Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 22:16:08 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: AUT:NinePropositionsAbout theProletariat


Apologies if I have strayed from the topic at hand, ie. the
Grundrisse/MBM.  I promised to post this almost two months ago, when I
wrote those godawful pieces on slavery and capitalism.  Though I find the
following propositions most suggestive, they can only be persuasive in the
context of *historical* narrative about capitalist development.  Gerald
worries about the term "proletariat" being used in a transhistorical,
almost metaphysical way which blurs divisions and conveys a false image of
unity, but Rediker and Linebaugh are historians- their work is based on an
examination and analysis of archival evidence, and given the heterodox
nature of their ideas, they go to great lengths to demonstrate the
*historical* connections between the *very* diverse sectors of the
Atlantic proletariat. And that includes slaves, tavern owners, indentured
servants, and others mentioned in a previous post.  I didn't mean to get
bogged down in historiographic niceties, but I find a
presentist/theoreticist approach to class composition troubling at best.

Forrest




NINE PROPOSITIONS ABOUT THE PROLETARIAT
A Short Rant in Memory of Allen Ginsberg
by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker 

Presented to the conference on Working-Class Self-Activity
Youngstown, OH, June 1997 
Reprinted with permission of the authors

PROPOSITION ONE
The proletariat is not new; it is not modern.
The proletariat is old, ancient, as the very term "proletarian," from
Roman antiquity, proves.

PROPOSITION TWO
The proletariat is not male.
It was originally female; the proletarian, who paid no taxes, served the
state by reproduction.

PROPOSITION THREE
The proletariat is not white.
The proletariat is- and has long been- many colored, multi-ethnic,
multi-racial.

PROPOSITION FOUR
The proletariat is not American; it is not British, not West European; it
is not national.
It is Atlantic; it is international; it is global, and has been so for
many centuries.

PROPOSITION FIVE
The proletariat is composed not only of artisans, or even industrial
workers.  It is composed of hewers of wood and drawers of water; it is soldiers
sailors, servants and slaves.

PROPOSITION SEVEN
The proletariat is composed not only of the waged.
It includes the unwaged, those who perform the unpaid labors of
capitalism.

PROPOSITION EIGHT
The proletariat is composed not only of stable householders, not only
citizens.
It includes the "loose and disorderly" and "the outcasts of the nations
of the earth," who have been and continue to be subject to extreme
violence and terror.

PROPOSITION NINE
The proletariat is not sedentary, passive, defeated, dead.
It is self-active, creative.  It is alive; it is onamove.


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