Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 21:10:54 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: AUT: Limits of Anti-Workerism


On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Jamal Hannah wrote:

> The problem here, which both you and Harry M. Cleaver are re-enforcing,
> and which I was explaining, is that to talk about "the end of work"
> or "the end of production" or "the end of economy" is that it is
> misleading and dishonest.

You will gain nothing in discussion by calling your interlocutors
"dishonest" except contempt.

> People will STILL have to do work, production,
> and even economic things (even without money... though perhaps
> the word "economy" would naturaly fall out of use in such a situation)
> in any post-revolutionary society, no matter how utopian (with the
> exception of a totaly automated/mechanized society controlled or served by
> A.I.s) .. and claiming that this work and production isnt called work or
> production because ther society is different is blatent lying.

"Lying"? How bizarre a charge! How can one possibly "lie" about the
future, about what has not yet come to be? If you can't think of a
response to an argument you would do better to remain silent until you
can.

> It gets
> people's hopes up and then they will find that they still have to work
> after all and many will become reactionaries. It's better to at least be
> straightforward with people and tell them wage labor and exploitation will
> be gone, but not work and production.. but it would be work and production
> based on needs, and on choice.

I always find it peculiar when people attack the exact opposite of what
has been said. It makes you wonder whether they can't read, or that being
unable to respond to an unfamiliar argument makes their mind think it has
seen something that they do know how to respond to even if it is the
opposite of what has been said. I said, and I quote:

"Of course "the end of work" doesn't mean people stop growing food,
building computers (although it undoubtedly means they will do those
things quite differently) and so on."

Now does that sound like promising anyone a life of leisure without
effort? I think not. The point was that words emerge within history, carry
meaning and should not be used to talk about totally different phenomena.
History demonstrates that when people transform the world part of that
transformation is the transformation of the language and the concepts that
they use to talk about it. As we succeed in transcending capitalism, I
have no doubt such processes will continue and we might as well be
involved in the process in a self-conscious manner. In the past it has
facilitated the process of change and I see no reason to think that this
is not the case now or will not be in the future.

>
> I am totaly in agreement with Harry M. Cleaver about what he describes,

In which case what are you doing calling me "dishonest" and a "liar"????

> and, surprise, surprise, what he describes is exactly what councilists and
> anarcho-syndicalists are striving for. (And they have explained this
> over and over, but some people seem to refuse to note this)

I said nothing, either for or against, "councilists" or
"anarcho-syndicalists" but if any of them have said what I said I have yet
to see it. The councilists that I have read did not talk about going
beyond work, only about workers taking over control of work. If I've
missed something (always possible) I'd like to know the precise
references.

> But the
> difference is not to play word games which are misleading.  To go around
> and say "I am more revolutionary than you because the work I believe in is
> not called "work"!, whereas the rest of us, who support the same outcome,
> simply do not believe in abandoning the term "work" because it's a part of
> the human language that describes something pretty well.  Work, no matter
> how neccesary or desireable it may be, will still always be "work"..
> from collecting food to cleaning the toilet.

First, I never said anything that even remotely resembles  "I am more
revolutionary than you," not even remotely. This is a totally unwarranted
and gratuitous attack.

Second, that the word "work" is
currently part of the English language (hardly the human language, there
being no such thing) is obvious. It has been around a long time but its
meaning has changed enormously. The Oxford English Dictionary alone has
almost ten pages!! devoted to grappling with the word. And a little
etymological research will reveal how modern the various words for "work"
are in different languages. Words change; the meanings that people
attribute to them change. The meaning of the phenomena they denote change
and that is a basic reason why language changes. To cleave blindly to a
word, questioning neither its origins, nor its uses, nor the nature of the
phenomena it is supposed to designate leads nowhere.

>
> If you insist on people no longer using words like "work" or "production"
> then you'll have to enforce this somehow in some authoritartian manner. If
> people will naturaly stop using those terms on their own, so be it.. but
> I doubt it will happen.
>
>  - JH
>

"Insist"? How peculiar. "enforce...in some authoritarian manner"?? Where
do you pluck these ideas from? I suggest that in creating new
worlds we need new concepts and new words appropriate to those worlds
--just like people have always done down through history-- and you react
to such a suggestion as if it threatened a forcible violation of your
mind. How utterly bizarre.

Harry

............................................................................
Snail-mail:
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA

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(off) (512) 475-8535
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Cleaver homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index2.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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