Re: AUT: they remember nothing and understand nothing

[Lowe Laclau <lowe.laclau@xxxxxxxxx>]

> it's ahistorical in that one could also talk about the common being
> produced through language, communication, and a whole range of things that
> have been around a lot longer before the emergence of (or the coming
> emergence) of the multitude. it's ahistorical because they seem to want to
> act like these things are coming out of nowhere or are new - when in fact
> they have been around for quite some time.

They don't posit that these things are new in and of themselves. What
is new are the conditions by which these things allow the construction
of the common, of communality... of communism. The problem is thinking
what they're saying in concrete terms. How, for example, is language
and communication central in the reorganization of the post-fordist
enterprise? Why is it so? As I've mentioned to Harald and others here
before C. Marazzi's Place des Chaussettes does a great job of
explaining this stuff (the economic stuff) in an easily readible and
entertaining fashion (well... I find it entertaining, maybe others
dont).


> similarly one could argue that "the commons" in the sense of commonly held
> land, the sort of pre-capitalist thing H&N want to get away from was not
> some sort of static object, or something that naturally pre-existed
> outside of such people. what was the commons, how the commons were
> distinguished and demarcated, and so forth - these were continually
> re-newed, reprduced, and more than likely varied over periods of time
> (although it's a little hard to tell because there don't seem to be any
> medieval french peasants around to interview about the matter). that is,
> what was the commons and was something that had to be socially constructed
> (produced in common?) - which in a way blurs the boundary between the
> commons and the common the H&N want to make.

The common (as opposed to the commons) however do not operate on
principles of closure. There is nothing private or public to be
distinguished, just as there is nothing in terms of national
boundaries, sexual, etc. I'm no expert on historical examples of
'commons' so I can't give a good contrasting example, but I'm pretty
sure that "producing in common" was not possible, nor even thought of
in the sense that H&N would propose it today. You'd have too many
varieties of hierarchical division of labor (production) for anything
to be really be "produced in common". And I'd also tend to think that
the fluidity that you're ascribing the commons would be heavily
exaggerated (but I admit, I'm just guessing here). I can't imagine any
solid system of checks and balances in a person's significational
tyranny, in the formation of subject and object group distinctions
etc. And finally, the goal of the common is not to be here or there.
If it can only function in the offskirts of some city or amongst only
likeminded individuals in some far away village, then the common is of
little use to the world, because its still separate from or marginal
to the world's production and reproduction of itself.

Lowe


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