From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: Re: AUT: Marazzi's La Place des Chaussettes
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 16:11:21 +0200



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "michael goddard" <goddardmichael-AT-hotmail.com>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 8:46 AM
Subject: RE: AUT: Marazzi's La Place des Chaussettes


<< ... from my reading of other works by Negri, the sense
I have is that the multitude is supposed to work in a more
Spinozian way. In this sense the multitude and empire
cannot form a dialectical opposition as two forces in a 
master vs' slave, proletariat vs. bourgeoisie model (to
produce a Hegelian synthesis), since in a sense the
multitude is not a sector of society but all of society in
its productivity or even in its being: inasmuch as there 
is productivity, creation, innovation, existence there is
the multitude: the multitude is all of society in its
constitutive dynamic sense.... "

I will let the Spinozian versus Hegelian thing rest, apart
from that the "proletariat vs. bourgeoisie model" quite
abviously is among other things crucial in the the thought
of Marx (Bakunin etc ), and in my navity I thought it also
was a perspective shared by people on this list.  But maybe
the Spinozians have already abolished the class struggle? 
Be that as it is, in the book "Multitude," Negri and Hardt
still claim that the multitude is a class concept (however
muddled it is ) and as such certainly does not comprise
"all of society".

<<This parasitic relation cannot be a dialectics since the
multitude does not need to be anything other than what
it already is: >>

Sounds like a terrible prospect .. 

 
As for the book, after first reading found most of it
of it quite terribble on analytical and theoretical level,
even if I genuinely appreciate that some still tries to
write a great narrative, even if it ends up with "The
New Science of Democracy: Madison and Lenin".  But
that is to be expected I suspect, by people who manage
to make Spinoza into a political superstar.
I despite all found the relative most interesting parts
to be Negri and Hardt's thoughts on the contradictions
within the Master class, and the possible developments
within the Empire .. as for instance towards what they
call a new global Magna Charta ( imposed by the "aristocracy" on
the "king" ).  That the reason they give for that such a
thing might at all arise, severly undermines just about 
everything they write about " the multitude", on value, 
"the poor," etc-  is another thing. But the abillity to think 
beyond the current relations between nation states, 
whatever their concrete analysis might lack ( a lot ), is
in itself of considerable value, I believe. This as well as
at all within the framework of a probably bestseller
advocating that "another world is possible". But a good
book it is not. Very far from it. Seen in isolation, it
might as well better be past by in silence. The most interesting
thing might be to see its recepetion in the liberal and
leninist milieus, as well as in the mainstream media.

Harald


     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---