Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 13:24:19 -0500 (EST)
From: glevy-AT-acnet.pratt.edu
Subject: Re: working-class subjectivity


In reply to Bryan and Rakesh:

This issue is certainly at the heart of many debates among Marxists 
during the last 30 years. Interestingly, I think many different schools 
of thought are attempting to deal with essentially the same problem but 
from a number of divergent theoretical perspectives. The common ground, 
it seems to me, is a rejection of an overly mechanical, functionalist, 
and economistic view of the working class as subject. The common point of 
departure, then, is against "diamat", the interpretation of Marxism made 
popular particularly in the former USSR.

At issue, in part, is the question of the relationship between the logic 
of capital and the class struggle. _Capital_, of course, stresses the 
former (although, some like Harry Cleever in _Reading Capital 
Politically_, following Negri, have challenged traditional 
interpretations of _Capital_).

An interesting contrast, IMO, is between the works of Antonio Negri in 
_Marx Beyond Marx_ (Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc., 1984) and Michael 
A. Lebowitz in _Beyond Capital_ (NY, St. Martin's Press, 1992). Both 
Negri and Lebowitz were heavily influenced by a reading of the 
_Grundrisse_.