Re: AUT: strategy/ies

[Alain Kessi <kessi@xxxxxxxxx>]

Bill Bartlett wrote:
> Such a common interest makes it obvious that division is, objectively,
> artificial. But I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise, if you have
> any persuasive arguments? Perhaps you can think of an easier way to
> end poverty and exploitation that doesn't necessitate going to all the
> bother of ending capitalism? Perhaps you can see some other
> possibility other than socialism?

Maybe I just haven't been on this list long enough to understand the
subtleties and intricacies of this discussion. It's just that in all the
concrete struggles I've been involved in back in Zurich, Switzerland, I
never heard anyone calling herself or himself an autonomist (or
anarchist, for that matter) disagree that capitalism has to be done away
with.

But I also never heard anyone (except for those turned hard-core
Leninists) suggest that the antagonism between the working class and
capital is the only one, or that other antagonisms/contradictions could
be derived from it. Didn't patriarchy preexist capitalism, as did
racism? Seems to me both need to be analysed as systems of power and
privilege in their own right, and in their relation to the
working-class/capital contradiction. The struggle can therefore not be
towards abolishing capitalism and holding on to patriarchy and racism,
but has to be aimed at abolishing capitalism, patriarchy and racism all
at once. At least, it would seem to me that anything else might stem
from male and/or racist phantasies about holding on to one's privileges
in those sectors once one has gotten rid of the disadvantages one had in
the capitalist power system.

Are you suggesting that a working-class woman whose husband never does
the dishes or washes his own laundry has all the same interests as the
worker who is her husband? If you think that patriarchy/sexism and
racism will automatically disappear once capitalism is abolished, can
you suggest by what mechanism they will be led to disappear?

A question of language, in passing, since I sometimes translate texts
but am not familiar with the entire English Marxist and/or autonomist
vocabulary: What's the English term for the German "Hauptwiderspruch"
("main contradiction"/"basic antagonism"? - designating the orthodox
Marxist notion that all other antagonisms are derived from that between
the working class and capital) and for "Nebenwiderspruch" ("subsidiary
contradiction"/"secondary antagonism"? - designating patriarchy/sexism
and racism in the eyes of Leninists)?

Best, and thanks in advance for any help on the vocabulary,

Alain



     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---