File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0111, message 11


Subject: AUT: Empire, inter- imperialist conflict and Rogue States
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 15:22:39 +1100
From: "Project / Advocate Officer " <project-AT-guild.unsw.edu.au>


Hi Everyone,

I would like to make a few methodological points about Empire. I do not
agree with all of Negri and Hardt's claims, but I have the feeling that
some comrades tend to foreclose the significance of the book's argument
by taking the approach that globalisation continue to be fundamntally
the same type of capitalist and imperialist system.

I do not think most people in this list disagree that capitalism
continue to be fundamentally the same system as it was 100 years ago.
However, I think Zizek has made a really good point when he argues that
Marxist dialectics is not about to find the points of communality
between one moment of capitalism and another. Marxist dialectics is
about conceptualising the "split", the point of difference and
antagonism that separates the past from the present. What revolutinary
dialectics seeks the conceptualise is the exception that confirms the
general rule, not the general rule itself. Only by doing this we can
really adapt our political practice to the present circumstances. If we
say that capitalism has always been the same the statement as no
political significance, and would mean to say that our political
practice should remain static

The second point Zizek made is that conceptualsing this "split" is
crucial because it is around this rupture that the fundamentals of
capitalism as a mode of production are structured in th enew period. For
instance, none could deny that the industrial working class has grown
drastically over the last twenty years, confirming the  historical trend
since the industrial revolution. This is a constant factor within the
system that, while important, it has only a relative political value.
The central dialectical point is to talk about class composition, and
class composition is not simply about the quantity of workers but
quality of workers. In that respect, today's point of split between the
old and new working class is that capitalist production and
profitability is sustained by highly immaterial, casualised and
communicational forms of labour, from the street vendor selling japanese
watches in the street of lime to the computer techniciam in Silicon
valley. This does not deny the existence of the industrial working
class, of its political importance, but we need to reconise that
industrial production is overdermined and structured by circuits of
production and communication that are outside the factory.

The same is true for the issues of imperialism and Empire. Empire does
not deny inter-capitalist riveries, but what the point of writing a book
if your are going to keep making the same point that was made about the
system 20 or 30 years ago. Empire attempts to conceptualise the "split",
it might have done badly, maybe, but it is necessary focus on the
"split" as a term of reference for the debate.

At least as I understood Empire, is that world capitalism function in
networks, therefore, there are different power relations at play all the
time. Empire is not to say that the ruling class is an homogeneous
class. In fact, Empire argues completely the opposite, that ruling class
power at global level is based on dispersion of powers from below,
including NGOs. Empire is not a structure, it is an open field of
antagonism, it is a dynamic of power relations where there is not
central emperors. The attempt by the US to hegemonise this process is
simply a single aspect of  all the game.

The central issue in Empire is the question of the nation state and the
transference of sovereignity to a global space. There is an
inter-capitalist conflict and competition, but this is extremly unlike
to take the form ( and this is my claim not Negri's)of an
inter-imperialist conflict like WW1 or WW2s. I think that is major point
of difference between Imperialism and Empire if we want to undertand the
current war. 

The terrain of this inter-capitalist conflict need to been seen from the
point of view of capital's own class composition. In recent, interview
Negri analysed this conflict not as a conflict between nation states but
a conflict between the "dollar taliban" and the "oil taliban". He does
not say it but it seems to me that this conflict is truly global one;
meaning that the trenches do not take the form necessarily of nation
state battling each other, but it is battle between two imperial network
of capital. alQaeda is simply a massive financial network, with an armed
wing, a mass ideological appeal and whose development perhaps was
facilitated by the deregulation of capital markets over the last twenty
years. The fact that alQaeda has been always really based in Saudi
Arabia but extended its tentacles all over the world shows the
complexity of capital movements and how these shape the map of the
conflict beyond the national terrain.

I do not think Negri and Hardt describe Rogue networks (alQaeda) or
States (Irak, Taliban) as outside the Empire. Rogue State are precisely
part of the make up of Empire as pirates where part of the make up of
the colonial world. (Please keep in mind that when I use the word
pirates I do not mean it in a pejorative sense. I quite like some
pirates myself).There is not Empire without Rogue elements, the
important thing is not to confine the existence of Rogue elements to the
"Third World", the US military is already full of them. Think about
Timothy Macvain for instance.


Cheers

Sergio


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
[mailto:owner-aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Richard
Bailey
Sent: jueves, 01 de noviembre de 2001 12:26
To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Empire and oil


> the problem is that i don't see any rivalries.
> everyone keeps talking about
> them, but no one (that i have seen) has given any
> evidence of them.

I thought the article that was posted by the
ex-military guy pointed out all sorts of rivalries
associated with the myriad of different pipeline
routes. Russia wants a route that goes through its
territory so it can charge fees etc, the US wants one
through Turkey etc.

Another example is the formation of the GUAAM group of
Eurasian countries refered to in the article.

 
> from my perspective, the overwhelming global support
> for this action from
> the ruling class(es) lends a lot of credence to the
> theory of empire.
> 
> but that's just me...

Not necessarily. Countries that are looking after the
their own interests are still likely to back the US in
a matter like this because they don't want to be on
the global bullies bad side.

I have another question, What about India/Pakistan
China/Taiwan, the Balkans? Do Negri and Hardt describe
these as "Rogue states" outside of Empire?

Richard

____________________________________________________________
Nokia Game is on again. 
Go to http://uk.yahoo.com/nokiagame/ and join the new
all media adventure before November 3rd.


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