Re: AUT: Re: Immeasurable value

[chris wright <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> >
> 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.
Harry is really on this point, I think.  Of course, the conclusion of
this total subsumption of life to capital is pretty conservative, if you
work it out.  Where is the point from which revolution happens?  Where
is the split, the opening, the fault line?  Much like the depressing
Comments on the Society of the Spectacle where Debord decides that the
Spectacle is all-encompassing, Empire poses the completeness of
capital.  I find it very depresing, but very close to the way of looking
at things via Lenin, where some outside force has to break the circle of
consciousness (The Party), except that in dropping the Party, Negri opts
for a two part solution: The Militant and treating Empire as a mere
formal imposition over an already-liberated labor.

It goes hand-in-hand with the idea that 'struggle is everywhere'.  Labor
is turned into this pure positive force which is constrained from
outside (in the second quote).  It is my continuing contention that such
a notion of labor and struggle is ultimately reproductive rather than
revolutionary.

Of course, if Harry wants to dip in a bit more...

Cheers,
Chris



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