AUT: Ghoslty Demarcations

[Alvaro Reyes <areyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Angela,

	I read Ghostly Demarcations a couple months ago and these were
some of my reactions.  First, it is no surprise that Negri and Derrida
disagree on "the word" ontology.  But way more than "the word" I agree
with Negri that what is at stake here is the possibility of the formation
of a new subjectivity (not a new subject).
Negri deos point out that Derrida uses transcendence (i.e. the
introduction of the infinitely other) to resolve his investigation into
the "foundation of law," something that Negri correctly points out can
only lead to a very reactionary ontology: the theological one. But Negri
then misses the chance to make a connection with this and the Derridean
practice.  That is, throughout the texts (and here I am talking about
both Negri's and Macherey's) we are left with the feeling that Derrida's
deconstruction is not capable of the formation of a practice but I think
that is rather beside the point I would rather have them show how
Derrida's deconstruction is not capable of a new practice.  That is, I
firmly believe that what Derrida's practice is, is an anti-formalist
liberalalism, so it would be important to point out how his trascendant
theology will only lead us back to a transcendent political practice-the
State.  He has no intention of creating a new practice, he believes that
although the market has created such misery, if the market were
eliminated the institutions of liberal democracy, or at least law, could
be just or at least closer to justice.
His relation to law is the particularly interesting point here.  He sees
the rest of his life project as an investigation into the state of
international law, an area he must believe holds the key to resolving the
problems of impoverishment that he raises.  And although he distances his
self from the "human rights" project at the end of Ghostly Demarcations
he nowhere distances himself from the practice of law as the mechanism to
approach justice.  So in the end although he believes Justice is
undeconstructible he provides us with no other mechanism with which to
approach it than law and some form of transcendent governance.
This is where I find Derrida's project so utterly irrelevant exactly
because of the "global" processes of the market that he describes so
well.  First off, the international law system is rather meaningless
today not just because of contradictory practices within itself but
because the nature of capital accumulation is not an inter-nation affair,
it is supranational, it respects no boundaries or national institutions.
So how does Derrida propose to democratically legitimate this
international legal system?
I tend to agree with Negri and Hardt that the nation-state is done for as
a ground for democratic political practice for two reasons: first, labors
dispersal and apparent "dissappearance" as the source of social wealth
(or capitals disengagement with labor as an atagonistic force), and
second the new found telemarketing capability of the State to simulate
social antagonisms, make it ridiculous to count on the State to be some
kind of mediating force-the state has been reduced to reproducing and
policing the reproduction of capital (that may explain why the military,
policing, and prison budgets have grown so quickly in proportion to all
other spending).
      Having said this it seems a bit irrelevant to fiddle with some type
of inter-state legal system. What we need to do is first challenge the
state authority to produce norms, and second what Negri and Deleuze both
did through Spinoza, investigate into the possibilities of creating norms
outside of the state system, not Anarchy, but a non-state source for
norms.
In sum, if one believes that some type of antifoundational juridical
reformism (or differance) based on inverted Kantian principles (which
Warren Montag points out) is enough
to overturn the logic of capital (the logic of domination) then Derrida
is your guy.  If on the other hand, one believes we need some type of
defoundational non-state juridicism that will produce difference (i.e.
revolution) then you are likely to agree with Negri and Deleuze.

By the way there is a really good article by Eugene Holland on
Poststructural Marxism in South Atlantic Quaterly's issue dedicated to
Deleuze where he contrasts Deleuze's would be book "Granduer du Marx" to
Derrida's "Specters."

Alvaro



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