AUT: Re: hegelian stuff

["cwright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nate,

I can't speak on people like Bologna, Tronti, Panzieri, etc. but Negri is
solidly and completely anti-Hegelian and anti-dialectic.  His substantive
critique of negation in Empire shows that very clearly, as do other aspects
of his theoretical apparatus.  The influence of Althusser certainly meant a
very anti-Hegelian tendency in whoever adopted his ideas.

Debord has more than a brush with Hegel.  He would have considered himself
as much a student of Hegel as of Marx, in part through the young Lukacs,
Korsch and Adorno's work, all 'Hegelians.'   Aphorism 196:
"As the very triumphs of the spectacular system pose new problems, a new
division of tasks appears within the specialized thought of that system. On
one hand, a spectacular critique of the spectacle is undertaken by modern
sociology, which studies separation exclusively by means of the conceptual
and material instruments of separation. On the other, the various
disciplines where structuralism has become entrenched are developing an
apologetics of the spectacle - a mindless thought that imposes an official
amnesia regarding all historical practice. But the fake despair of
nondialectical critique and the fake optimism of overt promotion of the
system are equally submissive."

Aphorism 202: "Structuralism is thought underwritten by the state, a form of
thought that regards the present conditions of spectacular "communication"
as an absolute."

Aphorism 205: "The very style of dialectical theory is a scandal and an
abomination to the prevailing standards of language and to the sensibilities
molded by those standards, because while it makes concrete use of existing
concepts it is simultaneously aware of their fluidity and their inevitable
destruction."  This is really key.

Aphorism 79: "The inseparability of Marx's theory from the Hegelian method
is itself inseparable from that theory's revolutionary character, that is,
from its truth. It is in this regard that the relationship between Marx and
Hegel has generally been ignored or misunderstood, or even denounced as the
weak point of what became fallaciously transformed into a doctrine:
"Marxism." Bernstein implicitly revealed this connection between the
dialectical method and historical partisanship when in his book Evolutionary
Socialism he deplored the 1847 Manifesto's unscientific predictions of
imminent proletarian revolution in Germany: "This historical self-deception,
so erroneous that the most naïve political visionary could hardly have done
any worse, would be incomprehensible in a Marx who at that time had already
seriously studied economics if we did not recognize that it reflected the
lingering influence of the antithetical Hegelian dialectic, from which Marx,
like Engels, could never completely free himself. In those times of general
effervescence this influence was all the more fatal to him.""

Somewhere else, Debord makes the note that the attack on dialectics has
always been the opening attack on Marx's revolutionary theory by
revolutionary and reformist ideology.  So the importance of dialectic for
the SI is undoubted, esp. Debord.

Of course, it is worth noting, again and again, that Marx was also indebted
to the Old Man, and any acqauintance with Hegel will make it clear that many
of Marx's categories bear the imprint of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and
The Logic.  The people who claim that Marx dumped Hegel in his later years
have a political-ideological axe to grind because Hegel's influence is all
over each section of Capital and the books on Surplus Value, as well as the
Grundrisse (which makes Negri's fondness for the Grundrisse particularly
hilarious and ironic) and other smaller works.  As John Holloway puts it in
his new book, we are not dialecticians because we are materialists, but
materialists because we are dialecticians.  This was certainly true of Marx.
Now, one can level of a critique of those categories, but as with Negri, one
wonders what is actually left of Marx's critique.  Werner Bonefeld has an
insightful set of comments on non-dialectical Marxism in one of the back
issues of Common Sense where he discusses structuralism and autonomism(sic).

The young Lukacs, for all his failings, is absolutely adamant about the
centrality of Hegel for Marx, as is Korsch in a different way.

Beyond that, however, to develop an awareness of the political implications
of non-dialectical Marxism would be no tiny task, since the effects have not
beeen uniform and often reflect limits of the movement as a whole, not
simply of the particular theorist.  Plenty of "Marxism", including in the
libertarian Marxists, has little interest in, understanding of, or is
actively hostile towards dialectics.  But if Debord is right in his defense
of dialectics, he begins to lay out a useful critique and key points.  The
main thing is to take each theorist on their own terms.  Espousal of
dialectics does not lead to any guarantee of good politics, of course.
Theory is always subordinate to the class struggle and is only one of its
moments.

For example, without any explicit reference to dialectics, Mariarosa Dalla
Costa, Selma James and Leopoldina Fortunadi formulated a very powerful
critique of Marx's own limited understanding of the relation of reproduction
to production in Capital.  that failure meant a failure to grasp the
centrality of women's struggles to the rest of the working class and
housework as surplus-value producing and socially capitalist labor, but in a
different way from waged labor.  Harry Cleaver talks about it a bit, but
does not take it as far as Fortunadi, for example, who develops a systematic
critique of Marx based on a close-reading and critique of Capital and
Theories of Surplus Value.  Good critique, but does it really hit the mark?
Not sure yet myself, but it is the most important stuff I have read because
of its vast political implications which have been seriously
under-appreciated.

I'm sure that doesn't help :)

Cheers,
Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nate Holdren" <nateholdren@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 11:27 AM
Subject: AUT: hegelian stuff


> Can anyone tell me a little about the history of the reception of concepts
> like alienation, reification, ideology, and fetishism among the Italian
> autonomist marxists and other similar folks who are important to
> autonomist/libertarian marxism today?
>
> I read that Tronti (I think it was him) was at one point called a hegelian
> due to an essay he wrote, but I don't know why this was the case or what
> that was supposed to mean.
>
> In my limited exposure it seems that there are pretty big differences in
the
> autonomist/libertarian marxist stuff around ideas like alienation,
ideology,
> reification, fetishism, etc, which I understand to be part of a hegelian
> heritage w/ in marxism.
>
> It's been a little while but I don't remember much discussion of any of
the
> above in Harry's _Reading Capital Political_ or Nick Dyer-Witheford's
> _CyberMarx_, nor much in Steve Wright's _Storming Heaven_, which are my 3
> principle sources of info on the autonomist tradition.
>
> I know the Johnson-Forest tendency and its various descendents were and
are
> very concerned with hegelian ideas, as are a number of the Common
Sense/Open
> Marxism folks.
> I vaguely remember Debord discussing hegel in places. Though I can't
recall
> his position the idea of the spectacle seems fairly contiguous with
> reification, alienation, etc.
>
> I don't remember Negri and Hardt taking up any of this in a substantive
> manner in _Empire_ (other than snide comments about 'the dialectic').
>
> At this point I don't know what to make of ideas like alienation,
ideology,
> etc. They were initially very important to me when I first read Marx, but
> now I'm not sure what I think about this. It seems a lot of great and
> important work gets done both with and without these concepts, and people
> who have had a huge impact on me have been all over the spectrum in
relation
> to their use of these ideas.
>
> I'm less interested in starting a debate here on the relative validity and
> utility of hegel. Rather I'd like to hear a little from people who know a
> lot of the history and theory better than I do how and why different
people
> have or have not employed different concepts, and taken these concepts as
> either central to or not necessary for marxism.
>
> any info is much appreciated.
>
> Nate
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
> http://www.hotmail.com
>
>
>
>      --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
>




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