[PEN-L:11768] Re: Prostitutes and "Choice"

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, Louis Proyect wrote:

> 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.

Louis: Although Franco has explained some things already, let me just add
a couple of things. First, I think you will find, upon examination, that
neither my arguments nor those of the people I associate with "autonomist
Marxism" have much in common with the thinking of Carlile. Indeed, we have
spoken past each other before and his vehement attacks on autonomist
Marxist thought resemble Craven's rants more than anything else.

>
> 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.

Louis: If I remember the history correctly, the unhelpful thing they did
was to outlaw it, the good thing was to provide some alternative
employment to prostitutes.

I have no idea of what
> "self-valorization" under capitalism means. This sounds like a
> contradiction in terms.

Louis: Historically it its. Marx used the term to talk about capital's own
expansion, the way it "valorized" itself quantitatively. Negri took the
term, obscure as it was, and turned it inside out applying it to working
class subjectivity. Instead of capital valorizing itself, workers
sometimes valorize themselves, not as moments of capital but as autonomous
subjects (building post capitalist social relations or communism). Some of
us have used in this sense to focus on the creative positive side of
struggle that goes beyond resistance and attack to constitutive power
--the founding of alternatives.

I do think that the re-emergence of prostitution in
> Cuba is an awful symptom of what is being lost there.
>

Louis: I suspect you are quite right, but don't know enough to be sure. I
guess we all fear that Cuba will slide back into the hands of the sugar
kings and casino lords that ran it before --regardless of how
differently we may view workers struggles in Cuba today.

> 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
>
Louis: there is an incomplete course outline with partially annotated
bibliography for a course I teach on the subject at url:
gopher://mundo.eco.utexas.edu:70/00/fac/hmcleave/Class%20Materials/Eco%20387L%20Autonomist%20Marxism/Syllabus
which can be reached through my home page whose url is given below.

Harry

............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cleaver homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
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