From: "FRANCO BARCHIESI" <029FRB-AT-cosmos.wits.ac.za>
Date:          Thu, 18 Apr 1996 11:34:34 GMT + 2:00
Subject:       Re: discussing neo-liberalism & utopia


On 8 April Harald Beyer Andersen wrote:

> 
> Franco Barchiesi's uses a strike that hit General Motors to exemplify tha> t
> the just-in-time strategy of capital has rendered it very vulnerable. The
> strike at General Motors: "emphasized the impressive potential to cripple
> the whole process contained in the strategic location of small groups of
> workers in particular phases." What he fails to mention is that this very
> vulnerability could become ours if we succeed. However much Negri talks o> f a
> "mass intellectuality" and in reference to computers that "in communicati> on
> the immateriality is total" - which is very hard to believe - we are livi> ng
> in a material world, and are likely to do so also in the future.

Hi Harald and sorry for the delay of my answer,

Well, what you write is not entirely clear to me. I am quite 
suspicious too of the notion of "mass intellectuality", particularly 
because it is often used in quite an unspecified way. From one side, 
it seems to indicate the development of a new anthropology of work, 
where the worker is required a new, holistic and synthetic vision of 
the labour process. This should enable him to exercise functions of 
delegated control in correction of defects and changes in product 
outline which are required in the age of Just-in-Time. Fine. What the 
mass intellectual theory fails usually omits, instead, is the 
explanation of the ways in which such new attitudes in relation to 
the labour process translate into the sphere of the political 
composition of the class, how they define intellectual and political 
*antagonistic* practices on the shopfloor. That is to say: how the 
potentiality implicit in the mass intellectual gives shape to new 
subjectivities. However, for what weight we can recognize to the mass 
intellectual argument, I don't think we can confuse this theory wuth 
that according to which "everything is immaterial". I don't even 
think Negri states that: it would be really a fairy tale deprived of 
any foundation. What usefulness can be in the theory of the mass 
intellectual resides in my view in its renewed emphasis on the 
communicational side of the labour process, with the associated shift 
away from a purely Fordist notion of labour as execution of 
prescribed tasks. The fact that labour is now assuming the meaning of 
the activation of social communication in the workplace *and outside* 
(through decentralization, outsourcing, new forms of household based 
work) does not mean that it is becoming immaterial. The various 
phases and various subjects which are put in communication, with 
their complex of needs and expectations, maintain quite a strong 
materiality. This is what I tried to show with my example about the 
strike at GM. It was an episode of struggle based more on the
disarticulation of the communications with suppliers over the 
territory than on disruption of the line. By disarticulating the 
communication network on the territory, a relatively small group pf 
workers could force other GM plants to suspend their operations, 
immediately overcoming the limitations of traditional fordist strike 
strategies. These were usually fatally confined to single plants or 
areas, unless solidarity could have been spread through the 
traditional vehicles of parties or unions, and a shared class 
language. In my case, instead, the disruption of the capital lines of 
communication proved to be the most effective way to circulate the 
struggle, giving it a broad perspective, capable to couple defense of 
living standards with contestation of investment strategies and 
outsourcing. Only a new framework of work organization based on the 
re-configuration of the social factory outside the workplace, with 
the associated requirement for a new kind of intellectual labour 
force could provide the opportunity to set in motion this dynamics

> 
> The globalization of the economy opens up to enormous opportunities. But > at
> the same moment it presents us with obstacles that makes it more difficul> t
> both to imagine communism as a real opportunity, and to realize it. This
> difficulty of imagining communism in other than in an abstract form, make> s
> it less of an possibilty. Most workers are practical people in search of
> practical ways to actualize their dreams. 

I agree on that. But why should we "imagine" communism, where 
imagining could be an activity separate from everyday social 
practices, when the practical ways to actualize dreams and satisfying 
needs are short-circuiting with new forms of work organization and 
new forms of struggles, relativizing old referents for that 
staisfaction and actualization (ie. welfare state) and valorizing new 
ones (social communication and solidarity, new forms of labour 
community activism, etc.)? What can be make explicit as *elements of 
communism* from those dynamics of struggle? 

Franco

Franco Barchiesi
Sociology of Work Programme
Dept of Sociology
Private Bag 3
University of the Witwatersrand
PO Wits 2050
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel. (++27 11) 716.2908
Fax  (++27 11) 716.3781
E-Mail 029frb-AT-cosmos.wits.ac.za
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html
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