From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?"pierre b=E9land" <millikanMap-AT-bigfoot.com>?=
Subject:  Re: [Fwd: [CSL]: Will high-tech chaos finally give birth...
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 02:25:05


Hello,From: Mary Murphy&Salstrand <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 22:05:14 -0600
Reply-To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

 
One of the most provocative books I have come across lately is "Reading
Capital Politically" by Harry Cleaver.  It is an interpretation of
Chapter One of Marx's "Capital" concerning the labor theory of value.

The book that was originally published in 1979, about the same time
period as "The Postmodern Condition."  Aspects of the book are
admittedly somewhat outdated today.  For example, Cleaver talks quite a
bit about the problem of inflation.  (When was the last time you heard
that raised as an issue?)

Nonetheless, the book still has important things to say.  The current
lack of reception of  Marx stems primarily from two sources.  One of
these comes from reading Marx as a political economist; the other from
reading him as the philosopher of dialectical materialism.  Both of
these interpretations tend to find Marx a bit outdated, superceded by
the latest svelte trends of our very postmodern history.  These
objections find echoes in Lyotard's comments regarding metanarratives in
TPC.  Why would anyone possibly bother to read Marx today?  

The point Harry Cleaver makes is that "Capital" is primarily a book of
politics.  Furthermore, it is not merely addressed to the so-called
"blue collar" proletarian working class, as typically assumed.  Instead
Cleaver points out; "we can define labor as a social system based on the
imposition of work through the commodity form."

What this means is that the mode of work, the job economy, tends to
organize everything under capitalism, precluding other possibilities of
life. It leads to a very regulated and dominated form of existence which
is strongly authoritarian in nature.  

Even activities which are not defined as work and certainly not paid,
such as being as housewife, a mother, a student; commuting, recreation,
etc.  tend to be an adjunct to work, existing in order to support it and
also produce new workers.

However, Cleaver also points out that this situation is not unilateral. 
The point is that workers possess autonomy and the history of the
industrial revolution has demonstrated both the struggle against and the
refusal of work.  Such autonomy even may go against the trade unions and
political parties which attempt to structure and shape workers into a
organized movement.  Time and again, spontaneous actions occur against
which the dominating class must respond.

In other words, the dynamic has something of a game-like structure. 
Workers are far from powerless.  The struggle to contest work has
brought about the eight hour day, the weekend, holidays, etc. and
various liberties and equalities under the law.

There has also been a ongoing development in the relationship between
work and productivity, leading to the spectre that eventually work
itself might become obsolete.  It is in the interests of the
contemporary power structure to maintain it only because it ultimately
is a form of domination which serves the interests of a political class.

I don't have the time here to go into further details about this book.
Instead, I recommend that others read it themselves.  (It is a fairly
short book - about 160 pages.)

I mention it because if it remains true that we are moving into the
society of control that Deleuze predicts, the traditional forms of union
organization may no longer be adequate to our needs, but this doesn't
mean new forms and structures cannot be developed.  

Which brings me back to Lyotard.  Cleaver mentions several groups who
arrived at a similar view of workers autonomy.  One was the Italian new
left, represented by Antonio Negri and others; another was the
Johnson-Forest Tendency, an American group; a third was the Socialisme
ou Barbarie group, to which Lyotard, of course was once a member. Even
though Cleaver refers only to Castoriadis and Lefort in his discussion
of this group, it is important to recognize that Lyotard's roots are
based in this affliation.

However, in a critique of Herbert Marcuse, Cleaver points to another
trait Lyotard shares.  Marcuse with his theories of co-option "cannot
see either the extent and difficulties of current capitalist attempts at
restructuring or how the continuing struggles of workers are thwarting
those efforts. Of this drama he can capture only the repressive side of
the capitalist offensive and falls back into a more or less traditional
leftist program of defense against authoritarian state capitalism via
the ideological struggles of Critical Theory."

Perhaps it is my own misreading, but it seems a similar charge could be
leveled against Lyotard, especially in his later writings. When he
writes about complexity in "The Inhuman" and "Postmodern Fables" he
appears to lapse at times into a nostalgic pessimism.

I would suggest reading "The Differend" as a political book, one that
can affirm complexity and the posthuman future of desiring machines, one
which may still be seen to have its roots in Marx, even as it refers to
Kant and Wittgenstein.  (Don't forget for all their faults, Kant wanted
to end the domination of man by man, to establish the Kingdoms of Ends;
Wittgenstein simply wanted to show the fly the way out of the bottle.)

Such an approach to revitalizing politics, however, cannot rest in
Lyotard alone.  I believe Foucault must be studied because he lays bare
the nature of power, the epistemes against which we struggle (even as
these in turn may change.) I also think Deleuze is necessary he invites
us to cast the dice on a thousand plateaus as we unfold new affirmations
out of the virtual, forming new assemblages; thereby creating a politics
of joy.

Certainly, others are necessary as well. But these three form a Trojan
horse within the city gates of the Global Empire.  Through them Marx
still has a legacy. History remains our unfinished business.

____________________Remaining Header Details____________________
Sender: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Received: from mail.virginia.edu (mail.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.9])	by spdmgaad.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.9) with SMTP id XAA25499;	Thu, 8 Feb 2001 23:05:08 -0500 (EST)
Received: from lists.village.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa03697;          8 Feb 2001 23:04 EST
Received: (from domo-AT-localhost)	by lists.village.Virginia.EDU (8.9.3/8.9.0) id XAA20783	for lyotard-outgoing; Thu, 8 Feb 2001 23:01:47 -0500 (EST)
X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.Virginia.EDU: domo set sender to owner-lyotard-AT-localhost using -f
Received: from gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net (gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net [207.217.121.85])	by lists.village.Virginia.EDU (8.9.3/8.9.0) with ESMTP id XAA20779	for <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>; Thu, 8 Feb 2001 23:01:42 -0500 (EST)
Received: from oemcomputer (dialup-166.90.87.159.Chicago1.Level3.net [166.90.87.159])	by gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net (EL-8_9_3_3/8.9.3) with SMTP id UAA02305	for <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>; Thu, 8 Feb 2001 20:01:37 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <3A836C7A.27EF-AT-earthlink.net>
X-Mailer: U)
References: <02BC79D202CCD4119DF900508BAEC80F2AA07D-AT-usa0111ms1.eng.mc.xerox.com> <002301c08f44$7e40d4e0$1f6ab818-AT-hughbone>
Sender: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Precedence: bulk
moâ