Re: AUT: re: basic income

[Lowe Laclau <lowe.laclau@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Andrew,

> Lowe (apologies for the delay in replying BTW):

No Problem.

> No, I rarely sense these kinds of things, I assess the >validity or otherwise of the specific claims people make.  I >know Negri's pre-prison writings were a lot more radical, ?>which is partly why I've found Empire so disappointing.  But >what evidence can you offer that Negri is simply altering his >language for some specific audience?  My own >assessment would be that Negri, like so many radicals, has >become tamer with age.

:) Thats a funny statement. I'm not sure to be honest with you if
theres a way of distinguishing. Clearly after the second time in
prison, well even before then (for why go back afterall?) there is a
change in mentality. I think Negri would say he learned certain things
or experienced certain things that made him change his *perspective*
on particular things, and perhaps specifically how he views his role
as a revolutionary. And of course there's the not so drastic change in
what he wrote about. But reversing your assumption, I would say that
there is little directly to say that he has become less radical (the
word you use "tame" seems to imply certain things about the effects of
what he produces/is producing, and that issue I don't think one can
judge so hastily now, the world to come will have to be the judge of
that). As for what proof I have that "they" are taking into
consideration their audience, I'm going basically off of what I've
read by them in interviews. But I still am simply making an
assumption, it is nothing they've said explicitly.

There is this problem with the idea of "expectations" for me. Jon
Murray also said something to this effect that it didn't meet some
sort of expectation. But insofar as all expectations are productions
of certain institutionalizations fo thought and perspective, I would
say that all books with this type of mission should challenge them
(insofar as its a philosophical text). I know I keep emphasizing this
point (of it being a philosophical text), but I think its important.
For if it is given such a designation it is because its goal
ultimately is to produce a new way of thinking and conceiving a
certain aspect of reality (in these cases, the reality of a new form
of sovereignty at the global level, and a new form of constituent
power also at the global level). Thus there is always this problem of
the form of expression. The form of expression is extremely important
because it is THAT that determines whether or not that conception will
be communicable, whether it convinces or whether the content will
ultimately hold any authority with someone. Thats why a while back I
talked about the first books failure as a literary machine. It (its
machinic aspect) failed to function properly, regardless of the
validity of whatever content was held there.

> And if he is knowingly using reformist language to trick a ?>non-Marxist audience to support his Marxist agenda, is this >not simply cynical manipulation?

Yeah, again I'm not sure what you mean by reformist language. Where
you see "reform" I think Negri is thinking instead of transition, or
the problematic of reproduction --what is reproduced of the present
and what is discarded. I'm assuming you'd oppose reform with
revolution... so why not a revolutionary language. I don't think Negri
conceived of politics in those terms. The true reformist proposals
(such as the French RMI) Negri has openly criticized on a number of
occassions.

> And if he's so concerned about his audience, why does he >write in a pretty inaccessible, theoretically heavy and >neologism-strewn style?  Surely the first place the >concessions to his audience would be made would be in >style rather than content?

Negri has always to my knowledge written in a theoretically heavy
style. But its accessibility is always an issue of the readers
familiarity with the lines of discourse. Traditional marxist jargon
for many people is very accessible. To others its a deterrent or
obstacle. But there is a deeper point vis-a-vis language that is not
really specific to N or to H&N's work together and that is that
keeping ones audience in regard doesn't in any way mean that one
should... I can't remember the precise word in English, cater to or
simply reify who you think they are already. If your goal is thought
then you might want to push your audience. You want to get their
brains moving and not simply resting upon their asses, fat and content
with the way their parents and school teachers have thought for
millenia.


> But getting rid of work is surely part of the revolutionary >project for overthrowing capitalism and realising a reversal >of perspective and a reversal of the repression of desiring->production beneath social production!

When I put work in "" (quotation marks), I was qualifying what type of
activity I was referring to. I was not talking about work in the sense
that capitalist modernity defined it. If you remember you stated:

"The simple answer to "who is going to do the nasty work" â?? if you
want it done, you fucking do it!"

So no, of course basic income isn't proposed to get rid of "work".
People have duties as they have thoughout all of the history of
mankind. The point of abolishing "work" is to abolish it as capital
defines it. That is as an exploitative relationship where you live and
die to make someone else rich and fat and happy. Work as is labourous
and productive and reproductive activity is not abolished in and of
itself. The "nasty" work is of course still there for all to do.
Unless I'm misinterpreting this statement of yours.

>And that a basic income doesn't get us there is precisely ?>the
reason it's a reformist demand, a demand which falls ?>short of what
is needed to challenge capitalism.

No. Thats wrong, because youre not looking at what it addresses
directly. Basic income is one element of proposed actions that
directly address the contemporary condition of this exploitative
relation that constitutes *capitalist* labor. You cant get rid of
particular production-relations (power-relations) by attacking its
objects. I mean, I can't go outside right now and jump up and down on
my vacuum cleaner and my stack of papers that I have to go through or
go blow up a big multinational bank for being such an evil
exploitative shit and expect work to be abolished. I have to attack
the relations of which such entities are mere institutionalizations.

> A revolutionary perspective is one which produces the >overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a >qualitatively different kind of society or a qualitatively >different space of social relations and practices.  Or which >tends to do so, to the extent that it is actualised.  A >reformist perspective is a perspective which aims for >improvements in the condition of the worse-off or by the >measure of some progressive perspective, without >basically challenging the logic of the existing system.

Ok... first there is a slight problem for me with the idea of a
revolutionary perspective. Does a perspective in and of itself produce
anything but a difference in a way of looking at something? Even if I
think of a "revolutionary" perspective, it can never be so much more
than an immediacy. The overthrowing of capitalism can't be something
realized merely by a perspective. Why? Because capital itself is just
as revolutionary, it is innovative by nature. I don't think you want
to use that word. I'll replace your words with "project" or something
like that. I still have problems with this distinction but regardless,
even by your own terms I am puzzeled by what your reading as
reformism. I think that its because your assuming the continued
presence of this strong dialecticism at the heart of the capital
relation that Negri would say is no longer in existence. What is
revolutionary and reformist (using your definitions still) is always
defined by the constellation of power-relations against which such
qualities must define themselves no? I'm pretty sure you and h&n have
different maps of this constellation.


> If life-time is already work-time, the realisation of a basic >income is a reform which would be in sync with capitalist >development and does not challenge it.  The elimination of >border controls in the context of a capitalist economy would >be a progressive reform, but nevertheless, a reform which >in and of itself leaves the capitalist system altered but >intact.  I have struggled in vain to find a revolutionary >demand or perspective in Empire, except in the form of a >vague sense of a need to throw off empire.

No. Thats not right. You are presupposing some sort of logical
consistency to capitalist development that only exist in peoples
heads. Capital, as Marx said time and again, realises itself in the
coexistence of contradictions. You are also presupposing some internal
homogeneity to this relation which would again be analytically false
(or rather mystificatory) insofar as it completely ignores labors role
in constituting that against which capital must evolve. As I said
before (I think to Harald), you can't divorce this one demand from the
others because otherwise you have this unreal model where such change
happens in only one nation-state. What you are considering reform only
needs to be considered reform from the perspective of capital. The
dynamics of capitalist "development" aren't such that development
excludes the modification of existence of labor. Your vision of labor
in the capitalist dialectic is still one of exteriority. In this sense
I understand why you fail to see anything "revolutionary" in it. But
I'd maintain that you need to reevaluate the nature of what your
'revolutionary project' really means, for you elide a lot in this idea
of "overthrowing". What exactly does that mean? Who overthrows and
how? If labor is central to both the reproduction of capital --which
in strong terms is still in every sense the reproduction of existence
in general cf. Marx (just about everywhere)-- and the production of
new production relations beyond capitalism, then you can't assert at
the same time that the modifications in the existence of social labor
(because basic income does't address a single laborer but the
conditions of labor in general) has no revolutionary bearing and is
solely a reformative issue for capital. That makes no sense. When you
use the term "capitalist system" I'm not quite sure what you're
understanding by it, but is it neither anything homogeneous, pure,
linear, or reversible. Every change to it is not something it
undertakes because its wants to, or because its revolutionary by its
own volition. No, its revolutionary and chaotic (in Marx's sense)
because regulating wage regimes makes it so. That is to say social
labor.


> Actually, I think you â?? and they â?? attach far too much >*normative* importance to descriptive economics.  >Economics might give part of the picture of where we're >starting from, but it says nothing about where we're going.  >And in any case I just don't buy the idea that there's nothing >left to overthrow.  No truncheons.  No imperialist wars.  No >state apparatus.  No financial elite.  No international >monetary institutions.  Even if the point is to fight against a >social logic which is spread across society, there's still >something to be resisted, to be overthrown.

No one has ever said there was nothing to be resisted or against. As
regards your first statement, I can only say that I'm not sure at all
what you're referring to. Besides not knowing what exactly a
"descriptive" economics is (as opposed to what other economics? What
types of economics does not entail a process of identifying the terms
of the relations examined?), I don't see anyone giving any science an
undue weight of authority. If one utilizes it its not because its some
placard of religious authority. No, its because its allows one to
articulate with precision and rigour a given state of affairs or a
particular function (present or virutal). I think if you make such a
statement you have to criticize just about every researcher, proposal
generator, academic or scholar for their reliance upon "the normative
weight" of their science. Its certainly not as if "descriptive
economics" (whatever that is) replaces any of the analytical rigour in
their work. If you think so, I'd suggest another look. I've found them
to be quite clear with respect to such issues.

> I just don't see how one can derive an ethical conclusion â?? >a sense of where we should be going, which measures >should be supported, which demands should be raised, or >which logics should be advanced â?? from an economic >analysis which is necessarily descriptive.  You can't >get "ought" from "is".

Perhaps you have overdetermined "oughts" in their thought. I haven't.

>Somewhere along the line, one would have to insert a >prescriptive
element to derive any kind of ethical >orientation.

Ahh... somewhere along the line. I don't see any necessary conditions
for such an assumption about prescription. In fact, if Hardt learned
anything from the theory of multiplicities he would know what to do
without them.


> Regardless of whether on a macroeconomic level the >division between life-time and work-time is tendentially >decreasing or not, this claim is a far cry from a statement >that the division has already been erased.

No. I'd say that it is both gone (in any *strict* terms in most
developed countries) and going (in the periphery in LDC's, developing
and developed country ghettos).

>Especially if the claim is made universally, as a general >claim
about everyone and everything.  What, for instance, >about those who
try to "drop out" of capitalist life, for >instance by living on
communes, or spending a year up a >redwood tree or down a tunnel?
What if someone survives >by stealing, or lives off rubbish found in a
dump (which >happens in the "Third World" quite a bit), or who works
in an >occupied factory in Argentina or on a squatted farm in >Brazil?
  To come back to one of my "favourite" issues â?? >wouldn't something
classified as "anti-social" (whether in ?>the form of delinquency,
"disruptive" protest, "nuisance" or >whatever) also be definitively
not "work", because it is >destructive of the context of work â?? for
instance, by >undermining the functionality of spaces or by
interfering with >others' "lawful business"?

No, I don't think so. I could be wrong but I think the terms of the
debate are before the relevance of anti-social behaviour or
qualifications of productive and unproductive work you are exploited
at the level of social capital. The State apparatus guarantees that
both the waged and non-waged class are nonetheless available as
exploitable bodies for transnational capital. It doesn't matter
whether you're homeless or a punk or not. De Angelis's talk of
enclosures is a good starting point to understanding this. They are as
much immaterial as they are physical. And insofar as they are
maintained by the State they maintain ones exploitability vis-a-vis
global capital.


> But I also think thie economics ties H&N's argument too >closely to capitalism; the basic income is justified as an >outgrowth of existing capitalism, and thus loses its >subversive edge.  This I think is part of what offends people >like Crisso and Odoteo â?? the sense that H&N are trying to >deduce the logical conclusions from the present >development of capitalism, instead of counterposing their >own agenda to it.

Life is economic Andrew. You can't simply ignore something you don't
like. And more specifically life in general is *this* economic mode of
production, so if can't understand it how can you deconstruct it? What
good is it counterposing ones agenda when capital can suck it up and
spit it back out in whenever it wants? I don't think H&N were too
concerned with peoples like Crisso & Odoteo. There are plenty of books
out there with their prescription on how to change the world. And they
will continue to be passed over and laughed at and occassionally
browsed through by seeming "revolutionaries". Not discounting such
books or such efforts. But that is not what they're interesting in (or
at least it seems to me).


> I agree with Harald on the implications of a basic income >being recuperative for capital.  It could very easily be used >as part of a control agenda.  And the progressive content of >the demand for a basic income can be expressed in other >ways.  Harald for instance refers to an idea of income as >a "right".  This would also be a strategic demand of sorts; >the agenda of economic rights is an extension of a >discourse of rights which is very central to capitalist l>legitimations, but which turns this discourse against >capitalism.  But an idea of an income as a "right" would not >be potentially exclusionary in the same way; it would be less >open to manipulation, because one can demand a "right" on >principle, whereas one can only demand a Hardt-Negrian >basic income on grounds of one's productivity.

I'm sorry I can't write anymore today. This has been too lengthy
already. I'll just respond in brief to this last point by saying that
you've not gathered H&N's perspective adequately on this issue.
Specifically with respect to "rights" and with respect to the more
general economic issue of productivity. Rights are not solely tools of
capitalist legitimation. Such an assertion is a slap in the face of
all who worked to attain such "rights". But rights are nothing if they
don't allot fields of freedoms. Again I'd just say you have to
revaluate your understanding of what you called the "capitalist
system".

Another time,

ciao

Lowe


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