Re: empire & globalization, was... Re: AUT: Re: autonomistcrisis theory

["Chris Wright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow, a bit to absorb today.  This and the reply by Sergio offer some good
stuff.  Hmm, hope this makes sense.
>
> but that's why i didn't make the post so much a
> response to you (by including chunkcs of text), but a
> more general framing of something i was thinking...
> which the few remarks ya made on the issue sparked.
Ok, sounds good.
> >
> > I don't think national 'capitals' compete, i think
> > national states compete
>
> i'll try to flush this out more below, but i don't
> think there is any real difference between a national
> "capital" a national ruling class and a national
> state. they are all one in the same thing essentially.
> or: if they are not, then their fates are certainly
> tied together to the point where any difference
> between the three is moot.
I do think there is a difference between a national capital, a national
ruling class, and a national state, however, I put it crudely.  I believe
that capitals compete, obviously, but I think that capitals compete over the
exploitation of labor and surplus value in certain ways.  Capitals compete
to gain access to labor power, for example, but they also compete over
"total social capital", as Marx called it.  In other words, they compete
over who gets what chunk of the whole pie, of all surplus value.  They do
not simply get surplus value from the labor they directly exploit, but also
from having more efficient exploitation, which offers the chance to
super-exploit labor by being more efficient than the socially necessary
labor time.  The capitals that produce/exploit more efficiently than the
socially necessary labor time actually draw surplus value away from sections
of capital that produce at or below the socially necessary labor time.  Part
of the drive to expand the domination of dead over living labor, which
drives the revolutionizing of the means of production, flows from the desire
to get this advantage.  That is an example of competition between capitals.

States generally do not compete at that level, as producers (though that is
not always true).  They generally compete to attract capital, to provide the
most attractive conditions for exploitation.  In a sense, they want to say
either: a) we can provide the best conditions for achieving that level of
super-exploitation or b) we provide labor and materials so cheap that you
can produce profitably even without being ahead of the curve in efficient
exploitation of labor power.  Again, this is a bit off the cuff, but it does
mark out different kinds of competition.

Finally, any given country does not even need a coherent capitalist class,
as such.  In China, Russia, Cuba and many other places, anything we would
associate with a capitalist class was either destroyed or fled.  The state
took over the task of exploiting labor (separating the producers from the
means of producing, and alienating their labor into commodities for sale),
but it would be hard to call those states capitalist classes.  But I will
return to the identity of state and capitalist class in a moment.  What
matters is capital on a world scale, the attatchment of those states to a
set of social relations defined as capitalist, and therefore those states
existence as a part of a set of international relations.  In certain
situations, a capitalist class, a body of capitalist property owners,
becomes irrelevant.  They can even be destroyed for a period, though as we
have seen, the natural tendency is to establish such a coherent class.

The nation state as such is partially a fiction already.  Always has been.
Any one state 'merely' represents one fractured moment of the capital-labor
relation's political existence (trying to draw to itself as much capital as
possible, maintaining the suppression of the working class, etc.)  Negri
almost misses the point in so far as the political in capital has always
been international, non-national.  But that totality can only exist
simultaneously as a fractured totality, as a totality of separate moments
because capital develops unevenly in an uneven world.  In my opinion, one
world ruling class or one world state only makes sense if the uneven
development of capital can be done away with.

Unfortunately for capital, since we constitute capital as our alienated
labor, since we struggle unevenly, at different moments, and in different
ways, capital will never get that even world.  Unfortunately for capital,
the competition of capitals over our alienated labor will never allow the
kind of evenness that would make a world state or world capitalist class
possible.  Anyway, i am skipping ahead.

> > for capital and that the capitalist class finds
> > itself fragmented along
> > national lines to some extent in relation to seeking
> > the protection of this
> > or that state,
>
> i think the state is, a marx noted, the (and i'm
> paraphrasing) executive council of the ruling class.
> or some such. it is also the ruling class' military
> arm (when the class is acting, more or less, as a
> whole).
Ok, first, i agree with Karl on his point, but there is even more.  The idea
that the state and the capitalist class are equal means that postal workers
are capitalists or cops or every nickle and dime politician.  I don;t think
that makes sense at all.  If anything, the tendency for capital and the
state to appear separate, for the state to be composed of people from all
social classes, flows from the separation of production and exchange, the
separation of exploitation from domination, the separation of unfreedom from
freedom.  Certainly, some members of the capitalist class go into the state,
but ultimately they generally do not need to do that.  The state is their
state because it exists as a mode of existence of the capital-labor
relation.  Capitalism separates the doer from the doing, but it also also
separates the exploiter from the enforcer (obviously not always, i am
talking here of a tendency), which is why bourgeois democracy is actually
the epitome of the capitalist state and why capital can function happily in
a democracy.  Democracy makes sense in the free market: bourgeois democracy
is the free market in politics.  Of course, the separation is also a
fiction, but I think we agree on that aspect.

The attempt to establish the identity of the state and the capitalist class
does not even work empirically, since few capitalists are politicians.  Most
of them are lawyers (who you have claimed as workers.)  But we cannot claim
lawyers outside the state (which makes no sense, since lawyers exists only
in relation to law and courts) are workers while lawyers inside the state
are capitalists.  Where is their change of relation to exploitation?  Do
they suddenly becomes exploiters of labor power by becoming politicians or
bureaucrats?

> > for cultural and linguistic reasons
> > (even capitalists have to
> > live somewhere), in relation to the fact that while
> > money is mobile,
> > production is less so and often existing capitalist
> > businesses began decades
> > (and sometimes a century or more) ago attatched to a
> > certain national market
> > (in terms of capital goods, consumer goods and
> > labor.)  In that sense, the
> > formation of capitalist classes (NOT capital) as
> > national has to be dealt
> > with in relation to historical formation, with some
> > understanding that that
> > formation created a series of advantages, ties, etc.
> > between "national"
> > capitalists and territorial states.  So while it is
> > true that capital knows
> > no boundaries, no country, capitalist classes do.
>
> i agree. but we also have to take into account how all
> of this has been recomposed. that is: we have to
> understand recent history, and how everything is now
> quite a bit different. and while the theories on
> empire may be lacking, i think they are closer to
> what's happening than what i feel are very dangerously
> dated theories on imperialism.
Of course.  And we have seen serious changes.  Capitalists are less tied to
a national state than ever before in so far as they keep the bulk of their
capital in the "home" country.  But we also should not overstate a tendency.
The vast bulk of capital remains in the "home" country of the capitalists
who own that capital.  Simply look at repatriation of profits, patents, and
where companies keep boards of directors: overhwelmingly still in the
capitalst's or corporation country of origin.

At the same time, I do not ascribe to Lenin's theory of imperialism. First,
it depends on a notion of decadence which I reject (the idea that capital
has a final or highest phase and a necessary collapse).  The 3 articles in
Aufheben pretty much kill that idea.  Second, it assumes that competition
between states equals competition between capitals and capitalist classes.
Third, it assumes that the imperialist countries 'exploit' the colonial
countries.  That reifies the nation state as an entity which can exploit or
be exploited, as opposed to capital exploiting labor, regarless of who owns
the capital.

> > They know their military,
> > their state apparatus, their legal system, etc.
>
> i don't see this being so much anymore. as john cusak
> put it in the monologue he wrote for grosse point
> blank, states and borders and such are basically
> "public relations theory at this point". that is:
> simply a way to discipline and control a certain group
> of workers which can be contained within imaginary
> lines.
To the people of Iraq, it is not PR; to a middle class, conscously
anti-class struggle "intellectual", it may be.  (for why I dislike John
Cusak, see his comments in that movie and in High Fidelity about not being a
class warrior.)  To Mexican migrants to the US, states and borders are not
PR.  If you need to see the difference, migrate from Tennessee to Chicago
vs. Mexico to Chicago.  The state and borders are about controlling labor
power, a process I don't see diminishing any time soon.

> also: it is perfectly reasonable to understand the
> "their" in your comment as being more than the section
> of the ruling class which were born and/or grew up
> within those same imaginary lines.
>
> > In
> > turn, it is not so easy
> > to just uproot and become a capitalist of equal
> > power in a more developed
> > capitalist country, but at the same time, why go to
> > a country where you
> > might be "da' man", but over a place with relatively
> > less importance in
> > world capital.  In other words, the formation of and
> > retention of national
> > capitalist classes is governed by complex problems
> > (including the
> > nationalism of workers who might be more hostile to
> > 'foreign' bosses, which
> > I have seen frequently enough.)
>
> not sure what yer getting at here... but the
> nationalism of workers is certainly something that was
> purposefully created / encouraged for some obvious
> reasons. and it is also why, from a public relations
> standpoint, they must keep of the facade of a nation
> state and national bosses.
>
> and, tactically speaking (as far as the left is
> concerned), it's good to keep us pissed off about
> "imperialism", so that we're shooting a scarecrows and
> not the actual target.
My point is simple: the idea of a transnational ruling class avoids the
problem of uneven development, of uneven opportunities to exploit, of uneven
access to capital among capitalists.  No one wants to move down the ladder,
but it is not easy to move up.  Going from being a big capitalist in
Czechoslovakia to an equally big capitalist in the United States is highly
unlikely.  Of course, he/she could go to Afghanistan and become an even
bigger capitalist, relatively, there, but in a place even less important.
And whether the capitalist or the capital moves, the problem is the same.
Big fish in the pond, minnow in the sea.

And yes, imperialism does keep some people looking at the 'bad, foreign
capitalists'.  All national chauvinism does that.  But, but, but... some
people have their whole lives, they whole culture, languages, peoples,
destroyed by those foreign devils and those foreign devils often act in ways
even more insulting, damaging, and with greater force.  The indignity of
being slogged by US or British soldiers who come in, kill and rape, turn
whole villages in brothels, etc. certainly might be considered even worse
than 'ones own exploiter'.  Anyway, the immportant thing in that dynamic is
to realize its potential to mobilize people against their own exploiters
too.  In most cases, the nationalists have to smash their own revolutions
and populations after 'kicking out the foreign devils' because those
revolutions would just as soon not stop.  This is the important stuff Tahir
was getting at.  Mocking nationalism with the correct ideas won;t make it go
away.  Neither will telling people that their capitalist is just as bad when
they don't see it that way.  it takes more than anti-imperialism, but it
also takes more than abstract anti-capitalism.  I am not claiming to know
what that more is, just that it is out there.

> > In other words, the capitalists do have genuine
> > "national interests",
> > interests ultimately shot through with all the
> > divisions created by their
> > submission to accumulation. And the process of
> > creating a unified capitalist
> > class or capitalist state requires so much
> > bargaining and bickering,
>
> which, as far as i understand itis exactly what
> happens when the imf or world bank or wto or whatnot
> meets.
I am not just talking about debates at a table.  i mean trade wars,
political and military skirmishes, etc.
> > would
> > require the destruction of so many capitalists, that
> > many will fight tooth
> > and nail against it, even though it might makes
> > sense in terms of
> > exploitation of labor overall.
>
> and from what i can gather, this is exactly why the
> wto courts were created. to try to undermine such
> destruction so that certain capitalists would not
> rebel against empire.
But can they do it?  I think that is the rub.  I don't think they can do it,
and the first serious crisis will cause a tremendous set of problems to
surface.

> > Capital controls
> > them, not the other way
> > around.
>
> is disagree. like in star wars:
>
> "you mean it controls your actions?"
> "yes, but it also obeys your commands..."
>
> (i guess i'm on a movie quote kick today =P)
>
> capital is not a conscious entity which moves itself
> around. i think this is a dangerous
> anthorpomorphization. the ruling class simultaneously
> controls and is controled by "capital". hell, i'd
> would go even further and say that the ruling class IS
> "capital", and vise versa.
Again, i would disagree, since capital is a social relation, not a thing.
it is one thing to say that capitalists control 'capital' in its solidified
form as means of production and commodities, but it would be a mistake to
confuse that with the social relation.  When I say that capital controls the
capitalists, i mean that the social relation controls them.  They cannot
just alter the social relation anyway they please, they must bow before the
constant hunt for surplus value.  Also, to say that the capitalist class is
capital would mean saying that the capitalist class is the entire
capital-labor relationship, either making the working class non-existant or
making everyone a capitalist.

And I know you did not mean it, but that is the direction your logic goes.

and the seeming control
> over the ruling class that capital has is only the
> result of the actions of other members of the ruling
> class.
Not so.  The domination of capital over the capitalists really is the sign
of the presence of labor within capital, of an insubordinate element.  Your
approach is a capital-logic approach, not a class struggle approach, again,
in its logical conclusion.  In a certain sense, we already dominate the
capitalists, in so far as they have to constantly react to insubrdinate
labor.  other capitalists find themselves int he same position.  They
control each other only in so far as they compete over the exploitation of
labor and their share of total social capital.

the fact that many acts are, necessarily,
> annonymous. thus, i don't think there is an "invisible
> hand", or any such thing, of capitalism. the closest
> would be the laws necessary for capital to function,
> but these also do not exist apart from the concrete
> activities of the ruling class, but are what is
> necessary to keep capitalism going.
Agreed.  No invisible hand.

> > And yet they can also resist.  it is not
> > like capitalists go broke
> > quietly or just say "Well, that capitalist is a
> > better, more efficient
> > exploiter than me."  Hence, wars of all sorts.
>
> but note how wars on any large scales have long since
> ended. many believers in imperialism have been waiting
> world war three for 50+ years, but it's not come (and
> i seriously doubt it will). now you have "low
> intensity war", and "police actions". pay attention to
> the language they use...
Well, low-intensity wars are what major wars between the big powers and the
little powers get called, but that does not make them small.  Vietnam
defeating the US was a big war (as many US soldiers dies there as in the
Pacific Theatre in World War II).  Korea was a big war (2 million dead).
Pay attention to the people they kill...  Does that mean we will have
another World War?  Not necessarily.  I don;t know how the next round of
conflicts will shake out, but I am not ready to buy into Karl Kautsky's
Ultra-Imperialism, the early 20th century pre-cursor to Empire.

> ((by this i do not mean to say that the situation
> couldn't change, but that, as it stands now, i think
> all of that is behind us.))
Dunno.
> > Anyway, this may seem very empirical, BUT if we do
> > not ascend to the
> > concrete, we will be engaged in pure theory, in
> > philosophizing.  And that
> > was never Marx's approach.
>
> i agree. which is why i have problems with continued
> notions of imperialism, they do not jive with what i
> see going on. they are theory now.
>
> it seems to me that a lot of people want to hang on to
> the notion of imperialism because its a habit. others
> because they want to believe lenin that it was the
> last state of capitalism. and still others because
> they want to blame "u.s. imperialism" for everything.
> they want to try to understand the current changes as
> continued imperialism, somehow... but do not engage
> with the concrete actions of the new global ruling
> bodies, and do not understand the context of current
> capitalist competition.
Well, we agree on that...

> > The effect of the WTO is not to provide equalization
> > between capitalists.
>
> i think you're taking that differently from how i
> meant it... see above where i discussed what the wto
> is stratigically within the ruling class.
Ok, I'll roll with this one...

> > for example, the WTO forced India to test
> > pharmeceuticals for 20 years
> > before being able to bring them to market, but the
> > U.S. only has to test for
> > 7 years.  Hmmm... pretty nationalistic, pretty much
> > US capital using the WTO
> > to throttle a competitor.
>
> fine. but account for the fact that venezuela was able
> to discipline the mighty u.s. thru the wto within this
> idea. it doesn't hold. something else is afoot. and,
> again, while empire theories are certainly wanting in
> a lot of ways, they certainly provide a seemingly more
> realistic account of how this is possible.
The relative power of even a smaller capitalist state at one moment or
another can vary, especially depending on who opposed the US besides
Venezuela.  Certainly, the WTO does not allow for US hegemony like the old
days, but the US is relatively weaker too.  I don;t know the incident well
enough to really discuss it beyond what I see as things to look out for...
You may be right.

> > Like many other agencies,
> > the WTO, GATT, etc.
> > becomes a way for the big capitalsts to be more
> > predatory in relation to the
> > poorer, smaller capitalists, via interntional bodies
> > dominated by the
> > biggest states.
>
> true. and i think the wto might exist to try to
> provide a way to keep those smaller capitalists
> operating within the imperial system... and not rebel
> against it.
Agreed, again.

> > That does not weaken the national state in relation
> > to the working class,
> > however, or lessesn conflict between nation states,
> > at least not
> > necessarily.
>
> see, i disagree, i think, with negri on the idea of
> the end of the nation state. i think it is necessary
> (pr-wise) for them to exist. what i can imagine
> happening is the world becoming much like the u.s. is
> now: a global confederation of states.
Again, that would require a huge set of changes, such as open borders as we
have between states, a unified currency, etc.  The WTO is a very, very long
way away from something like that.

> there is no equalization of wealth between different
> states in the u.s., and there is competition. hell,
> there are sections of the u.s. considered "third
> world" by the u.n. (such as appalachia). but there are
> also no wars, etc. and there is a sense of unity.
There is also no one stopping you from moving here to Chicago (see you in
May, btw).  No passport, no seven years waiting for a green card, no H1-B
visas, etc...  Internal uneven development has always existed in countries,
but it takes place on a different level from differences between states.

> there are certainly things which stand in the way of
> this, as you noted in your bit about history and such,
> but i think that is precisely what the international
> bodies have been created to resolve.
Maybe they were created for that.  Maybe they simply reflect the tremendous
weakness of the capitalists in the poorer countries relative to the richer
ones.  Maybe it represents the failure of the national liberation movements
and disillusionment with "so called communism".  Many things are involved,
and to pose only one side seems abstract to me.

> anyway... this is one possible explination and
> possibility that i see.
>
> also, re: empire (the book). i went back and had a
> look after you mentioned being bothered by all the
> discussion about capital/the ruling class, etc. and
> they discuss working class composition and
> subjectivity right in (i think) the second section.
> thus, my assumption when i was reading it was what i
> assume in reading capital... that everything they talk
> about is meant to be seem as imbued with class
> struggle.
>
> having trouble expressing myself today... hope this
> all makes sense...
Makes good sense and goo stuff to think about, even if we disagree.  But
that's the point of the dialogue, eh?

Talk to you later!
Cheers,
Chris



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