Re: empire & globalization, was... Re: AUT: Re: autonomist crisis theory

[Peter van Heusden <pvh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 11:44:50AM +0200, Tahir Wood wrote:
>
>
> >>> commie00@xxxxxxxxx 02/21 6:20 AM >>>
> >thoughts?
>
> Well I think that the "globalisation of the ruling class" as you put it
> (not sure that this is a very good formulation), or rather the further
> globalisation of the means of exploitation, needs to be met with a further
> globalisation of the means of struggle. For a long time though I've felt
> that the struggle AGAINST globalisation per se is somewhat misconceived.
> It smacks too much of nationalism or Amin's delinking or the national
> democratic revolution or something. However, one can't be FOR globalisation!

I've been giving this lots of thought, and its a topic that provokes
constant running battles (e.g. against Patrick Bond) on the Debate and
LBO-talk mailing lists. My current thinking is that one can indeed be
for globalisation, if you turn conventional left analysis on its head
a bit. My major problem with anti-globalisation rhetoric is that it
maintain a perspective which sees capital as the active element in the
world, and sees people as (largely) passive. Strategies like de-linking,
strengthening the social-democratic state, etc. tend to take this
perspective in their stride, and follow through with policies which
would definitely lock the working class in place (in the framework
of a 'strong state' class compromise).

If, instead, communism flows from the activity of the working class, and
the organisation of capital (including the state form) is a reaction to
this activity (this is a brief summary of the autonomist perspective
as I see it), you get a different perspective, one where the goal is not
to stop and block capital, but is rather to unleash and develop the
energies of capital's negation - the working class. Then internationalism
can be embraced not simply as the 'globalisation of the means of struggle'
(a perspective which could still mean many local struggles across
the globe - ala. the taking to task of one's national bourgeoisie which
Marx talks about in the Manifesto) but as a process of 'class composition'
across and against national borders. Something of this comes
across in Massimo de Angelis's 'Global Capital and Global Struggles'
http://www.acephale.org/encuentro/globintr.html. Might the supercession
(aufhebung) of capitalism be possible alongside the linkages that
globalisation creates?

Is 'globalisation', which is not only the globalisation of the ruling class,
but also entails numerous processes of standardization (e.g. the TCP/IP
infrastructure which makes the Internet possible, global telephonic
communication standards, the deployment of similar 'base technologies' on a
global scale to ensure that 'innovation' (in other words extraction of
surplus value) can be moved rapidly from place to place) and development
of 'cultural trans-nationalism' (in the sense that 'cultural understanding'
is vital for the development of trans-national capitalism - this means
everything from a common 'trade language' to a desire for 'multi-
culturalism') not a resource which makes the emergence of a truly
global 'self-conscious social humanity' easier?

This is not to say that the various processes of 'globalisation' need
to accepted or rejected as one, of course.

BTW. Doug Henwood has a positive review of Negri & Hardt's 'Empire' in
the latest issue of LBO (LBO #96). He addresses some of the meaning of
being 'for globalisation' from a progressive perspective there. I've
got a copy on campus if you want a look.

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
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