Date: Mon, 10 Mar 97 11:26:50 +0100 From: Fiocco-AT-ccuws4.unical.it (Fiocco Laura) Subject: Re: Strategy and violence >Laura: >> >But I think that there is something more to say about the idea of violence >> >in class struggle. There are somebody that thinks that class struggle means >> >violence or does not distiguish class stuggle from violence. >(...) >> >One of the form of the struggle he [Steve, FB] showed was self- >> >reduction of telephon, >> >electricity, bus, bills...and commodities. Let us take this last one. It >> >was a mass individual practice: I (anybody: a student, a worker's wife, a > >Hobo: >> >> let me call this as an anarco-romantic vision. it was surely a diffused >> practice, even if not as massive as you say, but it was started from >> *organized* groups in an *organized* form. later it became also an >> ''individual practice'' penetrating into the same culture of the >> proletarians, but losing, under certain aspects, its characteristic of mass >> action done to claim the right of access to the wealth and to affirm the >> real counter-power of the people. > >I am very sorry to contribute to this discussion on strategy in such >a piecemeal way (I'm still working to comments to Monty's papers and >inputs from John Holloway, Massimo and Bruce!). Concerning this >point, I substantially agree with Hobo. I don't think that any mass >extra-legal practice such as self-reduction is possible without a >visible change in social balance of forces, produced by a *political* >subjectivity able to translate acts of extra-legality into an >organizational and analytical perspective. This perspective is, in >fact, necessary just to prevent the adversary (state, capital. >shop-owners) from exercising that Foucauldian "normalizing" power >mentioned by Laura (what would happen if the repressive apparatuses >were able to categorize the self-reducing comrades as mere >shoplifters). Now, I think that the individualized acts of subversion >Laura talks about would hardly have fallen outside the >individualizing/normalizing/criminalizing power of the state without >a clear and organizationally visible connection with a more general >discourse of rejection of waged labour and the nexus between >productivity and purchasing power. Here I agree with both of you: I was talking about how violence can STOP a movement (already started). But I do not agree with Franco's last sentence below: capitalist state do not "claim" monopoly of force, it *has* the monopoly of force. To counter it on a practical ground means or self-defence or to play the power game. The limit between the two is so narrow that even to garantee self-defance political sustainability becomes a problem in itself. I think we have to invent more effective weapons than mere force. ciao laura The question of violence should >then be brought down from moral consideration and related to the >question: which *degree of force* (more than abstract "violence") is >required to guarantee the *political sustainability* of acts of mass >everyday anti-statist, anti-capitalist subversion? I think the role of >armed struggle in the Zapatista struggle addresses precisely this >question. >I agree with Laura when she writes that violence *may* become a >problem for the movement under certain circumstances. But I am also >convinced that violence definitely *is* a problem for the >revolutionary movement if this latter is unable to counter on a >practical ground the state's "Weberian" claim to the monopoly of the >use of the legitimate force. > >Hasta siempre > >Franco > --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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