Re: AUT: An interesting critique of Negri

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi John and other list members.

> Ilan,
>
>         Like many others on this list, I imagine, I 've been very
> stimulated over the years by things that Toni Negri has written.

I am a convinced materialist since age 16 as result of
philosophy lessons in the commune boarding school I was
enrolled in.

My be I was not deep enough but I took seriously the concept
of scientific socialism.

> At the
> same time, there are other things that I don't like and lots that I just
> don't understand.

It is one of the basic intellectual honesty things to put your ideas clear enough
for every one to refute.

>         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.

It remind me of an old joke about a follower of a Rabbet who asked him
if to write the date of birth of his first born a day earlier or a day later
than the actual one. After a long contemplation the Rabbet suggested
as a compromise to register the exact date.

To my long conviction from the years I labeled my self libertarian
marxist, the theory of revolution was regarded as one of the social/human
sciences. Not positive, not negative, but just science.

> The movement of struggle is a movement through negativity.

One of the points that make me not easy the most is the old
two variable "dialectics". The movement of struggle is movement
of struggle. We are both against the present social order and for
a new social order.

No need to be prisoners of the old dialectics labels.

>         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).

As if the first approximation of social analyzes of 150 years ago is
still relevant when we understand better systems dynamics and
the Chaos processes involved.

> 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.

As if the real representative of the "multitudes" is not the regular
wage slave who struggle daily to survive and keep limited dignity,
who may become militant in special circumstances... but needs
really shocking circumstances to get free from the capitalist
brain washing called socialization.

>         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.

As if there is any dry fish alive. We are part of the system... even when
we are the most principled enemies of the stability of that system.

> 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.

Well, may be I became over satisfied in old age, but even the young generation
of activists seems to enjoy the struggle and do not feel as "just poor oppressed sods".

> 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.

This kind of demonology miss the real point of humanity development
which have many faces. The capitalist system is not "negation of humanity"...

It is just not the best order for human beings. The reason it is so is not
because of a mystical philosophical concepts, but because the inborn
emotional system of human being was adjusted by natural development
to social climate of strong affiliation of one for all and all for each one.

> 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.

I always thought Marx wrote about the comodification of work, the
estrangement and the exploitation. The negation of part of our freedom in work
is just one of the aspects of this comodification of 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.

Only some one who is really high can regard the riders as
"independent" from the animals they ride on.

As for the tendency of the capitalist system to enter crisis is just what
you can expect from every developing system.

It is not unique to the human society and can be found every where
if you care to look for.

> 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.

My basis of hope is based on the dynamics of the development of human
society and the main aspect of the system these days.

The justification and legitimacy of authoritarian human relations that were the
cement keeping class societies from crumbling, deteriorate faster than
the ecology.

>         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).

Some people need the glorification of the working people to justify
their subjective choice not to join the capitalist class.

In Israel, the capitalist class is much less Zionist and racist than the
working class (mostly settler colonialist immigrants and second generation
of immigrants). This is not a reason to despair... just calls for more
sophisticated mode of activity.

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

I am not sure my ruminations contributed so much to the negation on negri,
but I hope it was interesting enough to read.
Ilan



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