Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 15:14:49 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


Angela: comments below.

On Mon, 14 Sep 1998, rc&am wrote:

<snip> 
> 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.  
> 
Angela: I happen to agree that the dichotomy of "objective" and
"subjective" is not very useful. But I would abolish it by disolving the
former, so to speak, in the latter. By this I mean that I think of the
"objective" conditions as being those which obtain as the result of
the interaction of historical subjects, the resultant that derives from
interacting vectors of force (hey Haines, ya like that bit? :-) ) Not as
something outside/permanent but as the existing constellation of forces
within which we act (make our history under the conditions we created out
of what we found ourselves in yesterday)

> 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'.  
> 
Angela: I find it really hard to argue with your characterizations of a
literature where you do not cite specifics. WHO are you talking about?
WHERE, in WHAT writing can we find the kind of thing you mention here?
When I read autonomist stuff I can't think of ANY discussion of
"objective" - "subjective" except perhaps as part of an attempt to reach
those who still have this frame of reference. Even then I can't think of
any specific texts.

> 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'.  
> 

Angela: Yes, I agree completely that there is nothing to be said for that
kind of rhetorical "optimism" designed to control others. But I can't
think of any of that kind of thing amongst autonomist writings. Can you?
If so what?

> 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.  

ANgela: Good.
> 
> 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.  
> 

Angela: I think the theory of "class composition" was developed precisely
to provide a theoretical guide to studying the dynamics of class struggle,
and of working class subjectivity within it --in all its complexity. But
what such studies have suggested is that the "trace" which is discovered
changes constantly; there is no magic key, but rather a politics which has
to be constantly reinvented. This said, Marxist analysis does provide an
understanding of many of the mechanisms which are used against the
coallescence of class power, e.g., the division to control of the working
class via the wage, gender, race, ethnicity, etc. which have to be
overcome in some sense or another.  

> 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?  
> 
Angela: WE have a "working-class-for-itself" which seeks to go beyond its
status as working class, to become the kind of rich, multilateral array of
human beings posited by Marx in the Fragment on Machines in the
GRUNDRISSE. Self-abolition you might say, is not just the last act, but an
ongoing struggle to be less than you are supposed to be and more than you
are.

> 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?  
> 

Angela: Only if you posit some final destination --which is precisely what
the old orthodox Marxists so often did. "Identity politics" labels a space
of non-politics/politics of recent vintage inhabited by people so
fascinated by difference that they couldn't see commonality. I don't know
about you but I see people struggling for all kinds of different forms of
social organization. The indigenous in Chiapas have one set of forms,
social centers in Italian cities another set, etc. Setting aside "identity
politics" is not revolution all about obtaining the freedom to
self-determine ones own "identity", one's own being and place in the world
--which is always social and collective as well as individual?

> 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.
> 

Angela: Once again, I think it would help to be specific about references.
The fact that there have been "problems" with the way some, unknown,
people have formulated the emphasis on the subjective just means we know
what to avoid. I don't see why we can't distance ourselves from any old
tendency we want to?

> 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.  
> 

Angela: I haven't read all of Brenner, just the beginning, but it sounds
like this is an accurate assessement. One way of putting the problem is
the way capitalist competition is conceived as something outside the class
struggle,see my response to Jerry, when it is nothing more than the
capitalist way of organizing itself as managerial class.

> 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?
> 
Angela: Haven't gotten to this discussion yet.

> 
> 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.
> 
Angela: What's your problem with the term "transcendence"? the history of
its use in philosophy and other disreputable spheres of ideology? What
would you substitute for it as a short term for alluding to the process of
replacing one way of organizing society by others?


> 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.)
> 
Angela: WHO are you attacking here? Sounds like a strawman to me? If it is
Linebaugh and Rediger you need to be a lot more specific to be taken
seriously.


> 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?
> 
Angela: I too would like to hear from the original proposer of the MBM
discussion.

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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