Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 15:25:01 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Matt Davies wrote:

<snip>
> After a year of unemployment, I have just begun a new job and only last
> weekend did I even unpack my copy of MBM!  I am getting ahead of myself
> here, but I don't think that slow responses require apology. When I
> suggested last summer that the list could benefit from a close reading of
> MBM and the Grundrisse, it was with the idea that there might be others
> like me on the list who are interested in the contributions of Negri or
> autonomists generally, but who either don't have a strong grasp of his
> arguments or have come across autonomist marxism from different (if
> related) positions. 
> So, for MY purposes -- which may not be the purposes of
> the list -- I would like to see, in addition to the interesting threads
> that have already opened on MBM and Grundrisse, a close reading,
> discussion, and explication of MBM. I think that before I can make
> evaluations of concepts such as class composition, self-valorization, or
> the place and usefulness of dialectical analysis, I need to know what the
> concepts are and how someone like Negri uses them. And I think it is ok to
> proceed with a close reading slowly, and independently of the interesting
> threads that may also come up.
> 
> So my preference would be to start with MBM. Someone else suggested earlier
> we begin with a close, collective reading beginning with Harry's
> introduction to the text. However, Marx's introduction the the Grudrisse is
> really important, and I would be happy to go there as well. If memory
> serves (I read MBM years ago), Negri also begins with it.
> 
> In any case, when Harry asks Angela which texts or who in the autonomist
> tradition makes the "subjectivist" claims that she criticises, he is
> highlighting the problem I think we ought to avoid. It is not that the
> question or criticism that Angela raises isn't relevant; but if we are
> going to discuss "subjectivism" in the context of autonomist marxism, it
> just ought to be framed in terms of the arguments that Negri actually
> makes. My understanding of MBM was that it was produced in part in polemic
> with Althusser, whose marxism was very much inflected by positivism. The
> notion that there is a real split between "subject" and "object" is central
> to positivism, and I thought Negri had set out to criticise undermine such
> an approach to revolutionary thinking and strategy, much as did EP Thompson
> or Raymond Williams in a different context (aside: I always saw Peter
> Linebaugh in their tradition, and it is very exciting to see him discussed
> here). Similarly with other dichotomies that have come up in this thread --
> pessimism/optimism, defensive/offensive, etc. Do these distinctions fit
> with Negri's understanding of Marx or of working class political agency? If
> so, how; if not, how is Negri's method different from positivism? I don't
> intend this comment to cut off anyone's discussion, just to suggest that
> these and other questions could also be examined fruitfully in the context
> of a close reading of Negri.
> 
> Matt
> 
A
Matt: Are you suggesting we begin with Lesson One in which Negri sketches
his theses about the nature of and importance of what we find in the
Grundrisse? While making reference to the Grundrisse itself whenever
necessary? I have no objection to this, but there are still other issues.
For some of us, familiar with the theoretical background to Negri's work
it will probably be felt necessary to point out how a particular line of
though predates Toni, whether he references it or not. The character of
the discourse in the text/lectures is not very academic but more of a
headlong rush much of the time with assertion piled on assertion. There
are also many dimensions and many issues raised in the argument, some
raised and left hanging, others treated more thoroughly. Some will be
fascinated/angered by some points, others by others. This "thread" of
discussion may soon fray into a multiplicity of fibers. As recent
discussion has demonstrated not very many of us will have, at any point
in time, the time and energy to deal with everything, or even with many of
the issues raised. 

At any rate, Lesson One occupies some 19 pages and someone, perhaps you
Matt, will need to raise what seem to (you?) as the most interesting or
pressing issues of the chapter to get the discussion going.

Finally, I'd like to reiterate Monty Neil's injunction that our reading
should not be purely scholarly or abstract but query the usefulness of the
analysis we are discussing for our understanding of the current status of
the class struggle. It was my injuction vis a vis Marx's concepts and I
certainly believe it vis a vis Toni`s or anyone else's.

Harry


............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu
Cleaver homepage: 
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



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