File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0306, message 62


Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:35:21 +0100
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Globalization and Community




  Glen

Adifferent takke on the questions than Erics...

Difficult questions - three things step out of the below email and 
attract my attention - firstly the paragraph around "the nature of time 
and space and the flows of capital..." secondly the issue of "logistics" 
and thirdly the quesion of "class".

Two broad approaches seem worth emphasizing that of the hegalian line 
which you address in youjr references to Lefrebvre - I would merely add 
that Vanighen and Debords work is worth considering in this light. 
However at the moment I think that the most relevant recently published 
work might be Negri's text "Time for Revolution" which explores Negri's 
interest in the "philosophy of time and resistence". It's diveded  into 
two parts - a recent text which explores to interesting effect the 
issues of "empire" and the "multitude" and the "common" and an older 
text which investigates the "fracture lines that force capitalism into 
perpetual crisis".  [quote: "....From Bergson to Weil and Sartre of the 
Critique of Dialectical Reason wer find ourselves perpetually standing 
before a temporal universe that displays antagonism as the tension of 
constructive (and collective) time before nthe practico-inert, with all 
its heaviness, density and its insolubility. The idea of time is broken 
in this case as well - though it fails to tear itself away from an 
inertial, linear spatial conception and it is this that breaks it.  Only 
Marxism and the conception of displacement takes up the Kantian 
provocation of a time that is always internal-external hence always 
collective, foundational - and at once an antagonism...]  This leads 
iknto a discussion of the different times of living labour, and dead 
labour... I think that it is in the secound that the issue of 
"logistics" is addressable but there are other ways of thinking this 
issue..  Possibly through science and the philosophy of science (after 
all all scientific thought includes causality in its modes hence the 
more left end of the spectrum does contain some directly relevant 
thoughts - Serres springs to mind amoungst others) - notwithstanding 
this is a difficult area to approach. The social worker and the lack of 
socio-economic stability that has been the direct result of the 
neo-liberal counter-reformation  is perhaps the most direct way of 
understanding why the numbers of people who understand themselves as 
"working class" appears to be rising and this is best undertstood again 
 through Negri's work.

Did the comments Eric and I passed over regarding the differend help or 
is more detail and thought required ?

good luck...

regards
steve


Glen Fuller wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>This kind of relates to the question of globalisation and community 
>(speciffically Eric's comments below), as I have been trying to rethink 
>how people can still feel 'working class' and yet have middle class 
>jobs and earn middle class salaries...
>
>Being bitten by the materialist bug, and trying to reconnect my 
>observations of my modified-car enthusiast subjects with the spaces 
>they occupy, both material and social, it got me thinking about the 
>nature of time and space and the flows of capital in an automobilised 
>urban space in the much broader context of global flows of capital. 
>What got me thinking (about Virilio actually) was that Marx in Capital 
>attempted to track down the natural laws of movement, to reveal the 
>economic law of motion of modern society (92). Has there been a 
>marxist critique/analysis of the modern logistics (beyond Virilios 
>writing, which although definitely radical, is not necessarily 
>Marxist)? (Another question that was bugging me: If the everyday really 
>is the site of politics involving microphysics of power relations, then 
>what/who is being exploited in the present era of the third-way 
>middle class?)
>
>I dont mean logistics only in the sense of the mail or goods-
>delivery trucks, but the commodification of these flows of 
>the economic law of motion, and the time and space precipitated 
>(produced - if you are Lefebvrean) by them. So that a flow only becomes 
>an object when reified as chronological scientific time. Just for my 
>thinking through of urbanity and these car-dudes rather than a working 
>class or an owning (means of production) class, I was thinking 
>a 'logistical class', a class who is exploited through the production 
>of excess value inherent in the commodification of movement of/in time 
>and space. 
>
>
>A lot of my subjects work in service industries and the notion of 
>a 'working' class or 'owning' class simply does not work (at least not 
>in most of the cases). I know from my own experience of working in a 
>service station for 4 years while an undergrad, simply can not be 
>reconciled in the traditional notions of the two main traditional 
>classes. The discount uber-store colonises the fringes of the suburban 
>landscape and its bed fellow the miniature convenience store that fills 
>in the cracks (literally!!) left behind in the city (both in space- 
>proximity, and time  24/7, convenience as a commodity), thirdworld 
>sweatshop labour produces commodities for first world owners... all 
>involve the logistics of the *distribution* of commodities, from the 
>site of the end point of production (production as process - from the 
>cotton fields to the sewing machines) to the start of consumption 
>(consumption as a process - buyer to the practice of wearing). But it 
>is not only the distribution of commodities, but the movement of labour 
>(or the labour of movement) involved in filling the in-between of the 
>process of production to the process of consumption, and then the 
>before (production) and after (consumption) stages also involve a 
>process, a mutable movement, a logistics. 
>
>(I have often though about the psychoanalytic dimension, specifically 
>consumption-desire and logistics-the ethics of the upsell, but I 
>havent really thought about the materialist side.)
>
>I know I have a somewhat rudimentary understanding of Marxist thought 
>(mainly through D&G, and Lefebvre, who are not really Marxist Marxists, 
>ha!), but I thought I would ask here as this list seems to be the most 
>involved in Marxist understandings of the world ;). Any thoughts or 
>reading suggestions? I know there has been a massive body of work 
>around transport studies but this doesnt really discuss what I am 
>talking about (it is more policy that enables the continued 
>exploitation of this logistical class more than anything else). 
>
>Ciao,
>Glen.
>
>
>  
>
>>>In some respects it seems the small farmers were like a miner's 
>>>      
>>>
>canary -
>  
>
>>>an early warning sign of the impact of development and economic
>>>complexification upon all of us.  
>>>      
>>>
>
>  
>
>>>Not a simple return to nineteenth century world, but a more
>>>decentralized Jeffersonian world in which people are linked globally
>>>with information and communication technologies, but live out more
>>>ecological lives at the local level, growing their own food, making
>>>their own clothing, buildings and transportation, but doing in a 
>>>      
>>>
>manner
>  
>
>>>that utilizes both current knowledge and appropriate technology, 
>>>      
>>>
>slowing
>  
>
>>>things down to live out more contemplative meaningful lives, and 
>>>      
>>>
>taking
>  
>
>>>the arts out of the museums and galleries to bring them into everyday
>>>life in order to transform it.
>>>      
>>>
>
>  
>


HTML VERSION:

Glen

Adifferent takke on the questions than Erics...

Difficult questions - three things step out of the below email and attract my attention - firstly the paragraph around "the nature of time and space and the flows of capital..." secondly the issue of "logistics" and thirdly the quesion of "class".

Two broad approaches seem worth emphasizing that of the hegalian line which you address in youjr references to Lefrebvre - I would merely add that Vanighen and Debords work is worth considering in this light. However at the moment I think that the most relevant recently published work might be Negri's text "Time for Revolution" which explores Negri's interest in the "philosophy of time and resistence". It's diveded  into two parts - a recent text which explores to interesting effect the issues of "empire" and the "multitude" and the "common" and an older text which investigates the "fracture lines that force capitalism into perpetual crisis".  [quote: "....From Bergson to Weil and Sartre of the Critique of Dialectical Reason wer find ourselves perpetually standing before a temporal universe that displays antagonism as the tension of constructive (and collective) time before nthe practico-inert, with all its heaviness, density and its insolubility. The idea of time is broken in this case as well - though it fails to tear itself away from an inertial, linear spatial conception and it is this that breaks it.  Only Marxism and the conception of displacement takes up the Kantian provocation of a time that is always internal-external hence always collective, foundational - and at once an antagonism...]  This leads iknto a discussion of the different times of living labour, and dead labour... I think that it is in the secound that the issue of "logistics" is addressable but there are other ways of thinking this issue..  Possibly through science and the philosophy of science (after all all scientific thought includes causality in its modes hence the more left end of the spectrum does contain some directly relevant thoughts - Serres springs to mind amoungst others) - notwithstanding this is a difficult area to approach. The social worker and the lack of socio-economic stability that has been the direct result of the neo-liberal counter-reformation  is perhaps the most direct way of understanding why the numbers of people who understand themselves as "working class" appears to be rising and this is best undertstood again  through Negri's work.

Did the comments Eric and I passed over regarding the differend help or is more detail and thought required ?

good luck...

regards
steve


Glen Fuller wrote:
Hi all,

This kind of relates to the question of globalisation and community 
(speciffically Eric's comments below), as I have been trying to rethink 
how people can still feel 'working class' and yet have middle class 
jobs and earn middle class salaries...

Being bitten by the materialist bug, and trying to reconnect my 
observations of my modified-car enthusiast subjects with the spaces 
they occupy, both material and social, it got me thinking about the 
nature of time and space and the flows of capital in an automobilised 
urban space in the much broader context of global flows of capital. 
What got me thinking (about Virilio actually) was that Marx in Capital 
attempted to track down the natural laws of movement, to reveal the 
economic law of motion of modern society (92). Has there been a 
marxist critique/analysis of the modern logistics (beyond Virilios 
writing, which although definitely radical, is not necessarily 
Marxist)? (Another question that was bugging me: If the everyday really 
is the site of politics involving microphysics of power relations, then 
what/who is being exploited in the present era of the third-way 
middle class?)

I dont mean logistics only in the sense of the mail or goods-
delivery trucks, but the commodification of these flows of 
the economic law of motion, and the time and space precipitated 
(produced - if you are Lefebvrean) by them. So that a flow only becomes 
an object when reified as chronological scientific time. Just for my 
thinking through of urbanity and these car-dudes rather than a working 
class or an owning (means of production) class, I was thinking 
a 'logistical class', a class who is exploited through the production 
of excess value inherent in the commodification of movement of/in time 
and space. 


A lot of my subjects work in service industries and the notion of 
a 'working' class or 'owning' class simply does not work (at least not 
in most of the cases). I know from my own experience of working in a 
service station for 4 years while an undergrad, simply can not be 
reconciled in the traditional notions of the two main traditional 
classes. The discount uber-store colonises the fringes of the suburban 
landscape and its bed fellow the miniature convenience store that fills 
in the cracks (literally!!) left behind in the city (both in space- 
proximity, and time  24/7, convenience as a commodity), thirdworld 
sweatshop labour produces commodities for first world owners... all 
involve the logistics of the *distribution* of commodities, from the 
site of the end point of production (production as process - from the 
cotton fields to the sewing machines) to the start of consumption 
(consumption as a process - buyer to the practice of wearing). But it 
is not only the distribution of commodities, but the movement of labour 
(or the labour of movement) involved in filling the in-between of the 
process of production to the process of consumption, and then the 
before (production) and after (consumption) stages also involve a 
process, a mutable movement, a logistics. 

(I have often though about the psychoanalytic dimension, specifically 
consumption-desire and logistics-the ethics of the upsell, but I 
havent really thought about the materialist side.)

I know I have a somewhat rudimentary understanding of Marxist thought 
(mainly through D&G, and Lefebvre, who are not really Marxist Marxists, 
ha!), but I thought I would ask here as this list seems to be the most 
involved in Marxist understandings of the world ;). Any thoughts or 
reading suggestions? I know there has been a massive body of work 
around transport studies but this doesnt really discuss what I am 
talking about (it is more policy that enables the continued 
exploitation of this logistical class more than anything else). 

Ciao,
Glen.


  
In some respects it seems the small farmers were like a miner's 
      
canary -
  
an early warning sign of the impact of development and economic
complexification upon all of us.  
      

  
Not a simple return to nineteenth century world, but a more
decentralized Jeffersonian world in which people are linked globally
with information and communication technologies, but live out more
ecological lives at the local level, growing their own food, making
their own clothing, buildings and transportation, but doing in a 
      
manner
  
that utilizes both current knowledge and appropriate technology, 
      
slowing
  
things down to live out more contemplative meaningful lives, and 
      
taking
  
the arts out of the museums and galleries to bring them into everyday
life in order to transform it.
      

  


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