Re: AUT: An interesting critique of Negri

[John Holloway <Johnpholloway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ilan,

        Like many others on this list, I imagine, I 've been very
stimulated over the years by things that Toni Negri has written. At the
same time, there are other things that I don't like and lots that I just
don't understand.

        One of the things that disturbs me, and which is emphasised in the
interview I was commenting upon, is Negri's insistence on understanding
revolutionary theory as positive theory. This disturbs me because I have
always understood revolutionary theory as negative theory: we struggle
because we live in a negative society (a society which negates our
humanity) and our struggle is a negation of that society. The movement of
struggle is a movement through negativity.

        Does it matter whether we think of theory as positive or negative?
In the note I suggest that it does matter.

        If we think of theory as positive, then we end up with a view of
struggle as between two positive, external forces (which Negri now refers
to as the multitude and Empire). On the one hand we have a Multitude
untainted by capital, represented above all by the Militant, symbolised in
the latest book by the figure of Saint Francis of Assisi. This leads easily
to the holier-than-thou attitude that has often affected left-wing
politics. On the other hand, we have a monstrous imperial machine up
against us, with no significant internal contradictions.

        If we think of theory as negative, then the relation between the
two sides is not external. In other words, if we start by saying that we
negate capitalism, it is clear that our existence is already being defined
by capital. We are not a pure subject, we are already permeated by capital
and that is why we struggle. We are not saints, just poor oppressed sods
struggling to change the world. So a negative starting point leads us to
ask about the way that capital enters into us. But it also leads us to ask
how we enter into capital. If capital is the negation of humanity, this
means that capital is infected by that which it negates. In Capital, Marx's
argument is that capital is the negation of our doing (our work), but that
at the same time it depends absolutely for its existence upon our work.
That is the weak point in capital, that it depends upon us, and that
weakness is present in every aspect of capital's existence, most clearly in
its tendency to crisis. That is the basis of hope. And that is lost if we
start talking of the class relation as an antagonism between Multitude and
Empire.

        The other point that seems to me to be dangerous about talking of
the working class or multitude as a positive subject is that it's a
fiction. It's like a prisoner pretending that he's already outside the
prison. Very stimulating, but it can easily lead on to the creation of a
whole fantasy world. I think this happens to some extent in the Empire book
(and in earlier writings as well).

        I hope that helps a bit. I would very much welcome comments,
because there is much that I simply do not understand in Negri.

        John



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