Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 21:00:00 +1000
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


hi once again harry,

i'll try to make this brief.


yoou wrote:
> 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)
> 

i guess i would like a more explicit acknowledgement of the problems
inherent in subjectivism.  maybe you don't agree there are problems, or
the same ones i encounter. it does seem to me that a dissolution of the
objective 'dimensions' in the subjective is a one-sided continuation of
the subject vs object debate, does not take account of the problems that
emerge from a subjective emphasis such as the aspersion of 'false
consciousness' and so on.  an analysis of the objective force of, say,
the requirement to be a waged worker or be available for wage labour in
our lives does not entail a beleif in the permanence of such
arrangements or that they are outside human action.  rather, it does
lead us to acknowledge the limits to our acting agaisnt this. also, (in
response to a post by Ilan some time ago)we might well beleive this to
be an illegitimate system, but that does not make it go away.  i happen
to think that most people know full well the circuits of capital, the
compulsions of wage labour and so on.  

> 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 literature where you do not cite specifics.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?

if you must talk of dissolving objectivity in subjectivity then i guess
i'm referring to you.

> 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.

this was my point: that there is not sufficient attention to a
consideration of the problems associated with subjective accounts of the
world.  to the extent that it this is not an explicit part of autonomist
writings that i have seen, a politics which otherwise has a very
thorough critique of objectivism, then it can only be assumed that there
is a view that the are not damging problems which arise from a
subjectivist politics, or that, for reasons i have only seen hints of,
it is beleived that discussing such problems is not a good thing.  (by
hints, i mean the comment you made some time ago re: the
subjectivisation of capital "when appropropriate".)

> 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?

if the phrase "when appropriate" refers to the times when one may be
writing in order to stir the masses, then for me this would come within
the terms i described.  rhetoric is after all defined as the technique
of persuasion.



> 
> 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.


harry, i agree that the 'trace', if you will, changes, but maybe we are
talking of two different things here. 
(so then, is there or is there not a proletarian subject that has
traversed history?   perhaps even a series of proletarian
subjectivities, but this kind of pluralism is also a kind of
assimilationism)

> > 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. 


is this working-class-for-itself different to the
working-class-in-itself?  who is this 'we'?  you, i and others on this
list? would you include those people in the social democratic parties?
what are the criteria of membership?  do i need to be a communist to
join?  this sounds glib, but i think there is still the assertion of a
distinction between true and false consciousness here that i find
troubling.  if this is not a distinction of consciousness is it then a
distinction related to the composition of the working class, so that we
then revert to some kind of distinction viz the more advanced v the
backward layers?


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.
> 

it sounds promising, but what does it mean?

 
> 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?
> 

i would prefer to think we become other, that we are no longer bounded
by the straightjacket of the self-possessed individual, or the same writ
larger into collective forms.  this is where my critique of identity
politics comes from, not so much the stuff about difference (ie.,
pluralism, which is itself a multiplication of the previous).

> > 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?
> 

i was suggesting (hoping) that you did not take a subjectivist position
all the way down the line, but that perhaps, in emphasising the
subjective (as you have acknowledged you do) that you could not distance
yourself from the problems associated with such a position, and hence i
felt it made it all the more pertinent for you to be explicit about what
(if any) problems you might see in adopting a subjectivist position.





> Angela: What's your problem with the term "transcendence"? the history of
> its use in philosophy and other disreputable spheres of ideology? 
> 

my problem harry is that it is religious.  it is not simply associated
with religion, it is a religious concept through and through.  this
would add to my concerns re: the use of optimism as an organising
principle.  i think i used the word 'cult-like'.

> > 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.
> 


i thought it was fairly obvious i was discussing the issues forrest
raised in relation to the linebaugh/rediger book.  strawman? i don't
think so - forrest talked of the historical continuty of the
proletariat, which despite being 'different' was effectively subsumed
into the one narrative (eg., in the 'nine propostions' post
discussion).  

and by the way harry, is it okay for others who agree with you (or say
they do) to be abusive, but not those who disagree for fear of not being
"taken seriously"?  

angela mitropoulos


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