Re: AUT: they remember nothing and understand nothing

[Nate Holdren <nateholdren@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Lowe-

You've expressed pretty clearly what I think HN do think, and what I
am very nervous about:

the labor processes have changed such that now there's a new and
greater possibility for communism. I like the former (every moment has
a new and different possibility of future communism and configuration
of communism in the present) but really don't like the latter (now
we're closer, one last push comrades if you wish to be
revolutionaries!)

This latter view sounds a good deal like historical materialism,
progressivism. I think this is part of what's going on when Negri and
Hardt say in the same breath that the struggle today is networks, it
does not aim to take state power, and then say that Lenin would agree
if he were here. Thus implying Lenin was right back in the day. So
it's a supercession of vanguardism, not a rejection as such. I'm not
sure anything hangs on this - other than an odious tolerance for some
of the more bloodstained figures in the history of marxism - but it
definitely gives me pause. The same can be said of traditional women's
work - the argument goes something like the extension of work outside
the factory makes housework etc productive now, implying it never was
before. Again, I'm not sure what comes of this, aside from the
uglyness of siding with those who said earlier "wait till after the
revolution, darling".

I do wonder, though, as it seems to imply a certain species of
necessity in their thought, as if there's one political composition
that corresponds adequately to the technical composition (the vanguard
party in 1917 russia, networks in Europe today), rather than seeing
the technical as a basis from which many political forms (lines of
flight?) are possible and potentially effective.


My hunch is that this is tied in with the more state/institution
directed moment of Negri - new New Deal demands, the need for a new
Magna Charta, etc - though substantiating this hunch is beyond me just
now.

As part of backing away from all of the above that I'm concerned over
w/ Negri, I definitely share Harald's view that 'the commons' is a
preferable term (maybe this kind of terminological quibbling is silly,
but it something that sticks in my throat a bit). It points out a
contiguity of struggles and emphasizes the need for more detailed
investigation into the composition of the commons.

all the best,
Nate

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 19:20:44 +0100, Lowe Laclau <lowe.laclau@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 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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>


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