Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 17:06:02 +1000
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


Harry wrote:

"Angela: I don't know why this would bother you. Against the piece STeve
just reposted from the Padovani autonomist I think that autonomist
thinking, precisely because it both recognizes and takes seriously what
power we do have-in its limitations as well as its achievements-HAS
indeed been an important source of "optimism" against traditional
Marxism which has often appeared as writing odes to capitalist power and
only offered faith in the party elite as the road to anywhere. In a
world as full of horror as the one we live in any theoretical approach
to class struggle which gives ANY of the energy associated with optimism
has something to be said for it. It's not a sufficient condition but
it's a necessary one for any chance of success."

Also: that the autonomist position is an attempt in " 'righting the
balance' against more orthodox approaches"

Harry, I agree.  

But, it still seems to me, that in this attempt to emphasise the
subjective dimensions of class struggle, there is often a de-emphasis of
the objective dimensions.  

But maybe it is more than simply a question of striking the right
balance.  Maybe it is necessary to avoid getting caught in - what I
actually think is - the false dichotomy of subjective versus objective
altogether, the idealist notions of transcendence versus the
ossification of the empirical, both of which are derived from the
structures of capitalist process: the former echoing the illusion of
transcendent power of capital, the latter being the eternalisation or
naturalisation of the given.  

Yes, there is in the range of autonomist writings attention to this, but
it seems to me still caught in the throes of this dispute.  There does
not seem to me to be enough attention (though I will not rule out stuff
I haven't read, which may well be a lot) given to the problems of
subjectivism, the ways in which subjects are posited as the origin of
their own subjectivity, as 'first cause', or, if you will, 'god become
man'.  

It is not that I have a problem with optimism; rather, my own political
experience includes persistent confrontations with the triumphalism of
various left sects rather than pessimism.  Maybe your own experience is
different, but for my part I got thoroughly sick of the constant claims
of 'victory' being tossed around as a bureaucratic device to maintain
the membership's illusions that the organisation was truly having any
effect on the world.  The results were both dreary and appalling.  This
it seems to me is a central tenet of many of the organisations here, who
achieve a cult-like atmosphere precisely through such 'optimism'.  

Harry also wrote:
"while the issue of mechanisms that accelerate the circulation of
struggle are of great importance, the search for those which produce any
kind of unity homologous to capital's is not merely doomed to failure
but supportive of the old socialist vision of ONE alternative to
capitalism and thus to be rejected."

I was not looking for THE mechanism of unity.  Credit after all has
different effects (of unity and disunity, of discipline and releif from
constraints) for capitalists at different times.  

It was not a search for the one alternative to capitalism I had in
mind.  Rather, I was attempting to ask the question which would move us
beyond the subjective-objective impasse, an attention to a mechanism(s)
(of unity or otherwise) through which we could ascertain both subjective
and objective elements,  through which we could trace the
transformations in subjectivity (or better: subject formation, class
composition) - as both an effect AND cause of subjective forms.  

And: "the struggle to transcend" and "the way struggles transcend
working class status-which is only implicit in the concept of working
class for-itself" 

How is the notion of a working-class-for-itself commensurate with the
project of the abolition of the working class?  

Does this not lend itself to a kind of marxism as identity politics,
where one's identity is conceived in a teleological or destinal manner?  

In the history of the workers' movements, it seems to me that this has
been the result of such a position, where the identity of the class is
posited as a source rather than outcome.  I know harry that you don't
necessarily believe this, so I am not accusing you of holding this
position as such.  Merely that I think there are as many problems with a
subjective emphasis as there are with an objective one, that you cannot
distance yourself from such a bleak history through such an emphasis.

Rakesh wrote that Brenner "locates problems in the anarchy of
Production" .

I think you are right.  As well, stuff about 'the anarchy of prodn' is
always derived from a desire for planning (marxism as state planning)
and the premise that the problem with capitalism resides in its failures
of distribution. Yuk.  

Nonetheless, it remains for us to talk about those elements of the
crisis that Brenner raises in an other way.  Is the pressure to increase
the rate of exploitation always a response the working class action? 
Are falls in the rate of surplus value ENTIRELY the result of such
action?


Forrest wrote: "Transcendence would mean revolution in all its material
plentitude .  As for the Grundrisse, on pp. 271-3 of the Penguin/Vintage
edition, Marx discusses living labor vs. dead, or accumulated, labor,
and here we have the basis for what you call the 'subjectivist'
reading."

I don't really know what you mean by 'material plentitude'. I can only
say that I do not think transcendence is a materialist notion.  There is
indeed the (limited) basis for subjectivist, objectivist, and other
equally one-sided readings of the grundrisse, capital and other of
marx's writings.  I strongly believe however that this does not make
such readings accurate, since in the entirety of marx's work one finds
the constant attempt to offer a dialectical critique of such kantian
antinomies (as in the subject versus object one) and, perhaps more
importantly, just because marx wrote something does not make it right in
an absolute sense.

By the way forrest, I happen to agree with gerald that you cannot
arbitrarily and ahistorically sweep all the downtrodden, insurgent and
oppressed together. There is a specific importance to wage workers in
capitalist societies.  There is too a debate that can be had over
whether this entails waged and unwaged workers; those whose work (paid
or otherwise) is involved in the reproduction of labour-power; the ways
in which the class have seen themselves (or not) as a class and the
processes that subtend this; the ways in which 'the people' or 'the
masses' are constituted at any given time and its relation to class
politics; a debate even over to what degree it is the working class
which is the crucial element in the overthrow of capital; and so on
rather endlessly.  But, I think it is absurd to depict (claim to have
discovered) a subject as THE OPPOSITIONAL SUBJECT who strides across the
reaches of history with a degree of continuity that is quite awesome. 
Thrilling perhaps, but absurd.  (I also think this accusatory thing of
putting marxist in snigger-quotes is a bit silly.)

Best regards to all,
Angela

Ps. maybe we should put a halt to this thread and move on to something
else.  Any suggestions?  Maybe back to MBM? Or a particular issue
therein?


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