Re: AUT: Re: Immeasurable value

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004, Eubulides wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Messmer" <messmer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
>
> Does anyone have any insight into the section in Empire 4.1 on
> "Immeasurability"?  They write:
>
>  "Even if in postmodern capitalism there is
> no longer a fixed scale that measures value, value nonetheless is still
> powerful and ubiquitous....In Empire, the construction of value takes
> place
> beyond measure."
>
> and
>
> "...outside measure refers to the impossibility of power's calculating and
> ordering production at a global level,  beyond measure refers to the
> vitality
> of the productive context, the expression of labor as desire, and its
> capacities to constitute the biopolitical fabric of Empre from below."
>
> This entire chapter seems extremely fishy to me, really unclear and
> vaguely religious sounding. Can anyone clarify this section, or is it as
> silly as I think it is?
>
> Tom
>
> =====================
>
> It has been quite a while since I perused E but I think it has to do with
> a problem pointed out by David Ricardo:
>
> http://home.manhattan.edu/~fiona.maclachlan//research/Ricardo.htm
>
I don't think that's Toni's problem, at least I've never seen any
indication of such. I think his problem derives from his conviction that
the total subordination of life to capital makes it impossible to
differentiate between labor time and other time - all time becomes labor
time - and if you can't differentiate you can't measure a distinct time of
labor/value. The corrolary is that struggle is everywhere and also
immeasurable, thus the second paragraph quoted above. But struggle is just
the creative content of living labor, thus a kind of neo-orthodox vision
of revolution as living labor taking over. This vision pre-dates Empire
and his appropriation of Deleuze & Guattari, Foucault and "biopolitics".
See:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/facstaff/Cleaver/offenegri.html
H.



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