Re: AUT: Putting Negri to the Test

["cwright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

commie00 said:
> the first assumption here is that the state is somehow
> distinct from the ruling class in any meaningful way
> (which clearly obliterates marx's notion that the
> state is the general council of the ruling class).
> another problem is that this assumes a seperation
> between economics and politcs.

This is quite messed up.  The identification of the state and the ruling
class as immediately equivalent is a very big problem.  Does that mean that
every CEO and major stockholder not employed in the state apparatus is not a
capitalist?  Does this mean that every low-level state bureaucrat is a
capitalist?

The appearance of the separation of economics and politics IS real, in so
far as the appearance of something represents the the essence in the mode of
being denied.  Otherwise we return to Lenin and Plekhanov's photocopy theory
of reality which negates any need for science (which for Marx involves the
critique of the separation of the form of apperance from the essence, not
the denial of the reality of that separation.)

Your position leads actually to the logic of state monopoly capitalism and
the crude state capitalism of the British SWP.

commie00 said:
> like i said, i'm not very interested in defending
> negri... but the concept of "multitude" (sans negri)
> is an interesting one... if it is understood to mean:
> the working class is a multitude with a multitude of
> interests and desires.
>
> i agree that negri's use of it seems to border on the
> leninist / social democratic / liberal side of things,
> but this does not mean that the word itself cannot be
> useful in understanding class composition.

I wish Negri meant it this way, but I see it as a replacement for the
working class, for the capital-labor relation.  And the more I see him
employ it, the stronger that feeling gets.  It is inseparable from his
annihilation (in his own head) of the problem of labor power and value
creation and gets back to Harry's comments on Negri's 'total subsumption'.

Hasta,
Chris



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