Re: AUT: Re: Immeasurable value

[keir <keir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris,
Obviously this is one of the big fault lines on this list and as ever
I'm reticent to say anything for fear of not having the time to
follow up any debate. Still, I'd just like to say that I personally
find Empire pretty liberating, really opening possibilities as
opposed to the post-situationist neo-nihilism where everything is
always recouperable and therefore pointless. (I'd go so far as to say
that in the UK post-situationist influenced cynical nihilism is one
of the dominant ideologies. Britain in the '80's had what was called
ad-lad situationism, feeding back from Punk, with detourned adverts
etc. Now a large percentage of adverts and "reality" TV shows have
this knowing nihilistic attitude.)

Hardt and Negri's whole project is about working out a politics where
there is no recourse to an outside, to a party, to transcendent human
nature etc.
I find the idea of total subsumption to be anti-leninist, there is no
weak link to go for so no role for a transcendent party to identify
and target it. In "time for revolution" Negri says that they use the
the term "the Militant" reluctantly because it carries the C20th
baggage of the vanguardist militant. They were originally
experimenting with the term Bio-political entrepreneur before
deciding that the baggage of the term entrepreneur was even more
problematic. Still it emphasises the idea that "activists" could
temporarily focus the flows of social cooperation on to projects,
something much more immanent than the role of the traditional party
militant. Perhaps more tactical than strategic. When Hardt and Negri
start talking strategically I like them a lot less, for instance
Hardts article in the Guardian newspaper when he seemed to advocate a
strategy of alliance with the Empire fraction of the ruling class
against Bush's neo-con imperialists (He has since argued that you
can't take sides re: empire/imperialists)

One of the arguments they make about the changes in society is that
more and more production is based on influencing social cooperation,
on affective labour. As I understand it mass intellectuality, the
general intellect is precisely the spread of political qualities
throughout society, the ability to influence social cooperation, to
negotiate difference. Bifo has argued that the spread of these
qualities undermines the need for transcendent command, whether from
a party or a manager. Quite clearly thought the Multitude isn't
already liberated labour, it is instead a shared potential for
liberation.

All the best

Keir



>
>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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