Re: ruling class subjectivity, was: Re: AUT: a rejuvenated

[Bill Bartlett <billbartlett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rowan Wilson wrote:

>One of the major benefits of Negri's formulation of labour and
>capital as two subjects is that it takes us away from the
>problematic distinctions of 'capitalist' and 'worker', with the
>former being a 100% bad guy and the latter being 100% good
>guy/woman. We've all seen some on the left agonising as to who's in
>which gang, particularly those perceived as higher up the hierarchy
>of the division of labour (working class policemen? teachers?).

Another easy method of taking us away from the problematic
distinction of capitalist/bad guy and worker/good guy is to just deny
the existence of class distinctions entirely. Solves the problem. Its
bullshit, but it solves the problem. But the "problem" is a
non-existent one in the first place, good and evil are not relevant
here at all.

In fact the cause of the problem you identify is a flawed class
definition, one that somehow tries to distinguish class by the type
of work one does.

>
>With Negri's formulation 'capital' and 'labour' become identities
>that we both occupy to a greater or lesser extent.

So this Negri joker is essentially denying the existence of class
society, a society in which people are divided into separate classes?
Say no more.


>  For instance, in my job I am a part of labour when I'm writing
>e-mails to a left discussion list, but I am a part of capital when I
>chase a customer for payment.

Utter codswallop! When you chase a customer for payment you are
serving your master in a master/servant relationship. A relationship
you, as a member of the working class alienated from the means of
production, are forced to enter into.

You may bear some personal responsibility for where you draw the line
in serving your master. But that is quite irrelevant to the issue of
class. Even if you were to be a complete sycophant, prepared to
ignore every moral code and break any law to serve your master's
interests, you would remain a mere servant, a hired hand. Same goes
for cops/teachers and all the rest, they are not "part of capital",
they are servants of capitalists.

Class is not a moral category, but a classification according to
one's relationship to the means of production (capital). In
capitalist society there are two possible relationships - one can own
sufficient capital to free one from the need to work, or else one
needs to serve someone who does.


>  This is not to say I'm on a par with the WTO but it keeps in focus
>the layout of the social forces. Capitalism is a social relation,
>after all, not one group of people versus another. That is to say,
>the subjects that we concentrate on in analysis is not that of the
>human but of labour and capital.

I quite agree that it is useless to worry about whether capitalists
are "good" and workers are "bad". Totally irrelevant, in fact the
whole concept seems anachronistic, something of a hangover from the
precepts underpinning a previous class system. As individuals,
capitalists are not necessarily either good or bad people, some of my
best friends have been capitalists. Damn nice people, finest people
that ever squeezed the last drop of profit out of old widow's pension
in fact, I can't speak too highly of them. ;-) But none of that
matters, they are my class enemy simply because it is my best
interests to overthrow the capitalist system and it is in their best
interests to keep it as it is.

Nothing can change that, least of all this twaddle of negri's to the
effect that there are no clear class lines and hence such thing as
class society. Just necause he is unable or unwilling to see it,
doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Bill bartlett
Bracknell tas


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