From: "commie00" <commie00-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: AUT: empire... response to chris
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 03:15:28 -0400


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.

> 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).

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.

> 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

> 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.

>  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.

> 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.

> 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.

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.

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).

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.

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.





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