Re: AUT: Negri and Charleton Heston?

[Thiago Oppermann <difference_3ngine@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 1/12/2004 2:35 AM, "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Thiago Oppermann wrote:
>
>> I want you to explain to me is why some workers are part of the
>> multitude while others aren't
>
> Hardt explained to me in a September radio interview
> <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#041007> that the
> multitude only includes the good guys. The reactionary workers (and
> what we used to call lumpen elements) aren't.
>
> Doug

That was definitely my impression. But doesn't that means that the multitude
is selected on the basis of political (and cultural) affinities? What
economic basis is there for excluding these workers? Or: what is it about
the structure of this part of the working class that leads it to be
articulated in a way that would lead Hardt to make this call?

I am not saying that this multitude may not be a useful instrument of
analysis or edification in some way, but I think that precisely because this
decision  as to what is and is not the multitude has been made, it is a poor
instrument for the analysis of the working class. There is something fishy
about this, it strikes me as way too convenient, arbitrary, ad hoc and
poorly explained. You can't understand what is going on in the world if your
unit of analysis excludes all these people you happen not to like.

Thiago



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