[PEN-L:11744] Re: Prostitutes and "Choice"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Harry Cleaver:

>
>This discussion is but an example of a kind of dialog in which I find
>myself from time to time. Those of us on the Left, following to an
>uncomfortable degree in old Charles Marks' footsteps, know a great deal
>about exploitation and the brutalities of work. We are generally quite
>capable of describing in gruesome detail the nefarious effects of
>alienated and exploitative labor under capitalism. Where we are usually
>much less knowledgeable and less eloquent is on the forms and degrees of
>self-determination, of self-valorization and empowerment which workers
>achieve --this despite the centrality of creative living labor power in
>Marxist analysis.
>

Louis Proyect:

I wonder if this is evidence of "autonomic Marxism". There was a conference
in Madrid recently that brought together Zapatista supporters, anarchists,
squatters, autonomic Marxists, etc. This piqued my curiousity and I checked
out the auto-op-sys Web Page at Spoons and discovered that the site
includes one of Cleaver's essays as an example of what they stand for. They
view their mission in the following terms:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of the debate on class composition over the past twenty years has
occurred in and around the Italian revolutionary left. While much of the
Italian discussion has been stimulated by that country's autonomist
movement, members of other political tendencies - for example, the
anarchists and libertarians associated with the journal Collegamenti/Wobbly
- have also made notable contributions to this discussion. In Germany,
important work has been carried out by comrades such as Karl-Heinz Roth,
and members of the magazine Wildcat.

In the English-speaking world, however, only a fraction of this work has
become available - and even that in a selective fashion. Meanwhile, a
number of writers in North America, Britain and elsewhere have begun to
develop their own distinctive approach to the question of class composition
and social conflict. We hope that AUT-OP-SY can be a place where these
different approaches can be evaluated: not as some academic exercise of
theory for theory's sake, but as a way of judging their usefulness to the
further understanding and development of working class self-organisation.

For example: the brief definition of class composition we quoted earlier
was written back in 1975. How well does it stand up today, in the face of
the dramatic shifts that have reshaped the worlds of waged and unwaged work
since that time? What does mass struggle mean in a period when the mass
worker seems to have lost its centrality? What do the struggles of women
mean when the family and the welfare state have continued to fracture? What
does the circulation of struggle mean at a time when millions are fleeing
their place of birth? What does communism mean in the face of the
'socialist' bloc's collapse and the emergence of a global ecological crisis?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the useful things about the Internet for an uneducated person like
myself is that it allows me to find out about things that I never would
have run into during my day-to-day existence as an activist and
ex-Trotskyist. As a Trotskyist I found that the sort of things I read where
rather narrowly focused. Now, as a result of participating on the Spoons
lists and PEN-L, I have discovered Althusser, postmodernism, and a bunch of
other squeaky-new things.

So I guess this autonomic Marxism is something I have to learn more about.
My only reaction to Harry's post is that anything that coincides with the
thinking of the dreadful Karl Carlile must be re-examined. But what do I know.

On the question of prostitution itself, I tend to think that one of the
great things about the Cuban and Chinese revolutions is that they put a
stop to the "sex industry" right away. I have no idea of what
"self-valorization" under capitalism means. This sounds like a
contradiction in terms. I do think that the re-emergence of prostitution in
Cuba is an awful symptom of what is being lost there.

At any rate I suppose I will have to find out more about this autonomic
Marxism stuff at some point and render my untutored and autodidactic
opinion here.

Louis Proyect