Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 15:05:47 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


Some comments below.

On Sat, 12 Sep 1998, rc&am wrote:

> Re: the discussion on the Grundrisse - though perhaps it is actually a
> discussion on autonomist readings of it.
> 
Angela: The original proposition was to study/discuss Toni's Marx Beyond
Marx and the Grundrisse to the degree felt necessary.


> I think you're both right that it is perhaps historically perverse to
> say, as a matter of dogma, that the working class is the founding cause
> of capitalist action.

Angela: I don't see why it is "historically perverse" to see the working
class as the founding cause of capitalist action. If you are refering to
the rise of capitalism, there is substantial work that suggests that
pre-capitalist means of social control were failing due to struggle and
new (capitalist) means proved more effective in keeping the population in
check and in order. If you are refering to any particular moment of class
struggle then I would agree that it would hardly make sense to pretend
that within in ANY given situation the working class was always on the
offensive and capital always reactive. Clearly that has not been the case.


  But maybe this position results from a deeper
> theoretical problem: that, in the quest to abandon lenin (and leninist
> conceptions of the party), the question of the relation between
> labour-power as 'original cause' of capital has been so subjectivised
> that, within much autonomist politics, any differences -either
> theoretical or historical - between the concepts of labour-power and the
> working class is elided and, equally problematic, the differences
> between capital and capitalists are obscured as well.  It is perhaps
> ironic that here the autonomists share such a position with the leninist
> remainders such as the trotskyists when they talk about 'the bosses',
> etc.
> 
Angela: I fail to recognize the "eliding" of differences between labor
power and working class. On the contrary, this tradition mostly plays on
it emphasizing the distinction between being-labor-power-for-capital and
being-workers/people-who-struggle-to-be-more. Think not only of Tronti but
of C.L.R.James, Dalla Costa, etc. Labor power is viewed as humans being a
moment of capital. One struggles against being reduced to this. I also
don't understand the assertion of a failure to distinguish between capital
and capitalists. What does this mean? If it means a failure to recognize
that there are differences among capitalists and a tendency to substitute
a monolithic "capital" for analysis of such differences, then I don't
think autonomists are any more guilty of this than Marx. When appropriate
Marx spoke of "capital" doing this or that, attacking, or retreating,
etc., e.g., Chapter 10 on the working day. At other moments he provided
detailed analyses of not only class factions but personalities, e.g.,in
his historical writings. I just finished reading a piece by George
Caffentzis on Berkeley's failed attempts at bank reform in Ireland which
contains detailed and precise analysis of the various
forces/factions/groups and individuals at play. So I don't understand the
accusation.

> I think also, that these issues cannot be resolved entirely through
> empiric analyses - which would after all provide so much in the way of
> detail, and perhaps not enough in the way of understanding.  This is not
> to say those analyses are not crucial, but perhaps not sufficient.  I
> think this is why those unfortunate disputes over 'class in itself/class
> for itself' have occurred, also to a large extent the debates over
> 'base/superstructure'.  
> 
Angela: I agree that arguments can only sometimes be settled by reference
to empirical investigation. Most of the debates over the things you
mention, it seems to me however, have been abstract; e.g., the latter
among Althuserians squabling over precise definitions of their structures.
Their "empirical" work often limited to trying to squeeze reality into one
set of structures or another.

> So, I think the grundrisse (and negri) have too often been assumed as
> taking one side in these kind of disputes (the subjectivist side), and
> too little attention is paid to things like - things which negri does
> mention - the role of credit in assuring the collectivisation of the
> capitalist class around a capitalist plan at a certain period in history
> (welfare state and so on).  

Angela: The Grundrisse, you know, begins with a dissection/critique of
Darimon's book on banks and the whole huge first 'chapter' contains
primarily material on money and credit. Toni, lecturing in Althusser's
seminar in Paris, pitted the analysis of working class subject that he
could find in the Grundrisse against the lack of one in Althusser's
writing largely based on Capital. About this I would say at least two
things: first, it was a polite way of critiquing the ideas of the guy on
whose turf he was treading second, the critique was well taken, whether
one agrees with all steps of his way of doing it or not and three, I
happen to think (and pretend to show how) one can recognize just as much
working class subjectivity in Capital as in the Grundrisse. Finally,
Toni's own writings have often dealt with very specific historical moments
of struggle which he has analyzed, both worker and capitalist plans and
actions so I don't understand why you feel he is too abstract and doesn't
deal with such things.

> Here bonefeld et al have been particularly
> useful.  

ANgela: I'm not sure who the et al includes but I've contributed to both
Common Sense and to the conference/book on money and the state in ways
which seem to meet your sense of what needs to be done (I think) yet I
have also drawn on Toni`s work to do so.

> I am not sure if there is a similar appraisal of the historical
> mechanisms of working class formation that is not read off the
> 'occupational composition' of labour.  Maybe I missed it.
>
Angela: I don't understand this statement; perhaps you could clarify.
Certainly such treatments of working class formation as Peter Linebaugh's
London Hanged, C.L.R. James Black Jacobins or Bruno Ramirez's When Workers
Fight go far beyond any simple "deduction" from "occupation structure".

 
> Maybe I'm jumping ahead as well in raising these issues.  
> 
> I'm interested in the reasons given for why the theory of a cycle of
> struggle/restructuring/accumulation has been abandoned as no longer
> relevant by some.
> 
Angela: I suggests some aspects of this in an earlier posting.


> angela mitropoulos

Harry
............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
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               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu
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http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



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