Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 09:29:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: A proposal for a moderated list


Louis Godena's thoughtful and substantial remarks on Foucault the 
other day points us in the type of direction we need to go.

Louis, a factory worker, has more to say about this subject than 
anybody on the Foucault mailing list, I would suspect. After all, when 
it comes to power relationships, what better place to experience it than 
in a factory.

Now that M1 and M2 are going away, I am hopeful that the artificial 
line between academic "theorists" and activists can be abolished. 
Communists on the shop-floor should be talking about Foucault while 
tenured professors should be discussing the new Labor Party. The 
division between M1 and M2 was harmful.

I have a proposal for a mailing list that I would like to moderate. Last 
April when Adolfo and I were breaking furniture over each other's 
head, I proposed a "cyberseminar" on the question of the revolutionary 
potential of the working-class. I am interested in a close study of the 
writings of a number of "Western Marxists" who have in common a 
certain skepticism about the unilinear radicalization and fight for state 
power by the proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries.

Their writings represent a certain dialectic of defeat and include 
Lukacs, Gramsci, Adorno, etc. I am also interested in studying replies 
to these thinkers from more traditional Marxists such as Ernest 
Mandel, etc. I would also like to include more recent Marxist analyses 
of the working-class in the United States written by Mike Davis and 
Kim Moody. I would assume that comrades from other countries could add
some other studies to the list in the same vein.

This list will put demands on people's time and energy but the payoff 
can be enormous. With respect to Adam Rose's concern about the 
discussion being restricted to the list, I would make every effort to 
circulate substantial contributions to the main moderated list.

Please get in touch with me if you would like to register for this list 
which carries 4 credits.


Louis Proyect



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