Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 07:12:27 +1000
From: Steve Wright <pmargin-AT-optusnet.com.au>
Subject: Re: AUT: Fwd: [VT_THEORY] on empire and negri




Martin Hardie wrote:

> On Thursday 26 August 2004 18:54, mj wrote:
> > As for Martin's point,

You should be so lucky - the only point *I* have is on the top of my head ;-)

> Hey before this become some ideological mistake on my part and becomes known
> as "Martin's point" what I was saying is that Hardt clearly in his thesis
> sees a link between forms of production and forms of organisation. He even
> has a nice little table to set it out for you. And of course this is carried
> on in Empire. I never tried to suggest that wobblies and anarchists should be
> blurred out of the picture. Jeez. Nevertheless I think there is a lot of
> validity in what he says. Maybe another way to tackle it is to wonder if
> Wobblies and Anarchists are examples of forms of organisation that are
> consonant with the modernist form of production (can i call it that without a
> stream of abuse??)

No, Martin, I didn't think you were trying to 'blur' anyone [pauses to look up
the meaning of 'consonant' again] - it would be interesting to revisit the book
Workers Against Work on this front - I *think* it's online somewhere - as well
as Bologna's 1967 essay on the council movement, IWW and Lenin.

>
> >
> > Yeah, and I think there might have been some anarchists in Russia at the
> > time too... they helped out with the revolution or something...

touche. In terms of the relationship between the organisation and work and class
forms, did anarchists organising in Russian workplaces develop craft-based,
industrial-based or territorial-based forms of organisation? Or some
combination? And what was their take on the existing 'technical' division of
labour? - eg was it seen as rational but deformed by capitalist 'parasites'? Or
did it need to be completely overturned? Sorry, I don't know enough about their
work to answer these questions, but they are relevant to the discussion.

>
> >
> > MJ
> >
> >
> >
> > ps
> >
> > in 1922, AFTER crushing the Makhnovists, the commune at Kronstadt, etc.,
> > etc., Lenin authorized a bunch of Wobbly settlers to set up an experimental
> > "autonomous colony" in the Urals:
> >
> > http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/russia/kuzbass_colony.html

Which reminds me - by the early twenties (suggesting there is a connection with
the colony you mention is drawing a long bow, but the timing is interesting)
there was at least one circle in the IWW - around the journal Industrial Pioneer
- who shared Lenin's enthusiasms for scientific management ...

Steve




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