Re: AUT: a rejuvenated communist

["Chris Wright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Miller: Yes, thank you for the info on Solidarity.  I have read some of
the documents and I am very interested.  The history was very informative.

Peter, nice to hear from you.  I have not talked to anyone from South Africa
for a while.  I have talked with some people from WOSA, but not in about
three years.  Of course, now I have enough requests for the article I am
writing that I suppose I have to actually finish it.  I apologize if it
takes a while because I am trying to research it a bit from both sides:
capital and labor.  I am also not about to promise a scholarly work.  A lot
of it will reflect my personal experiences and an attempt to grapple with
what openings for organizing and struggle I see here in Chicago.  I hope it
is not too parochial.

South Africa seems very volatile.  I think the ANC has found itself in a
situation where it is quickly losing credibility, as has COSATU, now that it
seems to be buckling under ANC pressure (to whatever extent it was
independent.)  How deep does the disappointment run?  Has the end of
apartheid and the apartheid regime closed any of the distance or is white
supremacy still as dominant ideologically among white workers?  I am
interested in South Africa because it, the U.S. and Australia, all former
British colonies, but all radically unique in relation to each other, seem
to be marked by the most virulent forms of white supremacy.

BTW, what organization?
----- Original Message ----- >
> Well, I'm about to stop being a member of a quasi-Leninist
> organisation. Either I'll stop being a member of the organisation, or the
> organisation will stop being Leninist - it depends, of course, on who wins
> the current faction fight. Either way, in South Africa it seems to be a
> bit easier to be an autonomist these days. From Chatsworth to Katlehong,
> in Elsies River and Manenberg, South Africa is simmering with revolt. The
> ANC premier of Gauteng province, ex-Secretary General of the union
> federation COSATU, got chased out of Katlehong last week (while trying to
> campaign for the Dec 5 local government elections).
>
> From the Star (Jo'burg newspaper): Gordon Mthembu, spokesperson for Ncala
> section residents who had drafted a petition that was to have been handed
> to Shilowa, said "If the government stops the sheriff of the court from
> confiscating peoples property and cancels all outstanding debts, we will
> be free to vote. but if they don't we will not vote"
>
> So in South Africa, there are plenty of seeds of revolt to hook up
> with. My experience during a year living in Cambridge, UK was much more
> depressing. My personal inclination is to continue operating in a fashion
> that I'm used to - printing and distributing a political paper, and on the
> basis of the contacts made during that distribution throwing myself into
> co-operations with various others to develop and broaden the pockets of
> revolt. What do other people here do as their 'basic autonomist
> practice'? I assume that it is generally the case that readers of
> aut-op-sy are more or less isolated in their various locations.
>
Glad to here it.  The three articles on 'Theories of Decadence' (sic) has
really clarified some things.  I think that that series of articles forms
one of the strongest bases for a critique of Lasallean "marxism" (social
democracy, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism) and council communism.  Even
though the article has a few weaknesses, such as missing the class struggle
which infuses Capital and the notion of needing a fourth book, it really
hits home and hard.  I do not think I was truly convinced of the capitalist
character of Leninism until i read that work, even though I still think that
people like Lenin, Trotsky and Luxemburg were NOT aware of that and
considered themselves the best representatives of the working class
movement.
> They posted something to aut-op-sy recently, from aufheben99@xxxxxxxxxx I
> sent them an email back, but never got a response. So, yes, Aufheben
> lives.

I like Cyril Smith's work, and I wrote a little critique of something he
sent to News and Letters.  His work has solid foundations and affinities
with the Marxism I find appealing.  I also have qualms about the Humanism
issue.  I am not opposed to a negative humanism, one which poses a humanism
as the negation of capital/fetishism, but I think a positive humanism has
the tendency you point out.  I also think Marx never used the term again for
a reason after the mid-1840's.  I am quite happy to stand as a communist.
However, I have to say that after reading "Empire" by Negri and Hardt, I
think Steve Wright's article "Negri's Class Analysis: Italian Autonomist
Theory in the Seventies Reconstruction 8 (Winter/Spring 1996)" largely hits
the nail on the head, along with the critique of autonomism by Werener
Bonefeld in Common Sense.  The notion of multitude feels like a regression
to populism.  At the same time, the notion of "mass worker" has its own
problems because it simplifies the working class in very reductionist ways.
The turn to Spinoza and Foucault (themselves worthy enough of study, to be
sure) as a replacement for Hegel and Marx does not warm me.  Negri and
Hardt's ideas of 'immaterial labor', the end of mediation, the rejection of
totalization, have negative political consequences, i think.  For example, I
don't think capital exists as subject, but as object.  Labor is the subject
because capital is nothing other than labor alienated from itself
(objectified), or labor in and against itself.  Capital has no existence
outside labor power.  Negri tends to pose labor and capital as separate
subjects, as labor against capital, but labor is also the source of capital.
Labor, in the process of becoming alienated, creates capital.  That is what
makes it possible to destroy capital.  That is also the key to successof the
fetishism of commodities.  I could go on, but that would be a very long
reply.  Maybe another time.
> I met some of the N&L people in London, very briefly, and a correspondent
> of mine, Cyril Smith (ex-Healyite, author of 'Marx at the Millenium', and
> someone responsible for starting me on my grand slide away from
> Leninism) seems quite friendly with them. I tend to think that we need to
> ditch, rather than embrace, Humanism - it ultimately entraps the human in
> some kind of 'historic mission'. I rather tend to like the emphasis that
> people like Hardt put on 'multitude' (as in the Hardt interview which was
> recently posted to
> aut-op-sy:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_&_event/v004/4.3hardt.html). As
> someone put it at a meeting I went to in London, capital as Subject
> should not be confronted by a Working Class Subject, but rather we
> confront it as a multitude of subjects.
>
> > I know this is a bit of a mish-mash, but I have too much on mymind and
so I am a bit scattered.  If anyone is interested in the piece i am writing,
I may have it done in a month or so.  I do not want to post it because it
will be too long, but I will send to anyone who might find it useful or
engaging (hopefully it will be a worthwhile contribution.)
Heh, ok.  Just remember, the list is just a reference.  You don't have to
use it all at once.  Pick through topics you want and ignore the rest.  The
index is set up with hyperlinks to each section so you can go where you want
quickly.  I did that to make it a bit more manageable.  Not sure it worked!
I'll send it separately, rather than post it too.  I think I would be dumped
off the list for that.  Great quote, btw.
> This will probably just frustrate me even more, but I'd appreciate a look
> at that. :)
>
> Peter
> --
> Peter van Heusden <pvh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics
> "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that
man
> shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the
chain
> and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844
> OpenPGP key fingerprint: DE5B 6EAA 28AC 57F7 58EF  9295 6A26 6A92 0517
502B
>
>
>
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