File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/94-12-31.000, message 85


Date: Wed, 28 Dec 94 3:52:51 EST
From: boddhisatva <foucault-AT-eden.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Re: Re: autonomist marxism





		Mr Wolff,

	
	Well, you jump in to the water, and you sometimes find it cold.


	Nonetheless,  I ask you to try and strain what you may be able
to from my original letter on the very point you discuss.  I have a
learned advisor ready to give me the low-down on Althusser for a
couple Scotches and a few bucks, so I'll be ready to confront specific
points later. However, I still posit the exploitation inherent in
capitalistic structures for control of capital as the only true
unifying concept for the left on the basis of my previous (if ill
expressed) arguments.  


	Capitalism is defined by the myths of scarcity and
meritocracy.  They are the twin myths that create the fantasy world
where competition outside the rule of decency is valid.  They cannot
be challenged on their own terms.  They have to be challenged by the
demonstration of the fact and the dedication to the principle, that,
the power of money-capital in capitalism is inherently unsound,
unfair, and most of all, unnecessary.  


	If the disparate interests of the left are at least agreed on
that point, then workers uniting to destroy the market value of
exploitative enterprises can create socialist enterprises in their
place.  THese enterprises, however they are consituted, will have to
have been formed on the basis of a logic which defeats the notions
which ALL present forms of human cruelty are based on.  Democracy is
the simplest logic of this kind.  


	How can any chauvinism or bigotry be fought if there exists a
consensus (fundamental to the production that sustains the race) that
isomorphic ideologies are necessary and legitimate ?  


	The New Testament informs us that we will always have the poor
with us.  In fact, in the west, we do not - not in the material terms of that
age.  What we may very well always have with us are the despised.  In
these terms it is no blasphemy to preach the complete destruction of
economic exploitation and alienation.  It is likewise no surrender to
accept some measure of chauvinism as inherent in all but an end-state
society.


	The liberal movements (feminism, anti-racism, etc.) have
succeeded, than lost their vigor because they cold only conquer the
part of the social order that was democratic - the contitutional
democracy of government.  Radical aims have failed because they
require the whole of society (not just those democratic institutions
created by the bourgeoisie) to be democratic.   In a post-capitalist
world where economic sovereignty is on a par with legal sovereignty,
the bigot rats will be easier to sniff out.  


	A power-mad capitalist still hates a trust because the
possibility to harness the flow of economic power is diminished.  A
socialist hates a clique for the same reason.  This is because it is a
socialist world that recognizes human effort as the true coin.

	
	Classic cuisine tells us that a scare egg cannot be skewered
and a blue-blooded bird cannot be whipped into an omlette.  A liberal
chef might water both down and boil them to tastelessness, but they
are unlikely to be consumed.  A socialist cooks them without contrived
vessels in a Nouvelle Cuisine and throws them right into the flame,
deriving nourishment from the flesh and leaving the charred trappings
to be consumed.  In the words of the old Negro spiritual "the fire
next time".   






	paix,

	et Bon Appetit





	



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