Re: AUT: Re: autonomist crisis theory

["Chris Wright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey, thanks!  Just wanted to say that I did mean that capital is a text or
textual insome post-modern sense.  I meant specifically "Das Kapital" by
Marx.  Sorry, I did not make that clear!

Cheers,
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Schaap" <rws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2001 9:06 AM
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: autonomist crisis theory


> Happy with heaps of your stuff, Chris, but I'm not sure what this bit
means.
>
> >We do need to understand class in a
> >refreshed way, which understands Capital not as an objectivist,
> >structuralist piece of political economy, but as a text where every
category
> >is imbued with class struggle, is constituted by class struggle, is a
> >critique of political economy aimed right at the heart of capital.
>
> Sure, capitalism is a text in the sense that it has authors (human
> society), but what's the nature of the distinction you make above?  I
would
> agree that Das Kapital was but one book in a projected corpus (marx was
not
> a well man, and one who took too long getting his manuscripts right - used
> to drive poor Freddie Engels to the odd glass beyond thirst at times), and
> that, being about capital, this particular volume took capital as its
> subject.  And, yes, I would agree that people often make the mistake of
> casting the human as non-agentic flotsam in a sea of blind accumulation
> (yes, I loathe the ship Althusser and all the mad opaque antihumanist
> postie ideas who have since sailed in her) as a consequence of Das
> Kapital's historical salience.  But none of that means we have to risk
> forays into ambiguity and amorphous gallic terminology.  Capitalism is a
> product of man, has contradictions immanent within it, and always and
> everywhere manifests as class struggle.  I think we agree, but I'm scared
> we're going where we needn't go here, that's all.




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