From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: AUT: Re: empire... response to chris
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 00:43:18 -0500


Hey commie00


> heya chris
>
> i think we differ in presupposition on some of this. but i'll leave that
for
> now, and just as that when i discuss "empire", i'm not trying to defend
> hardt and negri and their positions (some of which i actually find
> reprehensible), but using the concept they sorta flushed out in the book
and
> applying my own annalysis of specific situations and examples... so...
>
> > As for Empire, I think it is radically wrong.  I do not think that we
have
> > some new post-national world.
>
> i think i've stated more than once that it seems to me that empire is made
> up of nations states in the process of becoming something along the lines
of
> the united states... that is: some kind of federation of nation-states.
>
> so: you are quite right to point out that the imf, etc. exist to
facilitate
> and deal with problems between nation-states, but so did the u.s. federal
> government initially (i mean its no accident that its the "united
states").
>
> from what i can tell, this has been the intention since the inception of
the
> league of nations, and was furthered by becoming the u.n., and given an
> economic arm at bretton woods.

I am not sure this analogy holds up.  From 1787 on, the Federal government
was very much a central power managing subordinate states.  Admittedly,
states' rights flares up whenever something really reactionary has to
happen, but this is always within the context of political struggle that
assumes the Federal body.  The UN and other such institutions have no such
power.  The US has violated the UN constantly.  The UN is largely only able
to impose itself by military threat, which makes the US the final arbiter in
many cases.  Look at how hard the EU has been to impose.  The qualifications
set by Germany (reduction of deficit to 3% of GNP and debt to 60% will cause
either massive crisis in Europe or a reorganization of the EU or the terms
of joining) are the source of major conflict and NOT finished.  This is only
in the context of Europe.  At the same time, each of the three regional
powers are trying to set up regional economic/political units that they
control (FTAA for US and Western hemisphere; Japan and attempts to set up an
Asian area, which is not going so well; and the EU.)  Why should we suppose
that the decomposition of the working class in one way will benefit all of
them?  They have will benefit differentially.  In the end, that may be
decisive, as resistance means that what is needed and what is possible make
enemies of our erstwhile G8 friends, much less the poorer countries.

> > First, capital was already global and the national state was already
> defined
> > as part of global capital, as a moment of global capital.
>
> i think this is a key disagreement. in my reading of history national
> capital proceeded global capital by a long shot, and the expansion of
nation
> capitals was the cause of imperialist wars (imperialism, intially, was
> understood as the expansion of a specific national capitals).

Where was capital not already stretched out across the world by the 16th
century?  Discovery of the Western Hemisphere, whaling in all the seas,
trade with the Middle East and Africa, slavery, the spice trade with East
Asia, and so on!  The capital-labor relation was not globalized in this
period, in so far as the majority of the world lived in subjection to
capital as something external, often as something political and military.
The move from the formal subsumption to the real subsumption has been
recent, and that is a unique difference.  But capital is global from the
get-go.  Colonialism (which comes AFTER capital launches itself as
world-historical) spreads nation states and the formal subsumption of labor.
The states which come into being after the colonial period are even more so
directly subordinated to capital as they have the task of extending the
capital-labor relation within their borders to facilitate their ability to
attract capital on the world market.  However, under the formal subsumption,
where the capital-labor relation is not yet dominant in every place, capital
often appears national, as does the state.  Colonialism enforced the formal
subsumption, even as it often hindered the real subsumption.  The end of
colonialism opened the way for that process to change and that has happened
in the last 50 years or so.

> capital took on a global prscense thru the colonialism of various european
> national capitals and the united states, who eventually had to hammer out
> their differences in world war one (and then, with the addition of china
and
> japan, in world war two). but what you had in these wars was national
> capitals teaming up against other national capitals... these team-ups
> eventually formed the backbone of empire, thru the unification of most
> countries in the u.n., and the polaization of nato / gatt and the warsaw
> pact *within* the u.n.

I think that WWI and II represented the battle over who would control the
regions without a real subsumption of labor to capital.  After all, when the
subsumption is formal, it still appears as exterior and not yet
self-propelling.  But it was the colonial revolutions, and not the UN or any
lessons learned by the capitalist powers, which actually propelled the real
subsumption of labor.  Often, local development happened in spite of the US,
Japanese and European capital (some of it happened during WWII, when
European industry was effectively non-existent in the soon to be ex-colonies
and the independent poorer countries.)  At the same time, manufacturing
being shifted out of the G8 and replaced by various service industries (new
areas of accumulation, hopefully), in response to recalcitrant and expensive
G8 workers also furnished the ground for industrialization of the Majority
World.

GATT, WTO, etc IMO are still strategic responses to the failure to decompose
the working class globally after all these years.  But they are still
strategic moves which may fail.  They have no logical necessity that would
make us say "Well, that's a done deal."  And the resistance of the working
class to that strategy can explode the coalitions currently formed.  That
could lead to the collapse of this whole attempt and then Empire might be
for naught.

> > The global
> > capital-labor relation defined the political as the whole from which the
> > nationa state appeared as the part.
>
> i guess what i object to here is the lack of historical analysis to back
up
> this claim. in my studies i've found no evidence that a "global
> capital-labor relation" predates nation-states. in fact, what i have found
> is the formation of nation-states and national-capitals in europe and the
> u.s. prior to the expansion of capitalism outside of europe and the u.s.

See above.  The Italian states, England, France, etc all came into being as
modern capitalist states only in relation to the formation of the world
market, only in relation to each other.  At first, they do so only under the
rising formal subsumption.  Later, their predicate becomes the real
subsumption.  This is important to understand, that the predicate can become
the end and the end the predicate at different moments.

> > He
> > takes national states and national capital as his starting point and
> thinks
> > we have reached global labor and global capital and hence a global state
> > only now.
>
> the globalization of capital at the end of the 19th begining of the 20th
> century required the formation of some sort of global state(-like) body,
> just as the formation of national-capital requires the formation of a
> nation-state. you can't have global class relations without a means of
> enforcing those class relations, methinks.

No doubt capital is trying to find organizational forms that meet the scale
of development.  Certainly, global regulatory bodies are necessary.  But
global regulatory bodies currently have a voluntary status (you can quit the
WTO), little means of enforcement except military might, which is largely
US, and except for the WTO, no binding status.  To the extent that this is
not true, it is generally the poorer countries which are subordinated to
these agencies because they are subordinated to the dominantion of the
majority of world capital by the US, Europe and Japan.

Also, why should capital want to expose itself to international attack.
Already, the WTO has been a source of resistance, a focus point.  Capital
can manage the world in a decentralized manner if that is what is required
to save itself (it still may not be enough, at least, let's hope it isn't.)

> now, there is no doubt that the formation of empire has been rocky and
> difficult, given the conflicting interests between national capitals, but
> this doesn't mean it isn't happening. in fact, all it does is give the
> constituion of empire: some kind of federation of nation-states. and just
as
> the borders between states in the u.s. are only marginally important, as
> empire develops (and i think the only thing that could stop it is global
> revolution) the borders of nation-states will become more meaningless.

Meaningless for who???  Nobody dies going from Tennessee to Illinois but
thousands die every year going from Mexico to Texas.  And look at the
current state of things, with the borders becoming vastly more militarized
as the recomposition of labor in the US depends in part on increasing
nationalism.  Borders have become MORE important and more policed and that
is why Prop 187 in Cali was such a huge deal and goes hand-in-hand with
globalization.

> look no further than the corporate media (at least in the u.s.) the last
few
> weeks for a sort of evidence of the ruling classes attempts to sit in this
> sorta-contradiction: we have been inundated with not only nationalism, but
a
> strange kind of internationalism geared to show the people's of the world
> united against terrorism. maybe i've been reading too much into this, but
it
> is interesting in the light of my studies of empire.

See above.  Certainly, the US media and politicians NEED the US public to
believe that the US is loved all over except by crazy fanatics (and what is
up with the Taliban dude with the eye patch?  Talk about the exact media
image the US wants!)  The US is not pushing internationalism, but trying to
douse the idea that the US (the state and corporations, at least) is hated
internationally by a great many people.  Otherwise, they might ask WHY.  And
WHY is bad.  I don't think it is much more than that.

> > Second, the WTO, the GATT, the IMF and World Bank, etc are all composed
of
> > national states and are bodies for resolving disputes between national
> > governments.  The case of Venezuela beating the US is not a sufficient
> > instance to pose that this is a nationally neutral or non-national body.
> > Rather, look at the structure of the WTO.  To run the WTO you need full
> time
> > lawyers and members, access to the tribunals, etc.  Needless to say, the
> G8
> > dominate those positions and have the money to stock full-time laywers.
> The
> > majority of decisions adversly affect the porrer countries, who do not
> have
> > the resources to and the access to capital to benefit from decisions to
> > "open up" countries.
>
> and this is precisely what the african delegates to the round in seattle
> were upset about. they (and dont' forget that those delegates represented
> the ruling class of their countries) want more power within the wto (and
the
> imf / wb, etc.), for it to be more equalized... and if you look at the
> agenda for the round in quatar, that's pretty much what its all about.
these
> delegates and the ruling class they represent do not operate, nor do they
> want to operate, outside of empire, but within it. and they are demanding
> equalization, and i imagine that they will get it because that is what
these
> organizations were set up to do.

Well that's a question, isn't it?  Why should the G8 give up this advantage?
I DON'T see it happening.  It would mean recreating the WTO from scratch.
IMO, the WTO and such represent the means to enforce financial, fiscal, and
trade-related changes through a vehicle which is less susceptible to
political pressure.  The Majority World gov'ts may like this in many ways
since they can avoid blame ("The WTO made us do it.")  I never said they did
not have reasons.  In fact, all of these states have always sought a more
equitable organization of capital.  The problem is that every state exists
only to pull the most capital within its borders (managing the working class
is part and parcel of this process, among other things), which is to say,
within its jurisdiction.  This means that states do compete, representing
capitalists who want to accumulate the largest amount of global capital and
insure their ability to reproduce at the highest level.  Why should the G8
give up that advantage in the WTO?  It is not like those regimes in the
Majority World will turn anti-capitalist!!  At best, they can use
nationalist methods which throws 'empire' into disarray.  In fact, the G8
may find themselves in the same position depending, as I said before, on the
outcome of class conflicts.

> >  The US, Europe and Japan do.  Who will benefit from
> > intellectual property rights?  98% of all inventions in Africa have been
> > patented by foreign companies in Europe and the US.
>
> take a closer look at those companies: who composes their board of
> directors? esp. the local board of directors... being "based" in europe
and
> the u.s. (or japan) is essentially meaningless, and does not indicate a
> certain national composition to their top brass. all it indicates is tax
> brakes, military protection, less-militant working classes, etc.

Being based in those places is not meaningless at all.  You underestimate
the benefits you list.  You also underestimate the fact that most FDI takes
place within the G8 triangle (Japan-US-Western Europe).  You also are not
looking at boards of directors realistically.  Just because only 60% of the
board is from the US (a rather rare situation at that), that is more than
sufficient.  Just as 30% stock ownership is sufficient to dominate a
company.

> > If anything, these bodies reflect the three power blocs creating more
> means
> > of resolving disputes while incorporating the Majority World into the
> > process.
>
> but these "three power blocs" are changing composition drastically and
> including "third world" countries.


> it is easy to scape-goat "western" or whatever national-capitals for this
> (out of habit, or whatever, i guess), but it doesn't really stand up to
> research. just spend some time looking at the websites for the wto and
such,
> and corporations, etc. (and i'll tell ya, you really have to dig for some
of
> this info). and go back thru fortune magazine and the wall street journal
> and all of those rags since the fall of the warsaw pact... lots of crazy
> stuff in there too. you'll be shocked... i was.

Who is scape goating?  That would assume I blame the states of the G8 for
the condition of the world.  Clearly, that is absurd.  And what Western?
Japan is not 'Western'.  Japan is a developed capitalist power.  I think it
does stand up to research.  I think you do not take the power imbalances in
the international bodies seriously enough.  This does not mean that they
would not like the level of integration you are talking about, but I don't
think they can achieve it.  Interestingly, I think that class struggle has
entered your discussion nowhere.  You assume the seamless achievement of the
process as if it were a kind of capital-logic.

> > They are defninitely bodies designed to integrate the poorer
> > states into closer relations with the richer states and to destroy
> anything
> > that stands in the way of profitability in those countries.  But in
> relation
> > to global labor, the nation state is more prominent and powerful (the
> > destruction of the social safety net, imposition of policing and border
> > management, enforcement of debt collection, etc) than ever before.
>
> no argument from me. but this does not mean that empire doesn't exist.
>
> > And in relation to corporations, they are still extremely national in
> their
> > leadership and headquarters.  A few noticable exceptions do not make for
a
> > qualitative shift.
>
> there are more than a few. i think it was the wall street journal (or
maybe
> fortune... uhg) a few months ago (i should really start keeping this
> stuff... but i'm an anti-pack rat... maybe i should start making
scrapbooks
> or something) who, in response to some of the anti-globalization stuff
which
> says what you just said here, did an article about how more than half of
> fortune 500 companies are not sigularly national in their leadership. and
> that most of them (of the more than half, that is) are distinctly
> international, esp in regards to "third world" representation.
>
> but even if this was not so, we could think of this in terms of tendency:
if
> this is becoming increasingly more true, why wouldn't it continue to
become
> more true... just as the equalization within the international bodies is
> becoming more true.
>
> > The recomposition of labor and capital is simply not done.  Negri is
wrong
> > more than anything because the process is not over yet.
>
> actually, in one quick defense of them, in teh book they state over and
over
> again that its far from done.
>
> > Empire is not yet here.
> > Globalization is neither inevitable nor finished.
>
> i think you're thinking of this too much in terms of a black and white
> relationship, very undialectically... empire is here, but not perfect. and
i
> doubt it will ever be perfect. there will always be conflicts, just as
there
> are still (relatively minor, easily dealt with in the federal system)
> conflicts between states within the u.s.

Well, it sure seems to me that if Empire is basically here, then the
reomposition of labor by capital has succeeded, even if it is now going to
be processing this change for a while.  This all has the ring of
inevitability.  There is nothing we can do to stop it and capital can do
nothing else.  That is written all over this piece and all over "Empire".  I
am not being undialectical (Negri and Hardt would say, quite proudly, that
they ARE being non-dialectical), but refusing to see the move from crisis to
recomposition as given, as always-already assumed.  I think the crisis is
still going on and that capital has yet to find an adequate form because it
has not yet adequately subordinated labor in a new mode.  Therefore, Empire
is NOT here.  Empire could, maybe, be one direction, but others are still
open, including the deepening of the crisis and the recomposition of the
working class in our favor.

> as for inevitability: according to marx, it has to happen for capitalism
to
> survive, and the only thing that can stop it is global revolution. i
agree.
>
> >  And there is no more one
> > international capitalist class than there is one international working
> > class.
>
> by this same logic i could say that there is no more one national
capitalist
> class in the u.s. than there is one working class in the u.s. i mean: the
> composition of labor in chicago is different that the composition of labor
> here in west virginia, let alone divisions between races, etc. etc.

Exactly.  And in so far as separation is the acme of capital, capital always
fractures reality into smaller and smaller pieces.  Even states fracture and
recompose (war, revolution, civil war, etc) constantly.  However, where the
capital-labor relation is most stable and secure, so is the political form,
since it has no pressure to force it to change itself radically.  The US has
been much more stable than even Continental Europe, much less the rest of
the world.  The stability of the state has been a part of the cohesion of
national ruling classes and where the national state collapses, so does the
capitalist class.  That does not do away with the capital-labor relation
though.  Castro did not get rid of capital, but the bulk of the capitalist
class did flee to Miami.

> besides the fact that this contradicts what you said above: if the
> capital-labor relation has always been global (prior to the formation of
the
> nation-state), then the ruling class (as the embodyment of capital) and
the
> working class (as the embodiment of labor) have always been global as well
> (and thus one of my major disagreements with you).

Yes, this is a major disagreement.  The global nature of the relation does
not imply the global unity of classes.  The working class, in fact, is more
given towards unity in so far as the exctraction of surplus value provides a
running thread, but even then, unity and recomposition are political
projects, processes of struggle, not givens.  To conflate the capital-labor
relation with the capitalist class is a very serious error, IMO.  This or
that capitalist class can come into existence or cease to be without
fndamentally undermining the capital-labor relation (look at Russia, Cuba,
China, Vietnam, etc.)  So it does not contradict it at all.  It retains my
point that global capital-labor relation does NOT translate into immediatley
global classes or immediately global structures of power.

> and by this same logic, if capital is in any sense global now, than the
> ruling class (as the embodyment of capital) must also be global.

Again, no.

> from all of this: its not hard to understand that the working class is
> international, but is successfully decomposed by capital along national
and
> other lines. and that, in fact, it has always been the
internationalization
> of labor (thru migration, solidarity / recomposition, etc.) that has
forced
> global bodies into existance in an effort to deal with us. if we weren't
> constantly recomposing ourselves against capitalism then they would have
no
> need for the state, the spectacle, etc.

Indeed, without class struggle, no need for the state.  On that we agree.
Its all the details and implications that we are not in agreement on :)

Cheers,
Chris



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