From: ".: s0metim3s :." <s0metim3s-AT-optusnet.com.au>
Subject: RE: AUT: RE: The "Multitude" and Rights
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 01:44:48 +1000


Lowe,

: But one can't forget through all of
: this that the passage TO the beyond of
: capitalism requires in a sense that one
: move through it.

Ok, but this begs two questions.  First, to what
extent is this a restatement of the proposition
that communism is only possible given a certain
stage of development of capitalism?  Of course, it
might be possible that this 'moving through' means
something other than its usual stagist,
transitional expression, which is fine.  But this
still leaves a second question, whatever the
answer given to the first: does this 'moving
through' oblige us (or Negri) to cast its
ostensibly more progressive aspects in the form of
a destiny, freedom and telos?  I really don't
think it does.  But this is what N&H do.

: And also, how does one force capital's
: (its relations) progression beyond
: itself? It doesn't do it all on its
: own. They've always happened because of
: crises. Roadblocks that it couldn't get
: around, demands that just had to be met
: or else all turns to shit.

But whose role is it to specify the appropriate
reforms for capitalism?  There's a lot to be said
here, but I'll just say this: panic merchandising
invariably produces cretinisation and is geared
toward recruiting among the middle class terrified
of falling ever further than they already have
into "chaos."  N&H's (in particular Hardt's)
'Empire or Barbarism' formulations are a repeat of
the 'Socialism or Barbarism' schtick.  The point
is certainly not that there isn't any urgency. The
point is that there always has been urgency. It's
only one-tenthm or probably less, of the world's
population that forms the audience for such
panics, as a form of suasion. For that one-tenth
the production of the panic closes the distance
between the problem (what the problem is) and its
ostensible solutions, and stops people from
thinking about whether these are in fact solutions
to the problem at hand.  So, before I'm persuaded
that it'll all turn to shit unless we have global
citizenship, I need to be persuaded that global
citizenship is not in fact a more diffuse and
extensive shithole to find oneself in.

Persuade me that I shouldn't be prepping the
spaceship for Mars.

My sense is that N&H imagine this is necessary for
some kind of verification of the dramaturgy of the
_Communist Manifesto_ -- and at last, we are
forced to face, etc, etc.  Global recomposition of
the working class brought about by universal
"inclusion," etc.  That may well be the tendency
of capitalism, and it may not be. Only Archimedes
could say for sure; and I like my sci fi with the
fi made explicit.  But I certainly do not see
myself -- or anyone else I would count as radical,
which includes treating others in something other
than a mercenary ideological fashion -- as playing
the role of cheering that on, as either or both
freedom or destiny.

: Maybe I'm
: not completely grasping why the
: discussion of "exclusion" bothers you.

Two questions, then: do you think that the
unemployed are excluded?  Do you think those who
are interned in Australia's camps are excluded?

On a hypothetical global state: forget for a
moment how nation-states function within an
international complex. Rather, think about how
nation-states function internally, and are
increasingly doing so: the difference between
active and passive forms of citizenship; the
creation of zones of extra-legality; and so on.

Angela
_______________

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