Date: 	Wed, 16 Sep 1998 22:16:55 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


Sorry I must have accidentally sent the message again in replying to
Harry. 

However, of the many important  objections Harry made I find this to be
the most important and indeed damaging to my argument.  

> . On the contrary because I see
> captialist crisis as a crisis of class relations brought on by workers
> struggles, I think that waiting around of "objective" conditions won't
> help much, better to get on with producing those conditions through our
> struggles. 

Yet  then in the absence of militant working class struggles you are
predicting that crises will never break out? I think we should be
absolutely clear  that capital cannot promise us peace or employment  
even for our silence and cooperation and generally good
behavior.  

Some simple value theoretic analysis based indeed on the capital labor
relation in abstraction from competition  would reveal 
that capital will find itself in the midst of crises it cannot understand
even if the industrial working class remains passive.              

I guess my difference is simple: many autonomists brilliantly attempt to
focus attention away from the anarchy of capitalism (where Brenner's eyes 
are) and on to the capital-labor dynamic. As Angela said, those who
focused on the anarchy of capitalism were basically see bourgeois society
from the eyes of future technocratic planners. 

I think the mistake here is that in abstracting from capitalist
competition, there has been a tendency to imagine capital as a unified
power which actually has the power to plan society on its behalf as long
as the working class does not interfere.  

I just don't think we have to move from a correct subordination of
capitalist competition to the belief that capital can control or
decides upon the outbreak of economic crises  in order to discipline the
working class. This is doubtless true in some cases, but in other cases
all capitalist plans to control society on its behalf come to nought
even as the working class stands remains relatively passive. 

Harry, I am trying to bend the stick in the other direction; I do the goal
should be to transcend (!) the subjective/objective duality.

best, rakesh




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