AUT: Re: Class and other social divisions

["commie00" <commie00@xxxxxxxxx>]

there are several things i could jump on here, but i'm going to try and stay
focused...

i tend to agree with this criticism

> 1.  I am dislocating the primacy of class.

for the following reasons:

> > The main problem involves confusion about the very notion of class
itself
> > and the most fundamental separation of class society.  It isn't class.

so class isn't the "funadamental separation" of *class* society? er... am i
missing something?

> If we see class as a relation of antagonism between
> > two poles, if we see class as that kind of separation, we also have to
> > realize that patriarchy and race represent similar polarities,
> representing
> > different aspects of the capital-labor relation in more highly mediated,
> > sometimes obscured forms.

behind all the jargon, the basic problem i see here is your reduction of the
concept of class to an almost meaningless state. in fact, i'm not entirely
sure what you mean by class... is class distinction based in the seperation
of the producers from the means of production? that's what i've always
understood as the basis of class.

on top of this, i've always understood the labor / capital split as the
class split. that is: if something manifests as "labor" it is "working
class" in terms struggle, etc.

if this is so, then patriarchy and race, yes, represent different aspects of
the labor / capital relation because they are different aspects of the class
division... and the struggle against them as different aspects of class
struggle.

and from here, methinks, we get a very expanded definition of class.

> We can think of this in terms laid out by Italian
> autonomist
> > Marxism, as specific compositions of the capital-labor relation,
existing
> as
> > the outcome of specific class struggles.

yes... as specific *CLASS* compositions. the key moment of autonomist
theory, for me, is preciesely this understanding: that these things, within
capitalism, come to represent the labor / capital division, and thus are
moments of class division, and thus are potential fissurs in capitalism
because they open up different moments in class struggle.

trying to seperate them from the labor / capital relation shows, i think, a
misunderstanding of capitalism, and how it operates. but trying to
differentiate the capital / labor relation from "class" just boggles my
mind.

marx's idea viz. alienated labor giving rise to class is true because
alienated labor gives rise to the labor / capital dialectic... the labor /
capital dialectic is what class is.



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