File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0106, message 410


From: "Peter Jovanovic" <peterzoran-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: RE: Re 'Hardt-Negri "Empire": a critique by someone who purports to be marxist but won't read the book'
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 16:32:35 +1000


hi all

Angela wrote:
>Leninists, both on the net and elsewhere, are busy segueing their
>'anti-pomo' hysteria into an 'anti-autonomist' barrage.  Obviously, Proyect 
> >intends to provide the catchcries for such.   And that's the reason that 
> >this discussion has little to do with the book.  Not only b/c, as Jon 
>noted, >everyone here has their own criticisms of _Empire_ and/or Negri; 
>but b/c >that's really not the issue. The stakes are not the book, but the 
>movements >around Seattle, Melb, G/berg, etc.   We might expect textual 
>fidelity to be >a condition of anything that purports to be a "critique" of 
>some text; but >for Proyect, it's an occasion to intervene into a debate 
>that's occuring >elsewhere.   The hook is _Empire_, because it's just been 
>published and has >received some attention, and without that hook, LP would 
>simply not be able
>to accomplish the degree of circulation of his "critique" that he hopes 
>for.

here in Australia the ISO/SWP has taken what some have called an autonomist 
turn. presumably because of the growing influence of autonomist ideas. and 
it's been somewhat successful for them, they've recruited a few people who 
were in the Sydney based autonomistish group Love and Rage. of course their 
'autonomism' is only a recruiting trick.
they have recently published at least one article attacking autonomists 
after ignoring them for twenty years. the danger for them is that autonomism 
is a marxism that is not just an academic 'movement' it also has growing 
influence among activists.

i'd say the ISO are the Trot group best placed to recruit out of the 
'anti-capitalist movement' as they call it. they tend to have a younger rank 
and file than most of the orthodox trot groups and don't have the baggage of 
support for Cuba or other remaining Stalinist regimes. in Prague they were 
the only Trots in force and were noticeably younger than all the other 
Leninist groups. of course their appalling behaviour would have hopefully 
turned off anyone who came across them.

i've been subjecting myself to the Worker's Power (orthodox split from the 
ISO circa 1978) website a bit lately and they seem to have conceded the 
ground in the Socialist Alliances and union bureaucracies to the ISO and 
other bigger Trot groups. their current kick seems to be trying to appeal to 
the streetfighting element by a detailed critique of particular 'black bloc' 
actions. instead of 'mindless' property destruction they want organised 
fighting squads who just incidentally would be under their command. 'damn 
those masked anarchists they're just too anarchic' is what they are 
basically saying.

pete
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