Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 12:04:55 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, rc&am wrote:

> 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.  

Angela: I don't see that the dissolution I suggested either a) maintains
the dichotomy/debate or b) has anything to do with false consciousness. So
I don't understand the point.

> 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.  

Angela: Why should it? I don't understand what you are arguing against. I
wouldn't talk about our current compulsions to enter the labor market as
"an objective force" which DOES smack of the old debate. But I would
understand the labor market as momentarily extant but contested and a
terrain of class struggle, i.e., of antagonistic subjectivities.

> 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.  

Angela: Obviously it doesn't make it go away. As for the limits of our
acting against this, that depends on the balance of class forces at the
moment, as with every other aspect of capitalist society. Calling the
labor market "objective" seem to me to give it an eternal aura, something
immutable that one just has to cope with --sort of the way the Labour
Party in England has treated capitalist development in this period.

> 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.  

Angela: Perhaps you could just spell out a) b) c) what problems you think
are ignored. I have a feeling that they may not have been ignored but
dealt with and dismissed as something to worry about. But I could be
wrong. We'll see.

> 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: Oh, boy, in as much as this correspondence has gone on for a while
now, could you please give me an exact reference so I can go back and look
at what I said that bothered you and not have to cull through severl dozen
messages looking for it.

> > 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: Ditto.
> 
> 
> > 
> > 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)
> 
Angela: I have great respect for Linebaugh and Rediger's work and they may
have a point, but I will say this: I rarely use the concept of
proletarian, employing working class in stead and the term for me is one
that arose with capitalism and is specific to capitalism, thus not
applicable throughout history. But, broadly defined as "working class" has
come to be for those in the autonomist tradition, it is also quite
specific via the analysis of class composition and not at all reductionist
in any sense.


> > > 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?  

Angela: Quite different. The working in-itself is capital's creation,
people whose lives are controlled through the imposition of work. The
working class for-itself refers to the struggles AGAINST that imposition
and FOR a variety of alternative ways of social being (which would
necessarily include the abolition of imposed work and thus of "working"
class status.

> 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?  

Angela: I dont' understand the overflowing sarcasm here. I think when I
wrote "we" I meant Marxists, perhaps more narrowly autonomists, or some
such.  What difference does it make. Perhapas the E was a typo and there
was no emphasis. The statment was a statement about a particular view of
the working class; that seems obvious to me, controversial perhaps, but
not warranting sarcasm.

> 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?
> 
Angela: You illustrate so well how we read things in terms of our own
preoccupations and past worries. NO reference was made, nor intended, to
any concept of class consciousness. The interpretations I have been
offering you have been largely if not entirely without any discussion of
the issue. You impute an issue of consciousness, even when you set it
aside, in your reference to "advanced vs backward layers", advanced
presumably those struggling for the abolition of their class status,
backwards not. The terms "advanced" and "backward" are obviously
pejorative remants of orthodox Marxism which priviledged some over others
as vanguards. I am uninterested and indeed opposed to such classification
and I am very much interested in the differences that obtain among the
struggles of various sectors of the class and their relation to each
other. That is part of the analysis of "class composition". 

> 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: struggle to be less than you are supposed to be, i.e., a good
worker, and more than you are --more than a worker, but also more than a
worker who struggles against exploitation and even more than one who
struggles FOR new ways of being, a member of the working class in motion,
elaborating moments of social relationships outside of and preferable to
those of capital.

> > 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.  

Angela: I don't think most people are "bounded by the straightjacket of
the self-possessed individual". That individual is an ideological
construct, an element of liberal political and economic theory. Real
people weave networks of social relations, real people even within
capitalism live and act within networks of cooperation --as Marx discussed
in Chapter 13 of Vol. I of CAPITAL and Kropotkin explored in MUTUAL AID.
I don't know what it means to write such a hypothetical individual 
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: IN as much as I don't understand what "problems" you are talking
about, and I am not even sure that I agree about what a "subjectivist
position", I feel we may be talking right past each other. I sometimes get
the feeling that you're trying to lump me into some pre-existant category
derived from past debates elsewhere. Look, to "emphasize the subjective"
for ME merely means to read/interpret social reality in terms of the
actions and interactions of people, it means setting aside "structuralism"
and "objectivism" and all other theory which pretend that there are
entities in some sense outside or beyond such actions and interactions. It
means to put US --the working class-- at the center of everything, to
interpret everything in terms of what it means about limiting/constraining
our ability to live the way we want to or of how it involves/helps such
ability. The way I interpret the evolution of autonomist theory --and it
has been a long time developing with quite diverse threads-- it has
produced, more and more, a reading of Marxist theory which understands the
classic concepts (value, money, surplus value, etc.) in these ways.
Marxism appears therefore as a theory which lays out a theory of
capitalist society in terms which reveal all of it as patterns of social
control against which people struggle because it limits and constrains
them (alienation/exploitation etc). Somehow I don't think that the old
"subjectivist" category is adequate to grasping this perspective --which
is why I don't use the dichotomy.
> 
> > 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'.

Angela: For you it reeks of religious connotations. Well, what can I tell
you, as one reared completely outside any religious practice, I am aware
of such connotations, but do not feel them, or intentionally imply them
when I use the term. Another way of putting it would be that I use the
term in WEbsters's first sense: 1. a: to rise above or go beyond the
limits of [capitalism], b: to triumph over the negative or restrictive
aspects of [capitalism]. I never speak of something/someaction as
"transcendent", i.e. "transcending the universe or material existence", or
of struggle as "transcendental" and I would certainly not describe my own
politics as "transcendentalism". I think if you look at how I have used
the words "transcending capitalism", the use can be seen to have nothing
of the religious about it. 
> 
> > > 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).  

Angela: Then I repeat, these two guys have produced a substantial quantity
of work that informs their "nine theses" and anything else they write.
Among the things you attack in the above passage is any process of  
"arbitrarily and ahistorically sweep[ing] all the downtrodden, insurgent
and oppressed together". Well, any familiarity with the work of these two
historians makes clear that no such "sweeping" is involved. The LONDON
HANGED has detailed analyses of various sectors of the working class and
BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA also contains extensive analysis
of differences among seamen in the 17th Century. If they make general
statements, it is based on their extensive, detailed historical research
and is by no means "arbitrary and ahistorical".

> 
> 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: What kind of a nasty question is that? Just where do you see me
sanctioning abuse, of any kind?  
 
> angela mitropoulos
> 
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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