Re: AUT: critique of negri by caffentzis

["anton monti" <amonti@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Hi
>A while ago I asked if anyone knew of any critiques of Negri's
>approach to value, but got no response. Have since found this:
>
>http://aries.gisam.metu.edu.tr/autonomia/negri/caffentzis.html
>
>Apologies if this is old news
>Cheers
>Rowan

Caffentzis, Rifkin and Negri.

The critic of Caffentzis to Rifkin and Negri is very interesting and
stimulating. The critic is also a part of the general debate about the
transformations of capitalistic society and many of the argument of
Caffentzis are very diffused into the debate.

A big problem in the Caffentzis?s article is the parallelism between the two
theories of the end of the work, the Rifkian and the Negrian.

For my opinion the two theories are different and in the reality of the
facts when Rifkin write about the end of the work Negri write about the
socialization, the extension, the diffusion and the endless of the work and
about the transformations connected to this aspects.

The other big difference is that Rifkin believe, according to Caffentzis, in
a teleological technical development of the objective factors of production,
and Negri, according to my interpretation, in the subjective constitution of
the living work as negation of the capital and of the technological
apparatus of exploitation. Negri also explain how this negation in an
endless movement of territorialization and deterritorialization is
constantly recuperated (reterritorialized) by the capitalistic (or
post-capitalistic) system of capture.

Many elements of the Caffentzis?s critic to Rifkin are typical also to Negri
as the ?off books work? or ?the becoming woman of the work? but with a big
difference: in Negri all this aspects are a part of a concrete political
project now as in the past. The words or the categories are not empty. Words
and categories are full of subversive practices. This in Negri, about
Caffentzis I do not know.

The Caffentzian critic to Rifkin?s technological determinism is generally
correct. But I am very surprise about the fact that Caffentzis critic Rifkin
in a ?very? political way supposing that capitalists act as a social
subject, planning strategies and so. I really do not like any sociological
analysis but I am really curious to know who or what is the capitalistic
subject. But of course if the capitalistic subject is a ?what? I have to say
that Rifkin?s analysis are correct.

I think also that the Caffentzis interpretation of ?service workers? is
reductive. When we talk about services we have to talk about services for
production not only about ?human? services or after-sales services. We
cannot talk only about barbershops and garages but we have to talk about
immaterial forms of production, communication, flow of data and so. I think,
that is evident that in the post-industrial era the differences between
services and production are different from the differences reproduced in the
industrial era.

Another point is that we have to choice if we think about the questions of
the transformation of work from the objective point of view (actually I do
not know what is this objectivity) or from the point of view of the method
of the tendency and of participant observation. The method of the tendency
means understand the main lines of development and use those lines as
subjective moment of rupture. This is our method because our studies are
always finalized to build not only a different paradigm of understanding but
especially to build a different social paradigm.

Rifkin propose, and in this is different from Caffentzis, a key of lecture,
he say that we have a dominant tendency in the society (technological
development and tendencial end of the work). We cannot confutate this key of
lecture only with a theoretical approach. We have to ask: do we have
realistic opportunities to use the tendencies illustrated by Rifkin in order
to build, here and now, a communist society? I personally do not think so
but at the same time I observe and follow with a lot of interest all the
experiences (and the contradiction) of ?no profit?, or better ?political?,
enterprises. I am interested in know, how for example the experiences of the
Social Centers in Italy going on. I am interested in heard the voice of
comrades talking about separation and escape from the capitalistic
valorization in the direction on self-valorization. All this experiences are
laboratories and proposal of a concrete way of transition to communism. We
cannot say that all this is shit, we have to say that always transition is a
contradictory process with attempt of recuperation and lines of escape from
recuperation. But in Caffentzis the fear of the capitalistic recuperation
stop all the dynamics of the process of liberation.

The same problem is evident when Caffentzis write about a supposed (by
Rifkin) ?suicide of capitalism? or about the ?impossibility for the system
to produce self-destruction?. He forgot that this action of destruction is
not the result of the capitalistic activity or development but the result of
the activity of the proletarian subject, of the living work as negation of
capital. Maybe a simple example is useful: capitalism was not the result of
the activity of the feudal aristocratic subject with self-destructive
pulsions ? this subject was not able to govern the society (as capitalism
today). The transition from feudal society to capitalism was the result of
the action of a constituent power against a constituted power and as the
terms tell to us constituent is fluent and in movement and constituted is
hypostatized, stopped.

Let?s see now at the Caffentzis?s critic to Negri. First of all is really
not correct to say that Negri is rigorously anti-empirical in a negative
way. In the reality of the fact Negri?s empiria is in his own past, present
and future activity in the middle of the class-struggle, in the continuos
focus in the social subjects, in the attention to the development of real
political and social changes. The empiria of Negri was the factory worker in
Mirafiori or in Marghera?s petrolchimico and now this empiria is in the
colored and intelligent world of Centri Sociali?s people, in the general
intellect or in the sans-papier immigrants. This people are real, this
people are the immanence and the data.

In any case when Negri write about the prerequisite of communism present in
the now day society he do not says that communism is the ?dominant? social
system (how communism can be dominant?). He says that the possibility of
communism live together with the worst forms of capitalistic command and
exploitation.  I am not sure about the following point and I think that
somebody maybe will criticy my idea. In any case I think that the current
development of our critical thinking lead to the idea that communism is
immanent, present in the struggle and in the experiences of proletarians,
but at the same time also capitalism is alive. The two parts of the
alternative are negation of each other and the destruction of the one
represents the destruction of the other. I say in this context that
capitalism like communism is ethernal. I say that communism is constituent
power never constituted power.

In the final part of the article Caffentzis focus on the re-affirmation of
the validity of the Marxian law-value. He describe how the law working (or
worked) according to Marx?s Capital but he do not confutate the Negrian
argument of the formation of a new productive subject producing through
affect, intelligence and in collective forms. This is the reason why I ask
how law-value can work without measure? How measure, in terms of time (or
money) work, performances that are not classified in terms of work etc.? In
the reality of the fact Caffentzis use an old tactic. He say that
de-industrialization is a reality in the northern parts of the globe but in
the south industrial production is the main tendency. The division of the
work in the Caffentzian sense is planetary. Planetary because of a
quantitative expansion of the industrial work. For my opinion the
interpretation is not correct because globalization is not about quantities
but about qualities.

Usually we can found three different interpretations of what globalization
it is.
A) Global market of goods and investments.
B) Global production with a world like a factory: research and development,
management and marketing in the North, production in the center and raw
material and cheap labor force for not ?on line? production in the South.
C) Global production, with a world like a diffused factory (islands of South
in the North and viceversa), without hierarchy and without verticalization
but with a continuos flow of information and goods.

All this interpretations are good but in some way they not give us an answer
regarding the new quality of post-capitalistic production. The point is that
the international division of the work is not functional to the production
(all the society produce thanks to the extremely strong power of the
affect), the international division of work is functional to the logic of
command. An imperial function producing not richness but poverty.

All this in order to say that after the death of the law-value we meet an
Empire with a new law of domination. The new law is use of finance and
international division of work in order to draw biopolitical limits to the
society and direct military and police presence in the provinces of Empire.

And in final, as conclusion, some though about the Caffentzis?s idea that
Negri repropose the organization of the class in Leninists terms. This is an
old accusation against Negri since from the times of Contropiano (before)
and Potere Operaio and Rosso (after). Sometimes the analytical method of
Negri can produce this impression but always we have to understand that the
method of rupture go for anticipation and sometime the terminology is not
adequate to the concept (as in Partito Operaio Contro il Lavoro). But
actually I think that Negri during the last years has never say anything
about organization. In this way I think that Caffentzis or try to read Negri
between the lines or repeat old imputations. I say this because, for my
opinion, Toni do not theorize a centrality or a vanguard, because the
totality of the constituent power is central. I am sure that, at the
practical level, in the country where the political activity follow the
theoretical lines produced by Negri and others we will not find Parties but
I think (and I hope) something like Forums of the general intellect with as
well collectives and individuals participation.

Anton Monti


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