Re: AUT: Academia....

[Cliff Staples <Clifford_staples@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Tahir:

Thanks much for your thoughtful response to my ignorance on the matter of
"autonomous Marxism."
And while I do not want to in any way minimize that thoughtfulness with my
response, I must be brief as I have to get ready for class.

First off, while I did read Althusser way back when, I come to him
primarily via Resnick and Wolf (see Knowledge and Class, in particular)
.  From what I can tell, while they do set themselves against humanism,
empircism, and rationalism, and so in this sense likely have an affinity
with Althusser, their primary interest in him seems to be his concept of
"overdeterminism," which they claim Althusser took over from Freud.  The
concept is their alternative to any kind of sociological determinism, which
for someone like me is a breath of fresh air, as I spent a good deal of my
time (with misgivings) messing with Erik Wright's class categories and
regression equations.

The 'structure-agency' debate has been going on in bourgeois sociology for
years.  And I face it nearly every day in the classroom where my students
are, to say the least, anti-Althusserian (not that they know it yet) in
their obliteration of any 'structure' in favor of pedal-to-the-metal
voluntaristic individualism.  In short, the are true believers in the
American creed.  I spend all semester chipping away at this edifice (mostly
to no avail).

I'm somewhat surprised to learn that Althusser went so far overboard.  He
did read Marx, didn't he (wink, wink)?  Marx is who I offer to those few
students who are really interested in striking a balance.  Didn't Marx say
something to the effect that "people make their own lives, but not under
conditions of their own choosing?"  What more need be said on the
matter?  Obviously those "conditions" were created by earlier generations
of people making THEIR own lives.  I suppose one could use his "ensemble of
social relations" statement to sustain a sociological reductionism of the
self, but the American Pragmatist G.H. Mead always prevented me from going
that far.

In any case, in our (me and my brother) most recent empirical work (if that
phrase still makes any sense), we tried to strike just the sort of balance
that Marx was talking about.  How successfully is quite another
matter.  I'd love to hear what you think about it.  See William Staples and
Clifford Staples, Power, Profits, and Patriarchy: the Social Organization
of Work in the British Metal-Trades, 1791-1922  (Rowman & Littlefield,
2001).  It's a case-study of the workers and owners of the Kenrick iron
foundry, just outside of Birmingham during a very long 19th Century.  This
firm was also studied by the business historian R.A. Church.  The Kenrick
workers were, at times, very autonomous!  And, in the "Strike of Girls" in
1913,  the young women especially so.

Best,

Cliff





At 11:24 AM 10/17/02 +0200, you wrote:


> >>> Clifford_staples@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 10/16/02 04:24PM >>>
>I probably shouldn't say, but I have no idea what "autonomist Marxism" is,
>though from reading the list I gather it has something to do with the work
>of Negri, which I have not (yet) read.  On the other hand, if it means you
>don't take orders from anyone, I'm all for it.
>
>
>Cliff, as someone who did his time in Althusserian studies, particularly
>via the linguistic work of Althusser's student, Michel Pecheux, I can
>probably state the point of departure of autonomism fairly crisply in
>contrast to that. It turns on two differing notions of subject. In all
>anti-humanist post-strucuralist approaches, and certainly in Althusser,
>subject is defined in terms of structure rather than in terms of notions
>such as activity, agency or will. Thus it presented a 'solution' to the
>old subject/structure dichotomy in social science. But it did this at a
>high price in my opinion, by subordinating the subject to the notion of
>structure (subject is 'constituted' by structure). The autonomist
>tradition only really began to appeal to me when I began to recognise that
>it presented an alternative on precisely this matter. It approaches the
>working class as subject of history, as active force shaping the class
>struggle and forcing new developments of capital, not a class
>'interpellated' by capital's institutions, as in Althusser. The legacy of
>Althusser is a hugely overdeveloped vocabulary relating to structure and a
>notion of agency that is so impoverished as to be almost unthinkable.
>Developing a notion of subject linked to agency is my own project. I
>define ideology, for example, as a 'mediation of the will'. I'm sure the
>difference to the structuralist notion is obvious. Thus you will generally
>find amongst autonomists a much greater respect for Hegel than you would
>among the apostles of structure. My understanding of Negri, by the way, is
>that he seems to fall somewhere in the middle. There definitely is a kind
>of postmodernist wing of autonomism, but that is actually the side of it
>that interests me the least. I think the best kick-off point to exploring
>autonomism is to read Harry Cleaver's book, Reading Capital Politically.
>
>One further problem with the notion of structure that you might like to
>comment on, is its static nature. It is now a routine gesture in cultural
>studies, for example, to start off with 'social structure' as underlying
>reality that is used to explain particular phenomena. So structure=the
>unconditioned and phenomenon=the conditioned. But structures are not
>'given', they arise in history as a result of the actions of people. Thus
>to say that the actions of people are to be understood in terms of
>underlying structure loses the question of how structures may be
>understood in terms of human activity. There is a circularity here and
>ultimately a stasis. This is very unmarxist in my view. The only 'social
>science' Marx knew was the science of history, and that doesn't stand
>still. It moves because people are doing things to push it along.
>Tahir

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<html>
<font size=3>Tahir:<br><br>
Thanks much for your thoughtful response to my ignorance on the matter of
&quot;autonomous Marxism.&quot;<br>
And while I do not want to in any way minimize that thoughtfulness with
my response, I must be brief as I have to get ready for class.<br><br>
First off, while I did read Althusser way back when, I come to him
primarily via Resnick and Wolf (see <i>Knowledge and Class</i>, in
particular) .&nbsp; From what I can tell, while they do set themselves
against humanism, empircism, and rationalism, and so in this sense likely
have an affinity with Althusser, their primary interest in him seems to
be his concept of &quot;overdeterminism,&quot; which they claim Althusser
took over from Freud.&nbsp; The concept is their alternative to any kind
of sociological determinism, which for someone like me is a breath of
fresh air, as I spent a good deal of my time (with misgivings) messing
with Erik Wright's class categories and regression equations.<br><br>
The 'structure-agency' debate has been going on in bourgeois sociology
for years.&nbsp; And I face it nearly every day in the classroom where my
students are, to say the least, anti-Althusserian (not that they know it
yet) in their obliteration of any 'structure' in favor of
pedal-to-the-metal voluntaristic individualism.&nbsp; In short, the are
true believers in the American creed.&nbsp; I spend all semester chipping
away at this edifice (mostly to no avail). <br><br>
I'm somewhat surprised to learn that Althusser went so far
overboard.&nbsp; He did read Marx, didn't he (wink, wink)?&nbsp; Marx is
who I offer to those few students who are really interested in striking a
balance.&nbsp; Didn't Marx say something to the effect that &quot;people
make their own lives, but not under conditions of their own
choosing?&quot;&nbsp; What more need be said on the matter?&nbsp;
Obviously those &quot;conditions&quot; were created by earlier
generations of people making THEIR own lives.&nbsp; I suppose one could
use his &quot;ensemble of social relations&quot; statement to sustain a
sociological reductionism of the self, but the American Pragmatist G.H.
Mead always prevented me from going that far.<br><br>
In any case, in our (me and my brother) most recent empirical work (if
that phrase still makes any sense), we tried to strike just the sort of
balance that Marx was talking about.&nbsp; How successfully is quite
another matter.&nbsp; I'd love to hear what you think about it.&nbsp; See
William Staples and Clifford Staples, <i>Power, Profits, and Patriarchy:
the Social Organization of Work in the British Metal-Trades, 1791-1922
</i> (Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2001).&nbsp; It's a case-study of the
workers and owners of the Kenrick iron foundry, just outside of
Birmingham during a very long 19th Century.&nbsp; This firm was also
studied by the business historian R.A. Church.&nbsp; The Kenrick workers
were, at times, very autonomous!&nbsp; And, in the &quot;Strike of
Girls&quot; in 1913,&nbsp; the young women especially so.<br><br>
Best,<br><br>
Cliff<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
At 11:24 AM 10/17/02 +0200, you wrote:<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>&gt;&gt;&gt;
Clifford_staples@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 10/16/02 04:24PM &gt;&gt;&gt;<br>
I probably shouldn't say, but I have no idea what &quot;autonomist
Marxism&quot; is, though from reading the list I gather it has something
to do with the work of Negri, which I have not (yet) read.&nbsp; On the
other hand, if it means you don't take orders from anyone, I'm all for
it.<br><br>
<br>
Cliff, as someone who did his time in Althusserian studies, particularly
via the linguistic work of Althusser's student, Michel Pecheux, I can
probably state the point of departure of autonomism fairly crisply in
contrast to that. It turns on two differing notions of subject. In all
anti-humanist post-strucuralist approaches, and certainly in Althusser,
subject is defined in terms of structure rather than in terms of notions
such as activity, agency or will. Thus it presented a 'solution' to the
old subject/structure dichotomy in social science. But it did this at a
high price in my opinion, by subordinating the subject to the notion of
structure (subject is 'constituted' by structure). The autonomist
tradition only really began to appeal to me when I began to recognise
that it presented an alternative on precisely this matter. It approaches
the working class as subject of history, as active force shaping the
class struggle and forcing new developments of capital, not a class
'interpellated' by capital's institutions, as in Althusser. The legacy of
Althusser is a hugely overdeveloped vocabulary relating to structure and
a notion of agency that is so impoverished as to be almost unthinkable.
Developing a notion of subject linked to agency is my own project. I
define ideology, for example, as a 'mediation of the will'. I'm sure the
difference to the structuralist notion is obvious. Thus you will
generally find amongst autonomists a much greater respect for Hegel than
you would among the apostles of structure. My understanding of Negri, by
the way, is that he seems to fall somewhere in the middle. There
definitely is a kind of postmodernist wing of autonomism, but that is
actually the side of it that interests me the least. I think the best
kick-off point to exploring autonomism is to read Harry Cleaver's book,
Reading Capital Politically.<br><br>
One further problem with the notion of structure that you might like to
comment on, is its static nature. It is now a routine gesture in cultural
studies, for example, to start off with 'social structure' as underlying
reality that is used to explain particular phenomena. So structure=the
unconditioned and phenomenon=the conditioned. But structures are not
'given', they arise in history as a result of the actions of people. Thus
to say that the actions of people are to be understood in terms of
underlying structure loses the question of how structures may be
understood in terms of human activity. There is a circularity here and
ultimately a stasis. This is very unmarxist in my view. The only 'social
science' Marx knew was the science of history, and that doesn't stand
still. It moves because people are doing things to push it along.<br>
Tahir<br>
</font></blockquote></html>

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