well as for ways you can donate.

Will Weikart is a GC student in Sociology and part of the LAC organizing collective.