Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 00:51:33 +1100 (EST)
Subject: Re: AUT: Aufheben on social democracy


[...]
>
>        Trade unions represent the working class economically, as

I couldn't possibly agree. Trade unions represent specific trades if
anything, they specifically eschew representing workers as a *class*. Even
rejecting the very notion of class in some parts and confusing it terribly
in others, such as the UK. Class unions such as the IWW on the other hand
do set out to represent the working class and specifically repudiate
*trade* unionism as inadequate.

>labour-for-capital. Their role is to mediate between the owners of capital
>and the individual sellers of labour-power as a social category.

Yes, but only to negotiate the price of a particular sub-set of labour, a
particular trade or trades. Not the working class as a class.

> They
>negotiate the price of labour-power and they therefore presuppose that
>labour takes the form of wage-labour-a commodity. Their function is thus
>premised on alienated labour. As such, trade unions unite the working class

Quite the reverse, actually trade unions *disunite* the working class.

The footnote seems to acknowledge this as an afterthought, but it is not
good enough to assert a falsehood in the body of the text, while relegating
the opposing facts to a mere footnote!

>in the form that it is constituted by capital-that is, as individual
>commodity-sellers and by specific trade or industry.(4)

>        From the working class perspective, what was progressive about
>social democracy, first as a movement then as a state form,(5) was its
>recognition of different classes with opposing interests. Social democracy
>begins from the recognition that it is the whole working class, not just
>individual owners of the commodity labour-power, that exists in relation to
>capital.

I cannot follow this last sentence, anyone out there know what the author
is trying to communicate?

[...]

>        Yet in recognizing and representing the working class within
>capital,

Perhaps this what it means? But again it is based on similar flawed logic
to the assertion that trade unions "unite" the working class. The social
democratic political state cannot "represent" the working class, the
political state is an instrument of class rule, the state is always the
political representative of the *ruling* class. The working class can
hardly be represented by a ruling class institution.

[...]

>On the other hand, social democracy must prevent the working class from
>mobilizing too far-from becoming a class-for-itself-since it must preserve
>the capital relation. Social democracy must therefore both mobilize and
>demobilize the working class if it is to represent it.

Confused thinking here, big time.

>The working class is recognized and
>enabled to act as an agent but is simultaneously reified. As such, social
>democracy functions to recuperate proletarian antagonism but is also
>vulnerable to such antagonism.

The above conveys no meaning. At least in english, perhaps it has been
translated from another language by computer? ;-)
>
>        Social democracy embodies the tensions of the commodity form
>itself. The production of commodities requires subjective activity, but
>also that such subjectivity be subsumed within an alien subject-be
>alienated and hence objectified within capital.(6) However, such
>subsumption is necessarily provisional; in order to objectify labour,

At about this point, most readers will probably give up trying to follow
the gobbledegook. But actually it settles down a bit later and starts to
make sense. I would urge people to give it another try if they lost
patience, just skip the incomprehensible stuff.

I need a break though, as such writing style produces an intense emotional
response in me, if I get time I might take up some of the other issues
raised separately.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas.




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