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The revolting proleteriat

  
  

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BioDynamo
07:34 / 04.04.02


Central means of production: I'm sure there's a better term for this, but here's the explanation for what I mean, and at the same time an answer to Barry Auckland's question:

In the mid-19'th century, when Marx created his analysis, the "central" means of production was the factory of the industrialised nation. This is not because the factory workers would have been in a "majority" of the population in the world or even in the industrialised nations, they weren't. The reason this form of production was central to the analysis was because it was the form of production shaping the world, spreading, taking over, at the time. It was central because it showed how society would change in the near future. It was the centre of attention for industrialist/capitalist development. Perhaps most importantly, it had the potential to produce struggles, in that it gathered a lot of people together in an enclosed space together with big machinery which could be captured through strikes and rebellions, and put those people in the situation of being economically opressed, having their labour capitalised on.

Today, the analysis should focus on the means of production that will, again, shape the future: the technologies of life and communication. Not because they employ the largest amount of people (don't believe in majorities...), but for an enormous amount of reasons which I can't properly simplify: they are the essence of biopower (from Foucault), they represent sovereignity in it's barest form, i.e. the control of life and death (genetic modification etc.), they are central to current capitalist development, and, yes, most importantly, they produce struggles (Free software, AntiGM, demands of freedom of movement of physical bodies in addition to the free movement of information, capital and goods, etc).

On the fragmentisation of the working class: uhh.. I think I should start writing you a reading list instead of trying to talk theory which I'm crap at..

On the Italian autonomists: one place to start is this histrorique and analysis.

A dated but interesting essay can be found here. It deals mainly with the writings and history of Toni Negri, who's book Empire I referred to earlier (written together with Michael Hardt).

To simplify things: autonomists are marxists who have accepted most, if not all, of the anarchist and situationalist critique of marxism, and decided to find "Marx beyond Marx" instead of abandoning the tools of marxist analysis. I like what I've read of their theories.
 
 
gozer the destructor
07:47 / 04.04.02
I would really appreciate a reading list as me own education of economic-politico-socio-philosophic etc etc is quite limited, im a fast reader but i've only had the oppertunities to read about this stuff over the last 6 months.

I have been continually asking my recent friend, an ex-SWP member, about modern critiques of revlolutionary politics but he scowls whenever i mention anarchism...the autonomists sound interesting and i'll have a read through that stuff on the link now, cheers...one last thing, am i right in thinking that because of theories like the 'spectacle' that the emphasis has been taken away from political overthrow regarding revolution and has moved on to an idea of personaly breaking away from the system? am I on the right lines?
 
 
BioDynamo
12:29 / 09.04.02

The "political overthrowing vs. personally breaking away" dicotomy is (I hope, and according to autonomist theory) a false one. Personally or, preferrably, en masse breaking away (Exodus) is one of the most classic political pressure mechanisms. The trans-atlantic exodus of religiously oppressed europeans was a direct challenge to the rulers in Europe, since it was a breaking away of the productive part of society. There are other examples.

The Soviet Union was upheld by containing the Workers within it, forcing them to uphold the system with their labour. The same way the current western capitalist standard of living is upheld by keeping the Workers in the favelas, in the shantytowns and the zones of economic exception, not letting them in to the fruits of their labour. The right to freedom of movement is a central demand in the struggles of today, just as central as a guaranteed basic income and a universal citizenship.

Anyway, the trick is to see the act of exodus as an active one, not a passive reaction. It is a political act that can mean anything from leaving the countryside or country, to tuning in, turning on and dropping out. Both are the same thing: a distancing from the oppressive system, the creation of your own (political) space.

So it is (ideally, if not always) revolutionary, even if it is not directly aiming at toppling the current rulers in order to replace them with new ones.
 
 
gozer the destructor
12:38 / 09.04.02
At the last general election there was a poster declaring an anarchist victory because more people didn't vote than voted for Blair and my ex-swp friend said that it could be classed as a type of revolution. I understand that revolution does not have to take on the guise of a miltary overthrown in fact in this country I would be very suprised if that ever happened. The general strike springs to mind. I started reading through that autonomist stuff last night. One question though, what is the theory behind wildcat strikes? wouldn't they be easier to break up by being seperated from union support, or do I misunderstand?
 
 
Cat Chant
13:14 / 09.04.02
Still reading Empire - it's very long. But they've just mentioned
'wildcat strikes in terms of the 'Wobblies' (the IWW - Something Workers
of the World). These are meant to be a good thing because they
invoke the struggle of the proletariat/workers/producers vs the bosses/capitalists
without leaving behind a union structure which will then mediate, represent
and ultimately diffuse the autonomy and creative power of the multitude.

In terms of personally breaking away from the system and following on
from what BioDynamo was saying, what I found in Hardt&Negri was the idea
that a lot of apparently separate movements sort of add up, objectively, to
a large-scale attack on 'Empire'/the world market/ global capital/ the general fuckedupness
of things. So, for example, the refusal to work of 'slackers' or hippies in the US in the 1960s
objectively worked along the same lines as liberation movements in Third World
countries at the same time, even though the different groups did not feel that they had
the same interests and were not consciously acting as a unified class.

Personally I think the idea that revolutionary actions have to spring from a particular
identity is a bit dodgy - it's certainly not true in terms of gender or sexuality (not all women are feminists, not all gay people are radical queer activists) so I don't think
it should be used in terms of class either. Having said which, you do run up against
a problem a bit like the 'wigga' thing or like Pulp's Common People when middle-class people
attempt to co-opt/ appropriate working-class culture or whatever...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:50 / 09.04.02
"Industrial", I think, but everyone calls them the "International Workers of the World", which is ironically a bit otiose.
 
 
No star here laces
14:25 / 09.04.02
I think 'Empire' is a fascinating book because it exemplifies exactly why the multitude/proletariat are not behind any sort of left movement.

Now I never finished Empire, but I don't think that affects my critique of it. I got about 1/3 of the way through, and I liked a lot of what I read - there was some nice analysis. But this is not the kind of thinking and particularly not the kind of self-expression that will change the world. Empire is a massively complex and subtle analysis. And it is written in the most impenetrable style, even to someone like myself who is extremely literate compared to most of the population.

In short, like most of the movement, it is horribly elitist.

Why are there so many factions? Why is there so much back-biting? Because the left is elitist. There is an obsessional search for 'dedication' and 'purity' - how many demos have you been on this year? How obsessively ethical is your diet? How much dogma can you spout? I don't believe that the left have any interest in engaging with the multitude, which is of course horribly ironic given that these are the people whose side they are supposedly on.

Don't get me wrong - I'm right behind leftist thinking in terms of theory. But I think it is entirely politically irrelevant unless it can engage with people. No-one wants a 'revolution' unless it is one with majority support, and majority support is impossible without engagement.

I am about to do the unthinkable and quote a speech by Margaret Thatcher:

"We believe that man needs more than material things. Our aim is to build a flourishing society—not not an economic system.

We believe that man was born to be free, and that liberty is the breath of life.

We believe that liberty and human rights can only be protected by a just law, respected and upheld, and by institutions which command consent.

We believe in a fair chance for all our citizens to develop their talent, and that the educational needs of the child are more important than the dogmas of socialist theory.

We believe that we have a duty to help others in a way which recognises that they need to keep their human dignity and personal pride.

We believe that there are many things which the State can and must do, but we know that ultimately “the individual is the sun and the state is the moon which shines with borrowed light”.

...

We believe in the diffusion of power. Spreading power among the people—political power, economic power, above all the power of people to run their own lives and to make their own decisions. The Socialists want power over people. We want to give power to people. "

Now I defy anyone to take issue with the content of this speech. These are fine ideals. This formulation is a piece of pure genius. What Thatcher has done is to take fairly well-established (at the time) right wing thinking and conceptualise it so that people can readily see how it (in theory) will serve their needs.

Of course what Thatcher actually did with her term in office is another matter entirely (the speech is from 1975).

But the important thing is that the left has to address this formulation, which is still the dominant political paradigm, so far as I can see. The multitude are convinced that:

1. They are better placed to look after themselves than the government are
2. That their primary duty is the well-being of their family
3. That people who fail in life are not their responsibility

For these reasons it is pointless to reel of reams of logical arguments as to why one ought to help the third world, stop driving cars and boycott genetically modified food because these things are not what concern people. The left needs to tell them how it can help them, or re-formulate its arguments to render the Thatcher/Reagan formulation irrelevant otherwise it can never be a popular movement...
 
 
BioDynamo
10:10 / 10.04.02

Lyra: exactly. This is (to me) the largest point of the autonomists: the "multitude/working class/productive element" will always be autonomous in regards to capital, but also to the left movement. "The left" will never represent the multitude. The best "the left" can do is to look at what struggles for liberty and freedom are born from the autonomous action of the multitude, and try to support them.

This is what Empire seems to be saying to me, in quite convoluted terms. Empire is not a "Communist Manifesto", easily understood guidelines and suggestions for action. It is a "Das Kapital" of analysis and propositions for a description of how the world works, and it is as a proposition directed at not only, but partly at "the elitist Left", and that is the reason why it uses the language it does, I think.

Maybe there will be a "manifesto" following on Empire, and maybe not.
 
 
BioDynamo
10:12 / 10.04.02

Lyra: of course I disagree with what you say when you mention that the multitude thinks "that people who fail in life are not their responsibility". It does, because that is part of what makes it the multitude and not something else. But otherwise agreement.
 
 
gozer the destructor
10:16 / 10.04.02
The left movement is always wanting control over the direction of the masses, I think education regarding the 'system' is more important than trying to create a revloutionary conflict to help the masses decide for themselves with open eyes about whats going on, that sounds moe patronising than i intended, but i hope you see where i'm coming from. Perhaps i'm yet again being too idealistic, but i am and thats what you get...
 
 
Jackie Susann
12:01 / 10.04.02
to go back to the initial questions - if you include the peasantry (and I've never been clear on why you wouldn't - they don't own the means of production, do they?), then massive numbers of working class people globally are involved in political struggle. for example, the KKRS (very militant 10 million strong Kanak farmers union in India, the), MST (Landless Workers Movement in Brazil, squatting disused land for subsistence agriculture, has gained land title for over 250 000 families), or the Palestinian Intifadas. cue predictable rant about the racism and Northern-centricity of anglo/us activists...

meanwhile, the classic marxist argument as to why the working class are the revolutionary subject is - unless i'm really confused - that their labour produces society; capitalist society is what the working class makes it. therefore, if they slip the leash of capitalist control, they can make a different kind of society. slightly simplified, but that's my take on it.

for reading on autonomia, there's a pretty good book edited by paolo virno and michael hardt called 'radical thought in italy: a potential politics'. it's academic, but not nearly as bad as empire.

and why would anyone think guy debord was right?
 
  

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