From: "Chris Wright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: Fw: AUT: An interesting critique of Negri
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 23:01:29 -0600


> As usual, Rowan overstates his rambling and understates the quality of his
> posts.  As usual, I will prolly write too much :)
> I assume you are not Negri and that's ok.  From what I have read of Negri,
> you do a good job.  My problem is my second-hand knowledge of Hegel
outside
> of a few things.  Right now I am reading Spinoza to catch up on this stuff
> (of course, one cursory reading of Spinoza only goes so far...)
>
> > ONTOLOGY & METAPHYSICS
> >
> > In Marx's theses on Feuerbach that you quote Marx is keen to make the
> > distinction between idealism and sensuous human activity, practice. In
one
> > sense this is all that Negri's ontology is - practice. So although I
said
> > that I sometimes see Negri's ontology as a sleight of hand, this quote
> > highlights to me that it can bear scrutiny. To put it another way, does
> Marx
> > really escape metaphysics with his formulation? As you said 'we have no
> > essence outside of our practical-critical, thoroughly social, practice'.
> > This definition surely carries a metaphysical claim with it and it is
> inside
> > here that is where I think Negri (and perhaps Foucault and Spinoza)
would
> > argue a useful ontology lurks, but not an essence in the debilitating
> > reified sense of a rational core but in an open sense of being as
> practice.
> > So Negri's ontology is the capacity of creation, of activity, of labour.
>
> I am mostly curious what metaphysical claim you see in the First Theses?
> Also, not carefully that Marx is also ruthlesslessly criticizing all
> hitherto materialisms, a point singularly lost on post-Marx Marxism.  I
> suspect Negri does not quite grasp it either.  Also, I would caution that
> Marx seeks to transcend the materialism-idealism split.  I suspect he
refers
> to himself as a materialist primarily because of the association of
Idealism
> with god, spiritualism, etc., although Marx has no trace of that
mechanical
> matterism one finds in Engels and others after him.  Finally, Marx does
not
> separate theory from metatheory (there is no split between first order
> discourse and second-order discourse.  Marx's critique is immanent
critique,
> grounded in determinate abstractions, and ultimately accepts that
resolution
> cannot happen in theory, but only in practical-critical/revolutionary
> activity.  I cannot develop the meaning of this right here, but if it
seems
> relevant, we can get into it more.  That's more of a note.
>
> > It is this notion of being - as practice, labour, power that we don't
need
> > to negate but develop. This is not to say that history has as its
subject
> > 'man' (as Althusser critiqued), whether as individual or as a group of
> > individuals, but that history is moved by collective human activity -
and
> it is by developing this potential that revolutions are created. Remember,
> no
> > claims are made for being other than it is dynamic, multiple and
> creative - this is all that is guiding us. This is not to be negated but
its
> reified
> > form is.
>
> I happen to think that history does have humanity as its subject, but not
as
> an undifferentiated mass, not as 'humanity as such'.  I thoroughly
disagree
> with Althsser's murder of the subject and his hostility to Hegel.  The one
> major thing Spinoza, Foucault, Althusser, Nietzsche, Deleuze and now, it
> seems, Negri have in common is the abscence of the subject.  And each of
> them dislikes Hegel for this, but then one must also throw out Marx, who
> never ceases to be working withint the subject-object dialectic.  In each
of
> the other cases, the destruction of the subject destroys the human kernel
> (some would say Humanism, but I would not), leaving reified things in
> control.  Structures lose their connection to human practice, but for me
> structures are nothing if not subjectivity in the mode of being denied,
> which is to say, struggle frozen at a certain moment either in partial
> victory or in defeat.  I think this is much closer to Marx than Negri.
> >
> > WHERE DOES CAPITAL COME FROM?
> >
> > This is a tricky one with Negri and I have no firm answer on this.
> > I think the answer might be here: He seems to talk of capital in two
> different ways: firstly it is limit,
> the horizon of being, the edge of our human capacities. Secondly it is
> subject, a force that attacks the subject of labour. As best as I can
> understand
> this capital is labour made abstract, reified. But, drawing on Marx, Negri
> seems to suggest that this abstraction becomes a subject, a subject that
> develops a logic of its own, a subject that then tries to dominate its
> producer.
> > However, once it becomes this subject it is separate from being, from
> > dynamic labour. Part of capital's confused strategy is its attempt to
> > separate itself from labour - labour is felt as a limit on its
capacities,
> > even though it requires labour to feed off. While it is impossible for
> > capital to separate from labour it seeks to dominate labour by trying to
> > absorb it into capital. The subject of labour experiences this as an
> attack on itself and is always struggling to finally separate itself from
> the
> > abstraction, from its reified form - which it can only do by destroying
> it.
> >
> > So yes - capital does come from labour, but as soon as it reifies it
> ceases to be labour, but capital.
>
> I don;t think capital is a subject in any meaningful sense.  Capital is
> subjective labor alienated from itself, it is nothing more than the
> accretion o dead labor with no ability to act independently of its
> contradictory relation with labor.  Capital seeks to simultaneously
> subrodinate labor and flee from it (money form, the movement of capital).
> Capital is ultimately reactive and not a potentially independent subject
> because only labor can transcend the capital-labor relation, whereby it
> realizes itself in its own destruction (but Negri takes transcendance in a
> thoroughly positive way, and so rejects transcendance.)
> >
> > UNHISTORICAL
> >
> > Does Negri's ontology succumb to being unhistorical? This version of
> > ontology does not necessarily suggest that whatever we understand
> communism might be now (whatever 'positive' content we give this term)
could
> have
> been created 500 years ago. The fact is that there were oppressive forces
at
> work then and struggles were played out then that have lead us to the
> current
> > situation.
> >
> > But certainly he wouldn't take the line (as I wouldn't) that we have to
go
> > through certain stages of history before we get to the golden age.
That's
> > not what you mean is it?
>
> I simply mean that hindsight allows us to see that capitalism created the
> preconditions for communism.  I am not arguing for stages of history,
rather
> that communism as we know it is radicaly different because it is no longer
a
> millenarian fantasy, but based on the social relations and material
> production capitalist society has developed.  There is no teleology in
this,
> since history could always have gone differently.  We could still see
> capital destroy so much of what it has created that we lose the
possibility
> of communism.  There is no guaranteed positive outcome in negation or even
> the negation of the negation.
>
> >
> > But I see your point about the relationship between labour and capital.
> How is labour to be affected by capital if it seems to be the harbour of
all
> > 'good things' (as I rather inadequately expressed it) - if ultimately
> there is a fundamental distinction between labour and capital? (see above
> for my
> > tentative discussion of the separation) Well, I guess that capital bends
> and pushes the multiple forces of labour to its own ends, reducing
labour's
> > intensity, but ultimately capital doesn't alter the fundamental tendency
> of labour to produce, to be different and to be dynamic. But the explosive
> > force of labour resists, and negates the capital relation. Maybe we can
> then talk of a second level of theory when we talk about the different
forms
> that labour takes (in terms of social worker, etc) throughout history -
this
> form is a result of the conflict between labour and capital. And as each
of
> us
> > are the territory of this struggle then we are certainly embroiled
within
> > it.
> This risks creating metatheories then, I think.  The issue is whether
labor
> exists in-and-against-and-beyond simultaneously.  Labor, as long as it
> remains labor, remains tied to capital.  Labor as its own negation can
> become something other than alienated labor.  This is why the SI's
> insistence on the rejection of work is so important to fully grasp.  Also,
> to say that labor is ultimately creative in my mind offers it an essential
> quality that I shy away from, not because humanity does not revolt against
> alienation and its offspring, but because what positive content labor has
is
> hard to see in a society in which the worship of labor stands next to the
> worship of money.
>
> > But does negative dialectics successfully answer such huge questions as
> > where does oppression and its reverse ultimately comes from? 'In the
> > beginning was the scream', John Holloway has written - screaming 'no' at
> ... what? A metaphysical oppression? - Or is the scream of life the
> metaphysical beginning?
>
> As much as I like John Holloway's opening, I certainly see your point.  It
> has a metaphysical cast to it, but it is an attempt to address the human
> content of negation, refusal, revolt.  I would not phrase it that way
> because it lends itself to the critique you level.  However, dialectics
has
> no problem asnwering the question you pose, in my opinion.  Oppression in
> capital comes from separation, from the radical fragmentation of our lives
> that flows from the separation of the creators from the means of creating.
> John has an excellent discussion of this.
>
> > Also, you say that capital comes from our subjectivity
> > alienated - does this not suggest an initial moment when the subject was
> > whole, unalienated, and that this then progresses through history to
> return to being whole again? so where does the alienating power come from?
> >
> > Can any theory really successfully account for the origin of oppression
> and resistance?
>
> If we get trapped in the origins discussion, it will never end.  Rather,
we
> have to look at the differential ways in which human beings have been
> alienated.  Maybe we have always been alienated at some fundamental level.
> Maybe some level of alienation will always be inevitable, but will it be
> social alienation?  Maybe we can end alienation, but I suspect perfection
is
> not on our species' agenda.  We came into capitalism alienated.  We came
> into pre-capitalist societies alienated, but the specific FORM of
alienation
> is EVERYTHING.
> >
> > COMMUNISM
> >
> > To your fourth comment, i agree that capital assimilates anything but
its
> > own destruction - but I suppose Negri would argue against the idea that
> > there is necessarily a moment of destruction. That is, the rupturing of
> the capital-labour relation is a process - Negri talks of communism as the
> > transition. Agreed also that numerous strands of the class struggle
> > tradition have raised the idea of new forms of prole politics appearing
at
> > different moments of struggle. However, there was a tendency to reify
such
> > political forms. For instance, if I remember rightly from reading the
SI's
> > stuff, one gets the impression that the workers' council is IT: the
final
> > form of proletarian politics, the final realisation of communism.
> > And isn't this discussion of political forms of communism a mooting of
> > positivity? A 'yes'?. How can the negation be constructive - where is
its
> > affirmation? And if you don't suggest a positive direction how do you
know
> > you'll end up somwehere worth going (although, a plan of some form is
> > obviously no guarantee)?
> Negation always ends up posing an affirmation of something new.  However,
i
> don't think we can assume that that affirmation is either a) automatic or
b)
> predictable in some simple sense.  What people will create in struggle
will
> never cease to take us by surprise.  Rather, we have to not be surprised
by
> being surprised, and therefore not find ourselves paralysed.  The SI does
> hang on councils, but we don;t have to.  Nonetheless, its good to learn
> about and think through the forms that have appeared.
>
> I also don't think the question is one of state-seizing insurrection.
> However, I am not quite in agreement with Negri's gradualism, or at least
> what seems like gradualism.  But I would have to think about that more
> later.
>
> >But I think Negri's formulation puts the issue of communist politics
> >centre stage without reifying the form. Agreed, there is still that
> millennial
> >edge in that he argues that only now, now that we produce the means for
our
> > social cooperation can we operate without the mediation of the party
> > (something I have problems with).  But at least the sense of politics as
> an ongoing development, the accruing of power, keeps in sight what we are
> after which is not just not-capital but a world where we define what we
want
> and
> > what we are.
> Negri seems again too linear and gradualist.  We move through
> contradictions, through victory-in-defeat, defeat-in-victory.  We do not
> simply gain or accrue.  The process of fetishization-defetishization is
> continuous and will only be over when we have destroyed capital, a process
> that will mean all kinds of violent uphevals, insurrections, civil war,
etc.
>
> Here is the problem with dialectics - as we define ourselves
> > purely by negation, by what we are not, we maintain the 'not' within
> > ourselves. I also think that Negri doesn't make enough of the tool that
he
> > has created, in terms of concretely looking at struggles and seeing how
> they develop their notions of justice (these discussions always seem to be
> in
> the footnotes).
>
> I am not trying to define us.  I am trying to point out that our negation
of
> what is leads to a rootedness in the "what is not yet but may be".
> >
> > Yes, the community must be not-capital but can it be more than just
> > not-capital? Depending on how you define capitalism this still gives a
> wide scope for what community can be. Community must be for something. If
we
> > define our community as just not-capital then are we not perhaps still
> > defining ourselves as just one side of the capital-labour relation.
>
> Marx used the phrase "freely associated producers" among others.  I am
> pretty happy with most of Marx's formulations in the Gothacritik and the
> Civil War in France.  We have more since, as well.  I am not just arguing
> for a not-capital, but I have to start from a not-capital before I can
hope
> to pose a non-capital.
>
> >
> > (The impression I got from Empire was not that Negri was saying that
> > struggles no longer have an interconnection. Rather, I thought he was
> saying that they appeared not to be interconnected and that this
appearance
> must
> be denied, that their actual interconnectedness must be re-affirmed by
those
> > struggling developing some kind of common language whereby they can
> > understand each others struggles as each others own.)
>
> I'll think about that.  I read it differently.
>
> > Comment 7: It's not necessarily about being moralistic when we worry
over
> > the importance of different struggles. Its about the problematic
> > relationship, as I said, of strategy to autonomy, the problem of the
> > authoritarian party with the right program over the freedom of the
> different sectors of the class. But coupled with this is the problem of
> these
> > different struggles defining themselves through their difference to each
> > other and not acknowledging their connections, not acknowledging and
> > defining their community (and Negri has some caustic words about the
> > extremes of identity politics).
>
> Agreed.  But more on that later.  Gotta go.
>
> > Sorry, but this is even more rambling, and it's getting late again. As
per
> > usual i'm frustrated by my lack of knowledge and  expressive
capabilities,
> > and this piece is full of that lack; apologies.
>
>
>  Ditto for me.
> Cheers,
> Chris



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