Re: AUT: Me and my interests

[kubhlai <kubhlai@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

reply to Sean and commie00

Sean wrote...
>but i think what negri is saying is that whatever it
>is that we are being parasitic of call it the overall
>capitalist system, the totality, a particular
>corporation; because the workplace is no longer
>regimented or based on particular skills, you know the
>deskilling of the workforce has taken place (the
>transition from a Fordist to Taylorist model), there
>has never been more reason to to dissolve that which
>we are being parisitic of, never has there been more
>opportunity to democratize workplaces, and eliminate
>the bosses...

Put like this the reasoning would seem to be very much analogous to that
of Bookchin in "Post-Scarcity Anarchism" (probably the only decent idea
he ever had I suspect). However, though not quite as simplistic as
Bookchin it still seems to be a principally economic reasoning and misses
some important considerations.
The "parasitism" inherent in middle class occupations is of course a
parasitism on producers of material commodities when viewed from a
macro-economic perspective but it also involves power.
The very *dispensibility* of individuals within a largely functionless
bureaucratic culture means individual insecurity -- regardless of income.
This consideration is simply not present in Marxism, the proletarian does
not have to "worry" about his proletarian status (that is -- didnt have
to then), the bourgeois does not have to "worry" much, on a personal
level, about continuing acceptance as a bourgeois (his capital is HIS
capital). So long as a trade is needed, so long as capital can be
exchanged into wealth -- the two traditional classes (the *pure* classes)
are not driven by a specifically individual insecurity.
The bureaucrat however (and other social NCOs like social workers,
police, teachers...) wields power which is merely *leased*, and his
income with it. Clearly in the middle class you do not get the same kind
of community spirit that you get in say mining communities or fishing
communities, and the reason is that the middle class is *competitive*
(well that's actually ungrammatical -- because they are competitive as
"individuals"). The middle class is therefore *THE* political class, they
form and unform alliances all the time and according to short term
strategies, they worry about being "in" or being "out", they jockey their
way up the levels of the social hierarchy precisely as a means of
minimizing their employment and social insecurity rather than as just a
result of needing money or desire for a bigger house.
And underneath, they are aware that bureaucratic administration is ITSELF
the means of their subsistence -- that they have a vested interest, just
as the "State" as an entity does itself, in having something to police --
in the continuation of discord and competition, of crime and punishment
for example, in legal complexity, data management, rule and
regulation..... What land is to the peasant farmer -- power becomes to
the bureaucrat: he feeds from it, fosters it, grows it in ever increasing
complexity because its the environment he dwells within -- a genosphere.
Therefore it is to game-theory (and other related psychoanalytic social
models like transactional analysis) to which we need to refer when
predicting the behaviour and motivation of the middle classes. Whilst
Negri and Bookchin are right to point out that we *can* materially devise
a better environment for people to live in, eliminating deprivation and
unnecessary (and unecological) labour, this tells us virtually nothing
about how to redirect *individuals* to achieve such an end.
The SI of course thought that exposing the illusions was the first step
but acknowledged that material realities underlied those illusions and
would also have to be transformed. I think we need to proceed with that
two pronged project; exposing the truth on the one hand, but attacking
the underlying insecurities upon which competitive hierarchic behaviour
is built on the other (and whilst middle class mentality *does* lurch
into bizarre neuroses its not psychotherapy I have in mind but simple
basic needs like housing security, debt relief, access to good
healthcare. As a materialist I naturally consider such values to lie at
the root of behaviour patterns).
The pattern of "commuting" is also destructive I think, and central to
the problem to a degree which has still not yet fully recognized; endless
demolition and office construction schemes, land-speculation (hence ever
growing debt and housing insecurity), road building and air-pollution....
these kinds of problem lie at the root of the greater part of radical
activity in the last decade and are also the campaigns around which there
has been the best general public sympathy and support. Yet they are all
rooted in middle class behaviour patterns -- in the endless need that a
society whose *subsistence* is bureaucratic has to endlessly fuck things
up, reorganize them, demolish them, rebuild them, "restructure" them, and
administrate them. The state will not only not be nice when its finished,
but it can never afford to allow itself to be nice enough to be
finished....
Anyway, the phenomenon of "commuting" reflects a curious dialectic
interplay between the white collar workers desire to *get away* from work
and colleagues as soon as they clock off, whilst at the same time
guaranteeing that neighbours in the "dormer" suburbs have little chance
of getting to know each other either, do not develop common experiences
or common interests. Thus commuting, the creation of environmental
problems, their endless administration, and the weakening of communities
of interest, are all tied together in the social dynamics of modern
culture.
Therefore, breaking those links should be the central unifying priority
of the revolutionary movement. (Seeing as it is a pre-requisite for a
radicalization of the majority class -- the middle class)

I guess the notion that its "the middle class" we should be working on is
kinda heretical? -- seeing as it officially doesnt exist in many
traditionalists view? However I am not trying to distinguish the middle
from the "working class" because for the most part the working class has
been plunged into the same environment and is no longer distinguishable
from it on the old basis. Workers too have mortgages and commute for
example. Thus we can indeed concern ourselves with a single class (in the
west), but I would claim that the understanding of the nature of that
class must now be *different* from that of the proletarian familiar to
Marx.

Sean...
>what i think are being struggles against liberal
>democracy in favor of more direct or decentralized
>democracy, are similar to those of 68....

Maybe. But I hope you are not including in that the "devolution" of
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland etc. It seems to me that these are
examples not of a lowering of the hierarchy, but of its growth -- new
tiers and rungs, new job opportunities, new liason officers.... The only
form of devolution which is ACTUALLY devolutionary is one in which there
are FEWER administrators after than before...
Consider how tame so many radical leaders become as soon as they gain
"office" -- how reluctant to go that last step and actually change things
decisively; preferring instead to remain in "permanent" opposition, or in
charge of a never finished preparation to improve things if only they get
"one more term"...

Sean...
>deleuze and guattari the inability of capitalism to
>deal with a schizophrenic movement is taking place, a
>rupture occurs and only so many ruptures can take
>place before the whole thing crashes),

Again, a sort of maybe. I dont believe it likely (or necessarily
desirable) that the revolution will consist of a sudden disintegration of
the state. The state consists of the management of fractures which
usually it causes and then is its own solution. It thrives on its own
imperfection. It could indeed collapse under sufficient stress, but with
what outcome? beauty does not emerge spontaneously from shit. Consider
how this large population - - whose only skills are bureaucratic ones -
will feed and care for itself for example? or induce skilled producers to
support them? I think we need a longer term strategy for the
transformation of work, one which precedes "collapse" -- one which
creates the conditions necessary for the current state to become
irrelevant a priori of any collapse of what then remains.

Sean..
>i think i see what you are saying, but i often think
>that social justice stuggles aren't about being
>pragmatic, do people really think about where the
>money will come from when they go on strike... do most
>doctors want nurses payed less while they make more?
>what i'm trying to say is that the irrationality of
>the way capital values different kinds of work really
>comes out in the kinds of struggles you refer to...
>the civil service worker may not be cognizant that
>his/her raise in pay will come of a teacher's pocket
>or whomever, all s/he knows is that s/he has two kids
>to feed and put through college, and his/her standard
>of living needs to improve... i think that the working
>classes (i'm including everything from doctors to
>janitors here) are realizing that the way the piece of
>the pie so to speak is being divided (that is the
>amount of all wealth that is allotted to working
>people) is the same in terms of a ratio (the doctor
>still makes five times that of the janitor) but
>overall the pool of money that is there to pay their
>salaries is being appropriated by the ruling
>classes.... of course some ratios have gone out of
>wack, stock brokers, ceos (probably not real working
>people but i;ll just mention them), bankers, their
>real wages (adjusted for inflation) have probably
>increased over the years...

It rather underlines their lack of "community" if teachers dont realize
that they are impoverishing nurses, and their unions tolerate restrictive
legislation which makes "sympathy action' from one union to another
illegal. As bureacratization and commuting become increasingly the norm,
the likelihood of workers spontaneously aquiring this awareness (assuming
they have ever lacked it) recedes. Likewise, if they DO posess this
awareness, the likelihood of their putting solidarity above their own
social ambitions also recedes for the same reasons. This might be
overcome -- but not unless everyone increasingly aquires the confidence
that "they can afford it" : no one will forego a pay rise in deferment to
another group when they feel in danger of having their home reposessed or
see their kids go without competitive advantages which their
schoolfriends get.
Actually of course -- it isnt even the teachers who get to decide where
Mr.Browns "spare" billions get spent. Teachers form the bedrock of the
New Labour nazi party, probably did more than any other group to get
Blair elected, and they are damn well going to get the lions share of the
tax payers money to make sure they deliver the same again in the coming
election.

commie00 wrote...
>to me what you are calling "cross class" is not at all
>"cross class" in any real sense, and more represents a
>growing recognition of similar intertests... meaning:
>that "white collar" types (including your acountant)
>are as working class as anyone. social power does play
>a part in class composition, methinks... but the
>social power of your acountant is on par with the
>social power of a teacher...

Yet even were the distribution of social power "equal", the ramifications
of it in any particular scenario are always UNequal. Thus the teacher
intimidates me today by threatening to fail my child, and I intimidate a
teacher (almost certainly not even the same one) tomorrow by finding a
flaw in his tax return.... The net result is not that we are united by
our equality of *quantitative* power, but that we are disunited -- hate
each other even -- because of our *qualitative* diversity. These
diversities, I think, refute the notion that there is a "middle class" at
all, rather there are "middle classES", all of whom have certain
advantages over and vulnerabilities to each other such that we end up
being a class of police -- all disposed to policing, exploiting or
punishing each other.
Dont take this to absurdum and read me as saying that this is ALL that
middle class people are capable of -- naturally we resist it, we manage
to form mutual bonds with each other to varying degrees, but as far as
class conditions are concerned they do little to promote that precious
thing Solidarity or to permit it to extend to  society as a whole, to the
point that it attains a revolutionary promise.

Sean:
>i think that what globalization seeks to do is
>homogenize the world into one overall culture, with
>smaller amounts of people getting integrated in to the
>ruling classe in the third world and semi-peripheries;
>thus we see a lot of nationalisms and identity based
>struggles emerging, i do not necessarily think this is
>bad,

I caused a bit of a furore on the right-left list recently by questioning
what *is* "right" and "left". The problem with incorporating
"nationalist" groups under the umbrella of antiglobalism simply
highlights the issue of "community". Community is a concept hard to
separate from "Solidarity". It is communities which are capable of
solidarity -- the mining communities are obvious examples of both' (and
it is precisely on that basis that they tend to receive such huge public
support); the Chiapas Zapatistas, native americans, and australian
aboriginals seem to be other obvious candidates for sympathy; but other
native or nationalist movements are often dismissed (such as the Zulus or
Ulster protestants), suspected (the Black panthers) or violently opposed.
Often there are sane and pragmatic reasons for these contrary positions,
but in the final analysis there is no reasoned concensus over the link
between community and solidarity. The tactical issues aside (they are too
varied I think to go into here) one thing I think that is clear is that
LACK of community is always an opportunity for the State, as it is for
opportunists outside the state that would like to form a state in their
own image (the IRA for example). Not only does community entail material
common interests -- which is the only basis for revolutionary change I
believe -- but it also answers a psychological necessity often referred
to as "identity". Identity is in effect the opposite of insecurity -- its
the feeling of having a place and a role, of knowing who you are, what to
do, where to go. It is the subjective equivalent of "community". THose
who lack it will seek out a substitute for it. For many this becomes a
cult, and sometimes a political cult -- for example White Supremacy, but
for some too Leninism or even "Anarchism".
Here then is the rub. Community, common interest, is part of the
necessary basis for common action and of egality, but on the other hand
there are FALSE and artificial "communities" which form readily in the
divided and alienated middle classes.
Again this is an urgent reason for promoting *actual* material common
interests. There is not merely the current oppressive State, but many
little baby states growing up beneath its branches.

Sean(?)
>i just think more peolple feel proletrian or
>disempowered than maybe in quite sometime, yet the
>ideologies they latch onto differ vastly...

And many ideologies reveal themselves as social commodities by beginning
with a designer lable -- such as "Crombie" and "Vespa".
(in case non-brits read this and dont know -- crombie was the preferred
overcoat of the original skinheads in winter (and very nice they are too)
and Vespa was the commonest make of motor scooter to which, at that time,
all skins were supposed to aspire)

commie00 wrote....
>in my estimation, most of these struggles basically
>fail because they do not necessarily express a class
>antagonism... i.e. are not organized on a consciously
>class basis, and directed at the class enemy and its
>state. thus they are easily recuperated back into
>capitalism via the "populist politicians" because they
>in no way really challenge the system.

I think this follows logically. However as I argued earlier, many of
these campaigns do indeed reflect a general complex class issue -- the
self replication of the middle class bureaucratic state, and therefore
they are underlain with several common interests. If we could draw these
threads together so that the main and material issues were self evident,
in other words, if it were a modern class analysis which we shared which
enlightened/determined the conduct of political campaigns from the start,
we might be able to transform these protests from piecemeal, divided,
recuperated, into something much more.....?

commie00
>i think this is where the concept of reproduction
>comes into play: part of our class' job these days is
>to reproduce itself in order to continue
>(re-)producing capitalism.

eye to eye.

>this is where a lot of work has been done in recent
>years... understanding that class is not just defined
>by one's relation to the means of production, but also
>distribution, reproduction, etc., as well as one's
>relation to social/political power. on top of all of
>this is the analysis of the ways in which capitalism
>has colonized everyday life, obscuring class divides
>(your producer/parasite thing) while at the same time
>increasing proletarianization and the polarization of
>classes (the slow but seemingly steady realization
>that the majority of people have a great deal in
>common, and against capitalism / a common class
>enemy).

Well I wish I knew there'd been a "lot of work" done on it. Certainly
there has been a lot of academic work starting after WWII. Adorno, Reich,
Debord and Sartre all represent seminal currents of thought which explore
this modern condition. Foucault, Deleuze, Lefevre and Baudrillard offer
some really caustic and penentrating insights. But I would say that the
"work" has struggled badly to keep up with the events. How many people
out there, even political activists, are aware of the work of any of
these? None of them, except *perhaps* Debord, made any real effort to be
accessible to non academics or to take praxis to the streets. Anyway --
mustnt grumble...
Though I seem to essentially agree with you, I cant get happy with the
way you use that word "proletarianization". I'm beginning to realize what
Sean (after Negri) meant by "subjectification" (?) -- well if it means
the common subjection to the mediated spectacular consumer-values of the
modern economy or something of the kind..... Yes I guess, when I think
about it, you could semantically justify calling that
"proletarianization" (since *identity* has become an appropriated
commodity): I think I'll just try to get used to it......



Hmmm. all in all... this is the most agreement I've encountered on a
radical list in a good while. I wonder if that means we're doing
something right or is it just a fluke?


Finally. I said I'd ask my situguru about the SI position on "CLASS". He
wrote me....
>....the most succint situationist definition
>of modern classes appears in "Ideologies, Classes and the Domination of
>Nature from I.S. #8, and, of course, the fabulous fourth chapter of SOTS:
>"The Proletariat as Subject and Representation."
>Still, there are two
>specific lines of situationist thought on the matter, which is perhaps not
>surprising given the time and place that they were writing. One is the more
>traditional Marxist analysis, that maintains a view of the industrial
>proletariat as the revolutionary class; the other a more highly advanced
>analysis that suggests that all those who do not directly possess the power
>to alter their space-time as the proletariat, and all those who hold the
>power as the bourgeoisie.

that covers us for talking of "proletarianization". He adds the
following.....

>>1. The confusion regarding the exact situationist definition of class is
further aggravated by the fact that existing translations of situ texts
translate not one but two French words as "worker" : "ouvrier" - which
means
specifically a manual labourer, and usually appears in conjunction with
ideas of workers councils etc.; and "travailleur" - which means one who
works, basically anybody who has a job. Now, much of the nuance of these
terms is sufficiently dealt with merely by their context, but I do know of
specific instances where it has given rise to supposed contradictions in
situationist theory (for example between "Never Work!" (travaillez) and
"Power to the Workers Councils" (ouvrier).

2. There is no real "middle class" in situationist theory, and I could be
wrong, but I don't really think that Marx mentioned it too often either.
Now
things may be different in the UK with yr royal family and lords etc., but
over here in convict country, there is no aristocracy, and thus the middle
class is not the bourgeoisie (who are the upper class) but the petit
bourgeoisie (who are in fact the largest class). Class discussed in terms
of
levels is therefore somewhat relative to specific local conditions. Now,
in
Marx figured that the only way that the petit-bourgeoisie could become
revolutionary was through a fear of being absorbed into the proletariat.
In
fact the opposite has happened: the proletarians have been given enough
wage
rises, mortgages and promotions to see them absorbed into the petit
bourgeoisie.<<

kubhlai: ah, well there we have it. Only beef I have with this is that
now I dont like this equating of "petit bourgeois" with "middle class".
But I guess thats pedantic in practice... now that the proletarians have
been chucked in we might as well make an irish stew of it....
He continued.....

>> The SI, of course, saw this as a development of the
proletariat, because as long as they had no direct power, people were
still
PROLETARIANISED (at the time in France I think 80% of the population was
in
this position). Thus, envisaging the proletariat as the class that was
capable of carrying out a revolution was not at all difficult. However,
these days, everyone is a stockholder. In the 19th century, that would
have
qualified them all as bourgeois, but now conditions are different. While
private ownership has become more widespread, that is, accesible to a
wider
section of the population, the number of those who actually hold REAL
POWER
has diminished. Marx believed the proletariat to be the class that would
usher in communism because it was that only class that had no other
interest. The problem now is that the global proletariat is actually the
same thing as the global petit bourgeoisie. If this great mass were to
seize
power, what would they do with it? I guess this where our friend Reich
comes
in handy: the capacity for the proletariat (whatever that may now entail)
to
succumb to the force of mystification.<<

Well I go along with this pretty much. There is I think a question mark
over the idea that the proportion that hold "real power" has diminished.
Whilst there has been a corporate trend in both economics and politics, I
believe that the power the middle class wields is indeed "real" in the
same way that their capital is real and (collectively) significant. The
problem has become more a *structural* one. The state has indeed become a
ROBOT -- most of the time it polices and regulates itself. The individual
bureaucrat uses his own productive intitiative in dreaming up new ways of
creating the need for additional bureaucratic administration, which is
itself the anti-revolutionary process of control and alienation. IT is
*because* I consider this power to be "real" that I think it has
revolutioanry potential, but transforming a punitive power into a
liberatory power requires an adjustment of middle class interests -- one
which might be plotted by game-theory for example (or even cybernetic
systems theory)

My situguru by the way is Reuben Keehan of Sydney who I think is known to
a couple of list members? Anyway he plans to log in I believe....


In solidarity
kubhlai




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