From: "FoofighterPilot" <cwright-AT-megapathdsl.net>
Subject: Re: AUT: Is A New Magna Carta Kautskyist? Prescriptive or Descriptive
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 00:47:01 -0400


"Our "aristocracies" are thus in the position, in return for their support,
to demand a new social, political, and economic arrangement - a new global
order.

What would be the content of a new global Magna Carta today? Peace and
security are obviously important objectives. Putting an end to unilateralist
military adventures and the seemingly interminable state of global war is a
fundamental condition.

It is also important, however, to renew global productive forces and bring
the entire global population into the circuits of production and exchange.
Priorities such as eliminating poverty and absolving the debts of the
poorest countries would not in this context be acts of charity, but efforts
aimed at realizing the productive potential that exists in the world.

Another priority would be reversing the processes of privatization and
creating common access to necessary productive resources - such as land,
seeds, information, and knowledge. Making resources common is necessary for
the expansion and renewal of creative and production potentials, from
agriculture to internet technologies.

We can already recognize some movements that can indicate a path toward the
creation of such a new Magna Carta. The demands of the "group of 22" at the
Cancún meetings of the WTO for more equitable agricultural trade policies,
for example, is one step towards reforming the global system. More
generally, the international alliances tentatively articulated by Lula's
government in Brazil within Latin America and more broadly indicate possible
bases for global reconstruction.

Taking the lead from the governments of the global South in this manner is
one way for the aristocracies to orient their project of the renewal of
productive forces and energies in the global economic system."

First, it is "aristocracies" and not Our which is in quotes.  One might
think that aristocracies was less deserving of quotes and the distance of
quotes incumbent upon "our".  But that is small.

Secondly, the idea that a Magna Carta of capitalist states could bring about
the elimination of poverty in the poorest (or any) countries is nutty.

Thirdly, there is a weirdly productivist turn to all this.

Fourthly, reversing privatization and creating common access?  Who?  The
states?

Fifthly, is it me or is the working class//proletariat/multitude very absent
in all of this?

Lowe and Martin may defend Negri and Hardt's right to 'speak as they
please', but I suspect that we are within our right to argue that their
words have a meaning with which we might disagree, a political content in
line with its form, one which hopes that the aristocracies take their lead
from the (non-?) aristoratic states of 'the South'.

And then dragging Marx's corpus in, out of context, still fresh from rolling
over in his grave!  122 years after Marx's death, one might well recognize
that there is little that needs to be done by way of fostering the growth of
the proletariat or of overcoming pre-capitalist social relations impeding
the development of revolutionary forces.  Marx's arguments stemmed from
considerations of what might best lead to the end of class society at the
hands of the proletariat.  There seems scant trace of that in this,
unless... unless... you can find a basis to argue that Negri and Hardt are
secretly saying (because it is not explicit here or in earlier discussions
of this same sort) that this is necessary for a global recomposition of
labor.

If that is the case, it is an interesting point.  The question still remains
if it is up to us to foster that growth.  Is it the task (hmmm, 'job'?) of
communists to revive capital's productive exploitation of labor?  But in the
current situation, is not such a turn around important to a new sense of
strength?  Or does this simply involve typically positivist notions of
class?

In any case, whether or not this is a new Kautskyism is less interesting.
Also, what the Leninists say is even less than less interesting.  Who cares?
One version of state capitalism calling another state capitalism.

But that is more important, maybe.  Is this not what Negri and Hardt are
calling for?  A new kind of state capitalism?  For it will not be the
corporate cuerpo which will engender such a project.  Nay, it is a call for
that new sovereignty to assert itself and that risks its consolidation into
a more unified state power, into a consolidation of capitalist power at a
more global level in the form of a globalized welfare state.

Are we then wrong to ask why we should support such goals?

I mean, it certainly seems more practical, but that kind of practicality is
always the basis of a severe political regression.  When the night is
darkest, one does not dim the fire but stoke it to burn brighter.  More than
ever, a refusal of such chilly 'pragmatism' seems incumbent upon us.

cheers,
Chris



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