Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 10:37:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Thomas Seay <entheogens-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: Re: AUT: Hardt-Negri's Empire: a critique, part one Louis, I am assuming that you inteneded this critique to go to the autopsy group and not as an opening salvo to the "Empire" reading list. You wrote: <<It is not on the basis of abstract socialist propaganda but rather the dialectical interaction between experiences based on local struggles, either at the plant-gate or the rural farming village, and ideas transmitted to fighters by Marxist activists, the "vanguard" in Lenin's terms. The construction of such a vanguard remains as urgent a task as it was in Lenin's days, a period not unlike our own which faced thinkers notunlike Hardt and Negri.>> I have only begun my reading of "Empire", but I must say that as I approach the question of socialist revolution anew, I am struggling with the question of "vanguard" party. On the one hand, I am totally burnt out on the idea. In my youth I was in a "Vanguard party" (I am an American too and as you know there were so many vanguard parties here that they were running out of appropriate names by which to call themselves). The "democratic centralism" was a sham...and I believe it was so across the "Vanguard" spectrum (maoist, trotskyist, etc). My god, I would have hated to live in any society created by one of those groups. On the other hand, I hear your point about "economism". That is how is it possible to really overthrow capitalism without a Party. All these spontaneious movements will just crop up making their quantitative demands, but how do we make the qualitative leap toward socialism without a party (or even several parties) which direct that struggle toward that aim. So, you see, I am caught in this dilemma...I am reasonably open to all arguments except those that have not considered this problem critically. Thomas __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more. http://buzz.yahoo.com/ --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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