Revolutionary Writing: Common Sense Essays in Post-Political Politics

In the* linning Was the Scream

•J

JONN

MARXIS SlIBVERSI AND

Destruction as the Determination of the Scholar in liserable Times

CRITIQU

H .Marxian itegories, !e Crisis of ; pital and the , Constitution of Subjectivity day HARRY

•

vsa

JjR

The rdism of t h e ^ Regulation School man Practice d Perversion id Autonomy d Structure,

IURRECTIC OF LABOUR AND GLOBAL CAPITA

The End of Work, i or the Renaissance of Slavery?

^

Development and eduction DALLA

apital Moves

he Politics of C h a n g e

ITIOUE OF TH( U CA

WM ie Crisis of P o l i t i c a l Space NlORI

I"

SENS ESSAYS IN POST-POLITICAL CLITICS

• •

AGNOLl Capitalist • t e : Illusion •d C r i t i q u e

From the Revolution Against P h i l o s o p h y To t h e R e v o l u t i o n inst Capital

appropriations of Public Space stituent Republic r i9N

'

^^H!?^

AUTONOMEDIA COVER PHOTO: N I C K K O U D I S COVER D E S I G N : J I M F L E M I N G & CHIEKO SATO

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CLEAV ALLA COSTA

HOLLOWAY

REVOLUTIONARY WRITING COMMON SENSE ESSAYS IN POST-POLITICAL POLITICS

EDITED BY

WERNER BONEFELD

AUTONOMEDIA

CONTENTS

Foreword Werner Bonefeld, Derek Kerr. Bnan Md ! Preface Werner Bonefeld Acknowledgements

PART I

1.

10

O P E N MARXISM: SI

3.

Anticopynght ©2003 Autonom-

An POB 568 Wilhamsburgh Brooklyn, New York 11211

A

on

Printed in the UmteH States oi Am

5.

15

n as the Determination in Miserable Times"

Destruction as the Determination of the Scholar in Miserable Times Johannes Agnoli

25

an Categories, the Crisis of Capital and the Constitution of Subjectivity Tocw Harry Cleaver

39

"Human Practice and Perversion: Beyond Autonomy and Structure Bonefeld Wei

73

PART II Websile: http://www.auionomrdia.org «aii in(o@autonome«iia.org

D CRITIQ

'In the Beginning was the Scream John Hollowav ditor's Preface to "Destn

2.

<S\O

THE INSURRECTION OF LABOUR AND GLOBAL CAPITAL

"A Critique of the Fordism of the Regulation School Ferruccio Gambino

89

he R< rget ment and Repro ariarosa Dalla Costa

ion

135 FORE

ipiu

a"

T

.' • i H

The

*ng«" erner I

The (

s of t >nu PART 111

189 KJTIQUE O F THE P O L

\L

The Cap!* Illusion and Cntique Werner Bonefeld "Fron olution Against Philosophy to the Revolution gainst Capital" e Rook "Reappropnations of Public Spat Negri Editor's Preface to " Q "Constituent Re} Antonio Negri

J01

. 219

231

uent Republic 2 AS

he present volume draws on contributions to the now-defunct journal Conw The journal was published between 1987 and 1999 With vas devised as a means of cr operated "against the currer cal inquiry into the class struggle The aim was to reflect on "the relationship between revolutionary theory and pr and keep each "on the bo; ars ot Common Sen. This volume provides a snapshot o: He her does thi ume do justice ne scope and variety of what mnu There is no b> published, nor does it represent the best of something as if it were a top-forty actr - there is only cntique Cam Sense was bounded against the backdrop ot the anti-poll tax campaign in Edinburgh. Scotland, b mrad om the L and the Unemplo\ >rkers' Centre. After the defeat of the poll tax. the journal transformed from a more-or-less local discussion forum into a "proper" journal. We kept its heterod< Varxist perspective but "international In t and not ot in Britain, it was a rare journal; it published the articles that the academic mdusdoes not approve of and which, in the late 1980s and early 1990s were most difficult to obtain. ommon Sense was a platform for heterodc jrxist publishing — for a Marxism that takes itself seriousiv and does not entertain the academic indus as a means to an end. The journal collapsed in 1999 The reasons for its derr are many This is a tact and nothing more than the vill be reported here T\ olume keeps alive and available some of the published for the struggle today ar morrow. The book is neither a resum* nor an m the acadenv anthology. There is no resume One hears in the media and learned commentate hat the Utopia of the society ot the tree indi and equal, has run its course There is nothing odd about this view: such decl and express their cUi larations are the business of the bou Th lumt ated rent task It doubts that the misen wt me amount t aJI worlds and agret hat all relatio? aken. despicable being hai cA] is a debased, enslaved mid oi to the insight that theoretical erthrown Besides, wh mysteri nd their ra* lanation in human p and in the comprehension of this prac

jec eds

through, this the espousal o l d e m *d in death, The prefer lume is de\

ntentn a demo ut« huma

and sul

d|

^ ne

{ual, where purpose and n EDI > BK

,R,\\L

T

he present volume differs i

derai

om the originally planned format

n.*f anthology. This format would \ had the advantat for a c th a varu om the mcluding mat fterent articles dealir, luld have proZapatistas to the working class under Although vided a more accurate reflection of the material published in Common & >lumjre of argudisadvantage seems clear been ments and concerns. Besides, some contributions whi ns. This volume, then, included could not be used because of copyright re accour me of the cenis designed as a focused, rather than represent* tral themes ot foM& For this reason, some contributions that had originally been selected had to be left out and some have been included which had in fact not appeared in apters on the si^ ance The volume is in three parts PART I include Open Marxism: Subversion and Cntiqi \RT and character or "cntiqu The Insurrection ot Labour and 11 examines contemporary developmen Global C a p i t a l ) and PART 111 contains contributions on the emancipate dimension of Marx I work and its contemporary The I iue ot n a heterodi I perthe Political) Although all contributions argue spective, the volume does not speak with one Instead it offers an interting of distinct The shared basi ntnbutions is their gentern of bourgeois categ« This critique is not a eral critique of the entn sake It is a determinate < ue. a critique which detercritique for mines the forms of capital as perverted form of human relations In short, the ue o: al economy is realised in contributions are agreed that Ma id equal its negation: the Hopefully th lume will be only the f 4 many, to allow the circulahave not been included here. tion of those additional contributions v Wl

;R BONE

ACKNOWl Willi il

ibutjou

publi thtd in

REVOL! HTIONAKY Wl. but the d not in th ion l>ut in the rcalr ^rld hurtling \\h< >ws where. rhe dia negai >g class, [n a world no neutral is the \ ive of our strn gle. As Tronti put it in • In. Ii provided one ol the st ig |>.>mt> !<M th, m an\ political concern, 10 it ia important to emp1 pt of r important oping Mai theoi uggl

n. on the containment of a

ling line between in. against and be;

\ clear

hich

— a point empha-

neither external nor internal it is both but with no clear dn

througl

n, n

as a strug*

>nd it. The relation between labour

nd become ii

t in th

'x>ur (the "impo-

erred to> as a

Capital's reproduction depends on

ts in

>rm

ol poli

ant to see the

T h i s is not to say that ,n

bour as con-

hich the comp

in other words, class struggle

• see th

the dual

permeates not only the workplace, but the sised but without i entiation in tl

Was

>cess ol fetish]

int more genera

crete and a'

tit sees the only pos-

ol resolving this dilemma, the dilei I the-

ike tl

tndable but

flowing, an in-again

then

Oi

in with no

s no out

surrounding the

hroughout the world, and in the equa and "crimes' agair

unpr-

tfl

mat hil

l e , in all the con!

struggle that always goes

flism is total and the w o r k i n g class cannot see through

th

relic

ur

m,

ng class becomes theore ipo&sit'

thai Strug

as it is sometime

rstand Marxism

ng human t lent struggle The

ies a cc
n. h is seen as the most s

ical f o r m . Rather it i:

ndation of the poll'

/. Conflict is accepted as a stabihzit

tern, providing it with structures

he

ecunng its success. I

ever conflict manifests itself in constructive or lu ment does not remain absent Confli

ever, wher-

nal forms, tht

la-

hout critical ideas amount to me

s h a d o w - b o x i n g and so lose their functionality. Critique seems, then, to be a systemic condition of political stability

But this presupposes a pai

praised a n d emphasised quality ol

jue —

t must retrain I r o m d e s t r t

iar, mu

bandon its nee

I opera

itique — yet another tautology* of the Z

tractive stantly makes p
rm not need the conflict ol ui who was It..

By refusing the possibility o f a destructive

hin society that searches tor e m a n c i p a t i o n , a n d b y refusing to

«

groups and six ial partr

a n d r e g a i n e d its autonomy,

e manifestations d r a g p h i l o s o p h y b a c k i n t o the role of a

e endeavours are widely m

T h e other positive manifestation of the Ztilgaji D o e s

jtiot

e*

date.

n.l that is, it maint

the phase o f edil
l*rLn

'h love but

s we know, within t'

em all field

nd persons not

1 imi

anothe neshed n«

For c o n s t i t u t i o n a l patriotism, the

k th

scep


D o u b t come

heless. sy

• id, in thi strust —

m its svs-

ystem theoi in the "constru

I do not [

>n that looms on the bori-

n is identical with the defence and rea

u\iti-

today the

[er-

I n ess*

ntending

-bhlizing functio

Its historic dignity as a ton

is. It detests destructive critique and mines the

out from the impending obht.

claims earnestly to wa

g u m e n t a t i o n th h g g i n g un
the Dctrrmuxatun

Th

tes have been compiled bv the t They are meant to guide tin reader through Agnoli s argument and to suggest further reading. l For a J ed assessment see Agnoli T h e Market, the State and the End ol H in Bonefeld, W and K. Ps\ pedis (ecU) The Politio* ofCbam Palgrave, Lond 000 Agnoli refers here to the regressive transformation of consciousness into forms ol technological and that is functional rationality Agnoli refers here to the growth of occultism, spiritualism and esoterism during the 1980s. Agnoli refers here to the Historians Dispute of the 1980s The Frankfurter Ri hiiu is a national liberal-left newspaper. See also Agnoli's Fadctynuu >ne RevLHsn, Qa ira. Freiburg, 1997 tor an an is of fascism and critique of attempts, including Noltes, at normalising fascism and of according blame for fascism to the working class. An introduction of his book to an English readership can be found in Bonefeld "On Fascism,'' Common Serine no 24. See also BolognNazism and the Working Class/' published in Seru*e, no. 16 5 See Kant's definition of the Enlightenment as humanity's exodus from sell imposed immaturit; 6 Note that the article was first published in February 1990 when the upheaval in East Germany was at its peak f Kant, I. (1868) "Nachlafi," in Sdmmtllche Werke, G. Hartenstein edition, vol. 8, Leopold Voss, Leipzig. 8 Agnoli refers here to the Radikalerurlaft of 1972. This Erlu/S barred people with supposedly anti-constitutional opinions from employment in the civil service, including teachers and postmen. See also footnote 10. 9 Adolf Freiherr von Knigge, 1752 to 1796, was the author of a book on how to behave "Benimnv Knigge" translates as "Be have-Knigge 10 Art and science, research and teaching, shall be free. Freedom of scholarly work shall not absolve from loyalty to the constitution" (Basic L*iu't Art. 5, 3). By the late 1970s, at the height of the new social movements, University Professors were, under pressure of dismissal, forced to sign statements declaring their loyalty to the state. Unless scholarly work accepts the contut lonal order, it would otherwise place itself in legal jeopardy and be subjected to police surveillance and persecution. The following quote from a Constitutional Court judgement of the early 1970s might clarify this: "The normative right ree speech and free expression of opinion is restricted il

34

„/the Scholar fa MwrabU

Turn*

the expression of opinion is in opposition to the liberal dem« ic ground order The legally protected right to express the opinion that there is no freedom 0 mon in the Federal Republic of Germany casts doubt on the validity of the constitutional value of the liberal democratic ground order Because of this, the opinion that there is no freedom of opinion in Germany is not protected by the basic right of free opinion" (quoted in PreuB, Ltijatttat and PiuralumuJ, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1973. p. 2A). On Agnoli's conceptualisation of the Rechh.'ttuit and liberal-democracy, see his Dw Trai motion ikr Dtmokratu urn* andtn SckrifUn zur Kntii- Jer Poldik, Qa ira, Freiburg, 1990. For an introduction of this book to an English readership see, Bonefeld "Constitutional Norm versus Constitutional Reality in German; apUal t$ CLu* no. 46, 1992. 1 1 Kant's reply is published in 1 mflwL< of the Ity. In his reply to the King's order to abstain from denigrating Christianity. Kant argues that since he did not provide an appreciation of Christendom, he could therefore not be a c c u s e d of degrading Christendom. His reply, in fact, emphasises the importance of Christendom because of its moral force to secure good and honest b e h a v i o u r In short, Kant's reply agrees with the King and it does so in such a w a y that makes the ossified relations dance. Kant replies with irony, determination and praises the existing powers in a careful wa Praise of existing p o w e r s is not a punishable offence. Yet, like never ending applause, it can work like a destructive fort l ^ Agnoli is referring here to Habermas' notion ol nal patriotism that he offered as an alternative rational source oi national identity and as a m e a n s of securing the liberal-democratic values of justice, equality and fr< rn. 13 Article 18 of the German Constitution declares that those w h o make an u n c o n s t i t u t i o n a l use of the basic liberal rights enshrined in the tution, lose their basic rights. S e e also footnote 10. M T h e term chauvinism derive m a French comedy in which the character o f N i c o l a s Chauvin playi ihe role of an ardent veteran of Napoleon's. C h a u v i n i absurdly extravagant national pride and sense of national duty repeats ittell as a c o m e d y m the activities of the s e c u n B against s u p p o s e d e n e m i e s within (see footnote 15) ere to th* vities of the security service m the federal I 16 Agnoli r of Ix>wer Saxonv. It became k n o w n in 1986 that a b o m b that had exploded outside the walla of ft prison in the town of Celle. where persons convicted o f terrorist off. I were held, w a s not detonated by a terrorist g r o u p as ,t w a s alleged, but by the security service itself T h e person n ble for the bombing w a s a convicted murder w h o had been

J

A

rhe bomb attack ^ as used as a means ( intcniiJ n 8 B and of infil ng tf .mo i\w ^ the search for te scene as a The constitut referred to by Atiu n, the new u\ in as an follower ol I der n state terrorism. B quo bas rhis section analyses t tnbution (em theory to the stal>i j 0 n Qr p al f r The important proponents are Luhman and Parsons ork plays a significant part in Habermas' reconstm ri. , n ol crittheon >r a destrtn tn itique ol Habermas, see Reich* Jiir£en Habermas' Reconstruction of Historical Materialism/ in B . |,j W. and The Pola Palgrave, London, 2000. I >n Italian fascism's acceptance of social conflict as a constructive force that supports the stability of political power, see chapter 8 of his Faacbumtu ohnt fevkt&n, op) rder to claj his point, see for example the current debate on globaii sation where well-meaning commentators argue that globalisation leads to nev* >arbansm if its lo^ tnnot be arrested through the creation of new forms of liberal-democratic intervention at the national and transnational level Tf '"gument charges that the Left has to abandon its negative critique of capital and its state because the misery created bv globalisation requires urgent action and intervention of a radical reformist kind. Globalisation is said to have rendered obsolete the ability of anti-systemic pposition to effect change. In order to avoid the dreadful consequences of globalisation, the I>eft is called upon to make positive constructive proposals. In short, dest ive c ue of capital and its state is rejected as socialirresponsible. It provides no positive proposals for the avoidance of barinsm and for this reason, by implication, is seen to be complicit in capital's pre of neo-Iiberal globalisation a detailed discussion, see •nefeld < rlobalisation and Democracy." in Comtrwn Strut, no. 22, 1997. The idea >mmuT ive action in spaces defined by the absence of power Habermas \ jue see op. cit 'llmer ar th were representatives of the G* llmer) and fundamental I )itfurth) I The realist faction called r a policy of ecological realism and favoured to join the Social Den «»« Party in a coalition government. The fundamentalist faction represented a n comprehensive r m oi 'he established pa

IN

In the past, of course, there have been various Marxist efforts to grasp the totality of capital as well as effon recognize and analyze the particularities that oppose it Three examples h en: (1) the Hobson-Bukharm-Leninist theory. !i.*m which visualized capitalism in terms ol conquered, vided and redivided by competing na il blocks of capital. I tpeny theory which similarly sought to understand the global order ipital in tc of a hi< hy of development and underdevelo thev which ha.^ used on the global interconnections through which capital has knit the world into its own kind of totality Unfortunately, in all three cases the manner in which the theories were developed — starting from a focus on capitalii ization — led to the displacement of the analysis from class confii to nation-state conflict and the relative neglect of the particularities of class conflict In all three cases there was a failure to grasp the totality of capital as I attempted internalization of a diversity of class conflicts whose dynamics account both for ththe relationship and the direction of its movemei Because of the top-down orientation of these proi nowhere has there been an attempt to grasp the logic of capitalist development in terms of the autonomous self-act of the people struggling against it It has been this fail-

V/

fLirry Cleaver Mormon I

e that has \

hese theories open to the "master narrat itiquei ern emphasis on the diversity ami ditlerences among

social movement surely, despite the validity of such critiques, such theories must retain a certain app< se the globality of the I relationships of capitalism has ne been clearer than it is in the wake of the rtluow sialism in Eastern I nd the Soviet Union. Today, global capitalism spearheaded by iing the institutional stru the International Monctan Fund (IMF) if transl tures of the ex-social, ountries inf lations of lamiliar Western s. and at the roo both the collapse and the current efforts at nultaneo •nmation. the similarities between the struggles of the working classes of Central Europe and those of the West are becoming more and more obvious, see them more clearly and recognize the parallels not only because ir institutional framework is becoming more familiar, but because with the !lapse of the traditional \ o East-West communication their struggles ning. As hitherto barely visible reservoirs of resistance and selfand ours ar on link with their Western counterparts through face-to-face encounJ.J of environmental actr ) and autonomous computer networks (e.g., asnet — Peacenet, etc ) the commonalties of struggle resonate and new common directions are being elaborated. Thus, ironically, just as the ideologies of post-modernism have trumpeted the radical incomparability of contemporary ocial conflicts and have demoted the Marxist analysis of class and class conto the status of one-issue-among-others, the development of those very onfhcts — East and West — have produced such an unmistakable uniition of the institutions of capitalist power that no matter how autonomous t repression must force octal conflicts the omnipresent menace ot the recognition of a common enemy and of the continuing usefulness of Marxist of the crisis "will analysis. Perhaps, with apologies to Marx, this char. I rum the salience of class into the heads of the upstarts of modernism." However, at the same time, the criticisms do highlight the failures to grasp it just a the particular in such Marxist attempts to theorize the whole. N question of developing an analysis of the particulai omplement the analysis the whole — as the evolution of the debate over dependency and world-systems theory shows .2 Rather what is required is an ability to grasp simultaneou the nature of th< tality thai < aj lias sought to impose, the vity which has resisted that totality and the evolution of o( the othe oreover, what we need is a theory that articulates each in t< all this Irom the pmnt of viev Stance to capital's totalization (as opposed to what we might call bourgeois theory which deals with these things >m the point of view of capital) and of the i I to move beyond it. The That reworking produced analyses of the complexit new constitution of the working class in ways which h brought out both the autonomy and intercoms tess (complementarities and conflicts) among sectors of the class — m, lulling the various parts of the waged proletariat II as groups traditional ed as out that class such as unwaged housewives, students, 43

rr

>eaaantt a n d u r b a n

marginal

a a l y s t s o f d i v a r s i t y hat period into thr

,nAse

itaiii

has p i

r a l the w e a k n e s s *

engi

anc| | i m i

t the

mg

he la

msurgen

A\

(1

r u p t u r e d t h e s i n e w s ol

the m o goism.11 The

mini

struggles

ng those

itj

rs. e

interconnected

tsants. s t u d e n t s , w o m e n , i n d u s t r i a l w o r k e r s ,

h succeeded in r u p t u r i n g the p o s t - W W I I structures of

global capitalist power,

i i r d i s r n - K e y n e s i a n i s m - P a x - A m e r i c a n a . In other

grant

n of

r e s p o n s e t o the

ety o

.vn d i r e c t i o n s . 9 S u b s e q u e n t l y , in

alist c o u n t e r

> l a u n c h e d i n t h e 1970s a n d

t h e r e o r g a n i z a t i o n or i n t e r n a t i o n a l m o n e y t h r o u g h t h e use of m f l a n a n d det

indu

tnd I

i has d e l i n e a t e d b o t h o u

I r e s t r u c t u r i n g , t h e t h e o r y o f class c o m es t o c o p e a n d t h e s o u r c e s i

If c o n t i n -

• g strengt O n the nega'

quer*

n in large part due t o o u r inal | the successful d zed h u n g e i

mployment

ease hrougl

and falling real incon he

An

I stare

counter-

ind n

rust

ce r e p r e s s i o n belt,

«•••

ghettn

hose o f us e n g a g e d

i s i v e s h a v e s o u g h t to u n d e r s t a n d the t r a n s f o r m a t i o n ? t h r o u g h

w h i c h p e o p l e h a v e b e e n a b l e t o resist c a p i t a l i s t assault a n d c o n t i n u e t o b u i l d their o w n autonom I n t e r n a t i o n a l l y the p nian u obvious

'is(e.g., of

o f the N i c a r a g u a n r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s o r o f the

la t o assert a n d d
n i n t e r n a t i o n a l n e t w o r k s o f r e l a t i o n s h i p s w h i c h i n h i b i t e d b o t h

the A m e r i c a n a n d I s r a e l i g o v e r n m e n t s i n p u r s u i n g t h e i r p n

toward mil-

e p r e s s i o n . T h e e x t r e m e l y r a p i d d i f f u s i o n of i n f o r m a t i o n t h r o u g h s u c h n e t w o r k s , w h i c h ha

m n e w s p r i n t i n t o c y b e r s p a c e , has been essen-

the mobilization of n

reposition to the d e p l o y m e n t of

ti

a g a i n s t the S a n d i n i s t a s ( t h u s the r e c o u n t

bl

d e ) a n d to the b r u t a l i t y d

American

he c o n t r a s a n d e c o n o m

Israeli r e p r e s s i o n o f P a l e s t i n i a n s t r u g g l e s ,

m i l a r l v the a m a z i n g l y r a p i d m o b i l i i

I m o v e m e n t against the p o s s i b i l -

lll W a r w h i c h t o o k place i n t h e A u t u m n o f 1990 -

despite its f a i l u r e

p r e v e n t t h e w a r — w a s based o n t h e a b i l i t y o f those o p p o s e d t o t h e m i l i t a r y

level,

he 1970s

.ility to i m p o

to d e s t r o y o r c o n t r o l e x i s t i n g

o u r o w n a u t o n o m o u s p u r p o s e s . S u b s e q u e n t w o r k o n the t a i l u r e s o f c a p i t a l ' s

ig d i v i d e d a n d c o n i r p o w e r . At a global

nines o f A f I M'

avoid

it a I s i n a b i l

>as h e l p e d l o c a t e o u r a b i l i t y t o resist

o r t o p r e v e n t t h e f u r t h e r f o r m a t i o n of l i n k a g e s

w e h a v e s u f f e r e d o v e r t h e p a s t t w o d e c a d e s o f crisis

impos*

eks o n m i n o r i t i e s a n d i m m i g r a n t

O n t h e p o s i t i v e side, t h e the
ocie-

k i n g class t

J ar

*&*•

it t r a i

r k i n g class w h i c h , t h r o u g h a p r o c e s s o f

nmand, and (2) a i pose d

ana|

o m p l e x and interrelated

r e c o m p o s i t i o n o f t h e s t r u c t u r e o f class dc

1

en e x p

ears i n t e r m s or t w o phases i a broad!

populations A commu

u l a t i o n o l i n c u i t s o!

n i.l

the class r e l a t i o n s of c a |

n t i n g the m o b i l i z a t i o n o f o u t s i d

1,1

I ' o r d i s t - K e y n e s i a n s t y l e coi

-,d d e v a s t a t i o n

rt G u U ) ( t h e success o f these t e r r i b )

l have depende M

p o w e r or c o m m a n d .

F o r the p e r i o d b e g i n n i n g w i t h ti

mpose w >ama, the !'•

l e d t h e t o o l s necesaa.

air s t r u g g l e s as w e l l as t h e

t s t o res»

mand, th

Waihlllgl

cum

utilize global j> O

e

in.ilk-. n m o v t

k

ms o f c o m p u t e r c o m m u n i c a t i o n

(especially

c o u n t e n n i o r m a t i o n t h a t w a s used f o r local o r g a n i z a t i o n . h u t m o r e p e r s i s t e n t l y the a b i l i

the S o u t h A f r i c a n l i b -

K out o f its i s o l a t i o n a n d m o b i l i z e a w o r l d - w i d e a m i -

//

tr I

racist n rnent against apart hen I dm, ig bi nd disinvestment) was t >tal to its ability to the recent changes which h*v« widened its struggles Perhaps most dramam ally, the instantaneous the po#sibilil the images of revolt from COUntT) to country, played a funda. ment ie in the wildfire like spread of political revolution against Soviet-style ommunism in tral Europe. In the U S . such linkages have been multiplied a thousand fold and account lor both the powe. resistance and the power < institution in arena after of American women to the "backlash" arena of social conflict. The r rd liberation and autonomy, that of the old to the against their progress I attack on social security and healthcare, that of the gay community to the neglect of the A I D S epidemic and that of parents, students and the poor to reduchool lunch programmes and food stamps are examples of struggles in the 1980s and which stymied the Reagan White House's "social ager ometimes to abandon its efforts, sometimes to have recourse to priate or local initiatives (e.g. the attack on abortion rights, state legislation, media ridicule of feminism and exposes of welfare cheats and street crime in the ghettos, the push for privatization of public schools) or even to make further con ons against its will (e.g.. more money ior A I D S research and outreach, more money for food stamps). 1 3 ^^ The persistence of pro-active struggles (beyond mere resistance) among k u c h groups can be seen in the continuing drive by women, gays and racial minorities to extend the spaces and opportunities for self-development in ^ s p h e r e s such as education where as students and professors they have forced f the creation of courses and whole programs of study to provide opportunity and time for the elaboration of new kinds of self-understanding and jtonomous projects — from the exploration of the hidden history of women o that of Alrocentrism It has been the strength of such and sexual diven^ struggles, the pervasiveness of the critiques of contemporary society which they i in pushing forward their have produced, together with their suautonomous agendae that has produced an audience for the emphasis on dit ference characteristic of postmodernism as well as the most recent ideological backlash against "political correctness," diversity and multiculturalisn

THK At TONOMY OF N E W SOCIAL SUBJI-

SELF-VALORIZATION

The theory of class composition insists that patterns of these evolving conflicts are materially rooted in the character of the class relations as they have evol through these struggles. Among the most interesting aspects of the aracter of class struggle (as well as the movement analysis of the curreri 46

v .mJ the Cruu

il

beyond it) are the efforts to grasp the way in which the constitution of the working class has become increasingly autonomous < pitai , designate a tradition withir I have used the term autonomist" M which there has always been a tendency to recognize and valorize the ability o workers no \y to resist capitalist ex pi ion and domination but to act in their own interests. In terms of the theory of the working class the main implications of this orientation has been to recognize and theorize both the self-activitv *>f workers vis-a-vis capital and the self-act.\ity of various sectors of the class vis-a-vis other sectors, e.g., of women vis-a-vis men, of blacks vis-a-vis whites. The study of skilled craft workers emphasized, in part, the autonomv of those workers in the control of the production process The study of mass workers emphasized, in part, the autonomy of those workers from the labor process itself. The study of the cycle of struggles that ruptured the Fordism Keynesian period emphasized the struggle against the capitalist imposition of work in all its forms, from the Factory floor, through the nee paddy to the schoolroom and single-family dwelling. The theory of class composition has explored many areas of the "social factory" to reveal the particularities of domination and those of resistance and subversion. Thus, Mariarosa Delia Costa. Selma James, Silvia Federici and others have examined the hidden fabric of gender relations that convert the daily lives of women into housework for capital, i.e., into the production and reproduction of life as labor power. At the same time, they sought to idem the sources of strength through which women have developed the power to resist such work and explode the capitalist subordination of daily life. In all of these cases, the degree and quality of that autonomy, it is suggested, not only explains the of capital and the quality of its reaction (both its specificity and its violence) but also the concrete possil for I i be ratio i In the course of attempting to grasp the connectioi ween autonomo character of workers' struggles and those possibilities of liberation, some those working in this area began to differentiate between those struggles (or those aspects of struggles) which resisted capitalist exploitation and those that sought to move in new directions beyond it One way of conceptualizing the latter movement is in terms of the autonomy and self-liberation of desire — of the •rt analyzed by Gilles Deleuze and 1 elix Guattari in their two volumes on ca dism and schizophrenia M Another wa conceptualizing such movement is embodied in the term "self-valorizat as it developed within th i.an New Left. Whereas Marx often used the term interchangeably with capitalist valorization, referring to the self mding chat r of capital. Antonio Negn suggested that the term be used instead to designate the self- determination of the working class Thus Negri's auto-Pokm* « refers to the ways in which

Iftir

r ;/

:nous sul .

|UJt

,he„,

n tn.

$cp

-nee. Ithough .( i i ill pi

,nents of i

(in|v

e often dill,, u | (

those efforts or the em.

rkinj B

merel;.

' •Misiiiuimg a new world

e r a has been developed in a w a y that conceptualizes working -non n
ad the movement inl the s but their form n int >vement and thu aggies wi 1 pre hrough the mobilization i >se c ristics attnbuted to the "socialized Tra< >rms of org; such as m imgs and strikes were c nted. in i in with their counterparts in other cour the masterful « irrually t m e logy of communication available, i.e . the i ol th» telephone, fax. radio, television, and compu >rks — not onto to mol rug^: Kin the lize international support but to build an The i ted to repr< Iblood e only after rei ed failures to cut the commui ol the nent he m ment circumvented the stat of ng in ,\e lines by linking M lax through third countries Outside the academy (although partly un as well* another set of self-constituting communities t mtelU *re ol "communication" as those working in or through the c puter networks. Originally tructed and o| ment ol iinology at the service o RPAN1 g, IN r, B1TNE1 not i n largely cons he stamp< tonoi collectivities which use them — and retain the mat* in their una dized and fluid technics - but t.tute a terr. of constant conflict between capi alle£ F most users to freedom of use movement ti he , ce they have created and The most dence of this auton undo! the class chai on involvi is t tween the hackers — who I ers to I movement created by capital in its attain ness se networks — and the state They mosth ame le in the *a result of the recent wave of inep upting and repre ing their activities.'^ Less visible but more import re the myriad pa rits of the networks who, operating from utilize the i state) entry p« workbut.nthepursint oitli U***n hat has been ,n king i the last has been th< 6 n

h

tb,

I lik

•II as the rr

rajni
re traditional

n thi

ithin

ling against exploitaissen state

Kin the lam sentences at hard lal

puters —

•5 are v

»«rs

rks such as the Pi

ive

>thers

•IOI

, as

divers*

-s —

ill*4

as sh

»s as well as univei

building!

M

Yet, there

1

the sphere of reprodi

I wage hier

»is to ui\

re •mm ho*

line

h di

lents of both sexes w i t h i n the - h o w th-

n those It

the

um u

r po\ sed be!

*

vage

rear gree the a

t\.

•ther

expl

arxist th«

veil a

id to the an

ntemporaiy

elaborating

The openness ol the theoret-

I kind ol class anal

the individual p oris i

»n all

global con-

zmg not only the interconn

kinds of domination but the |

tive self-valorization. pr>

»ve diversity o l

ppealing Iramev

n rej

hem

me that we can see how the k i n d

hich I have described is in the p

ical a n d political pi

>se

hinkmg ab«

n and processes oi libei

the "personal" cornmore *

an a n y w h e r e else) has been the id m o b i l i z a t i o n linking

I pe
so n h ini ith natun hin human a the con ten lienconstitution. In the 1844ManiucripU^ Marx re ion of w o r k unci n. a sk* unalienated 14 labor might be lik >rk as a life-giving o the worker's personality and desires, 4 A collective builds positn social relations among individuals, the sharing oi the resul ork as co: tutive oj social bonds, work as one link between individual and "being" of our ecies. In Ins subsequent anal of the di pment of lab« king clasi rx never returned to such a detailed discu how It might tra rm the charai of "liberated" Labo that develo] Nevertheless, as Negri has shown, the Grut le line bstract) argument oi how such development I nes an asin^ aUtonomou lelf-valorixation." In asv II see, some elemei of 11: lalysis are very close to Mi< tcm| trmul mmist theom 1 ory of labor. Even the well known passage she quot ommunist so« will make it p >r me to do one thii about h< today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the mornin h in the aiternoon. rt ier, just as I h * mind >kes sellin the evening, criticize alter I kinds of work. Hunting, fishing and husbandry are realization through se all forms of work ding to Manes resembles a "purely leisure activity The confusion in the kind of interprets »»ned in cnidl and m rooted in an inability to relate the quant din* sion of work. iruggles against .talist work, tl o reduce tl» exploitation ' king to the cm '* t n e lationi IK! md non-work mer sought the dclu tal el.mm »* h a s **en success in the redi turn I not onl\ ncreases in pi niggles t o transform the >rk di Uitatedqu and the relations between work non-work It was th itegy of the reft ol pitalist) work in the the qualit nges that have e the 'mass worker' bv the d s h o u l d be r e w a r d i n g sugg*

ter f o r m u l a t i o n . N a m e l y , that il var-

ious k i n d s o f w o r k a l o n g w i t h o t h e r sorts ol a c t i v i t y are o r g a n i z e d so as to be r e w a r d i n g i n themselves t h e n the q u e s t i o n of h o w m u c h t i m e one spends w o r k i n g at this o r that can l i n o m e one of personal a n d c o l l e c t i v e choice a m o n g an arra

have aire ed, is that to the degree that w o r k e r s are able to take comm a n d over their w o r k and their lives more generally, tl m the orgai ization of l a b to ove at such d e m b r a c e b y socialist managers ol capitalist T a y l o r i s m in the Soviet U n i o n ) may I M a r x ' s analyses o\ these matters but .t » w i t h M i e s ' o w n arguments. I

a l t e r n a t i v e k i n d s o f s e l f - v a l o r i z a t i o n r e q u i r i n g v a r y i n g degrees and

k i n d s o f e f f o r t . T h i s was c l e a r l y the k i n d o l t h i n g M a r x h a d in m i n d w h e n he wrote- the passage in The German Ideology a b o u t cattle r e a r i n g ,

fishing,

hunting

a n d c r i t i c i s m q u o t e d above. I f he h a d k n o w n m o r e a b o u t peasants he might have m e n t i o n e d s i n g i n g ^ d a n c i n g o r s t o r y - t e l l i n g as w e l l . 6 0 T h e t h i r d a n d f o u r t h aspects o f M i e s ' f e m i n it

o f l a b o r focus the

d r a w i n g o n her e x e m p l a r o f the m o t h e r as w o r k e r , a n d o f the subsistence pea

der. The;

co:

produ

human pou \

ill un
li-

nvitv, as incai n£ in the

and

npts Id

mds 'int w h i c h Mies considers ess* ar

ns the redt »nsuni| n an

!

hregard I

ling tlv i m p t i o n can guarantee >le commune

»d di

she proposes, is

lulm

of w o r k she has describe embra*

i tlie in

lihei

seem t o be con The I

uce produc

w h i c h are " u s e f u l a n d n< work

I witl

•ression
ne."*> Such attempts t hink the human-nature relal hip are extremely ,nt g and have been one of the most thought provoking aspe feminist and environmental mow | , s there Unfortunately, neither in her book nor in the ar any lubal 1 lor the meaning of a "coopetionship beyond a lac b < >l Both terms "cooj p roi aT imply the existence of different \ >er a n J a c t t o g , er in mutually beneficial v Hut in ense can we say non-human nature h. Hegel and Marx humans are thought to be difTerei >m other forms by having a "will/ In Chapter olume I of I lyzes the meaning of "coopi njman ^ork but id the concept to the relationship between humans and the res natui Today many persons iuding I as animal rights a ecologists. are willing to ide a gr r or I \ ill" m other 1 te. But what doe *opei mea h an inter >ntext? How do humans cooperate it apes, with wha ith rats and mice? And beyond animals there is the issue of the whole ecosystem ot mals, plants, rivers, winds, rocks and oceans. Ms cologir houc about what it vploitativ e" relat between humans and their environment might mean. Perhaps more of this might be brought to bear in our collective >rts to reconceptuali nge the nature ol v ept Moreover 1 would argue that we should question the ver ' ibor" itsel I not the to it. "Wor; an m a wide of concrete a -anal onl tkes sense in a ca. orld oi commodity product Cap* i very nature, n all human I e "produ as its fundamental mechanism ocial trol. Part ol the processes of sell orization through which we liberate oursel rom su >uld seem to involve reconcretization of activities we now call work — a nev. ding," to use Pc> rm, within contexts of meaning and social relanships Growing food, fat example, instead of being I one more form ot capitalist work through which workers and nature are exploited ai mmodity is produced, be one element in asocial pattern of non-ex hum. tion and meaning as we I tive hu with the rest ol natui ' metabolic process . inc ompl system within which hu,' e themsel is pa

J

nplt mulualK IU|

ntf

»ung *nd tl reason < at |?

lal

M h

W ^hemtelvti M limited t

"">•

m in In h

° cxl

th m to her to rede!j ne »l rcLitionshi i | ; g th eati | live I oi I uggests t h crt , but tal v it has gen that nsforms their ugh es in >mething richer than tl vork in Marxist theory. [) Inn >ns ol Mi , ho I think that her work ;ts that o ive sougl I ol the alienations of capitalist the « losest ested in the transcendence Itim s only amongst such ve ehforts that paths for-

t thr ing suggests, it seems to me, is that the ability to iderjtand emerging possibilities ot liberation through attention to the newest lass' recompo n an tive constitution (beyond class) juires the close the diverse directions different subjectivities may tl inter, n among them over their different as and \ politics oi alliance can minimize the possibiliI to divide ruju. enruating antagonisms (e.g., aggraI or ethnic divisions nly such a politics can make it posr the Marxist categories to keep up with the devel* ments ' uggles and tor us to explore the limits of their ability to grasp :il being

1

'

he work

This approach, which r Irom common among Marxi? l based on an x s own work and has n ed consi blc elaboration Besides being based on an interpretation of the content of his theory ol i n as class struggle, we can also i Marx's o w n replv to

the-

nUat ,e j l

ol ..II oi hii sbur

' edagem Lett* to the Edit November 1877. in S K Padc

ophical ZaaiA

E»gl< Hall 1979, p. 321-322 The temporar an explii n ,1 Marxist theor the working elabo class has included the work ol les Deleuze, Felix attan, Antonio Negri, Jean-A Vincent and others around the Parisian journal AnUrieu be basic thrust of such theory not only sees capitalist society as a social i ess conflict but grasps the dialt as the totalization capital seeks to impose on working class antagonism in order to conver into mere useful contradiction. Within this perspective, that antagonism appears as a e which repeatedly ruptures the dialectic and has the potentiality ol exploding it om J tor all. 2 One of the earliest and most telling Marxist reproaches to dependency and world-system theory was that >cus on the sphere ol jlation neglectof production, especially the existence oi rent "modes < ed the sph production" in the Third World. Such was the argument, for example, that Ernesto Laclau made against the work of Andre Gundar Frank. But as the subsequent evolution of Laclau s work makes clear, the neglect ol difference could not be remedied simply by paving attention to it. Once one does pay attention the whole theory — including the theory of the whole — must be reworked. Laclau's inability to figure out how to do this within Marxism led him to post-Marxism. Others, however, have shown how this can be >ne as I sketch below. 3 For an overview of the development of that theon me of whose themes began to appear in anarcho-communism and council communism, which began to take on its modern form in the U.S. and France in the 1940s and was elaborated and polished in Italy in the 1960s, see the introduction to R. James. Raya my book Reading Capital Politically. From insights t \litmt tm Bofhant into the need to Dunayevskaya and the editors c grasp not only the autonomy of the working class but also the concrete parrk of Raniero ticularities of specific sectors of that d a n through the Pan? uino Alquati. Mario Tronti, and Mariarosa Dalla Costa in systei ing the analysis in M ian theory and practice to more recent Ameril W1 and French elaborations he editors and fnends of the jourfk No** and Futur AnUruun the theory of class componals Ztsition has received both inter -lopment and extensive application. < For more detail on methodological aspects of this "inversion" see H. Cleaver, "The Inversion Perspt Marxist Theon. Irom Valorization to Self-Valorization." in W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn and K. Psychopedis (ed

Harry Clear*

8

1(1

OpenM mt Vol II London: Pluto Pres I'here appear to be , 0 n i c parallels between the theory of cl*U composition ami what M Lebowitz has in mind when he calls, in his book Beyan ,,,,/„/, for thf development of a "political economy oI wage labor" to complement Marx'j analysis of capital The development of the the. (the "mass worker" has recently been traced ergio Bologna. See his "Theoi id 1 listory of the Mass and analysed Worker' in '° ^ an< ^ n o '2. k moments in the adaptation of Marxist theory to the ever more inclusive character of the working class were Mario Trontis theorization of capitalist reproduction as social factory and Mariarosa Dalla Costa's work on the role of housework Within capitalism See: Mario Tronti. Operate Capitate, Torino Einaudi, 1964 (a central chapter of which is available as "Social Capital" in Telos, no. 17) and Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James Women and the Subversion of the Communi 1972. Subsequent work on the capitalist character ot the work of peasants and urban "marginals" has been done by Selma James, myself, Ann Lucas de Roufignac, Gustavo and others. The crisis is thus located in the insurgency of the working class which occurred as it transformed itself into something no longer compatible with the Fordist organization of accumulation and the Kevnesian role of state management The term "sectors" is used loosely here to designate various subdivisions of the orking class which have mobilized themselves autonomously vis-if-vis the rest of the class, e.g., women, bta students, black students, black women, and so on. Although earlier European centered analyses of this process appeared in Italy in the late 1960s and early 1970s (scattered pieces hich appeared in translat in the journals Radical America and Tebd)t the first detailed American elaboration of this analysis appeared in the first issue of the jour rk in December 1975. The bulk of that first issue has been reis naJ Z 1971-1992 (Brooklyn sued as part o! Mdnight Oil: Work, Energy, W Autonomedia, 1992) by the Midnight Notes Collective. Watered down v 8 ol this analysis, stnpp evolutionary politics, have appeared ii the form of French theories of 'regulation and of Am. n theories ol naillation" - theories which have, as their titles "social structures of imply, shifted the focus of analysis from working class power to the require ments of capitalist imand. The llagrant state manipulation of the news media during the Gull War to prevent the barbarous reality ol the war from becoming apparent to the

tnJ the (

pit a I

world — which has produced an outpouring of critical a supposes tf of a space already liberated from capital There ts thus a dualism as between two presuppositions * stand external to each other at the same time as each these presupi ion is supposed to render \erer e two presuppositions are: the presupposed freedom of the social subject and the p r e s u p p o s e d logic of the capitalist svstem No answer can be provided as to the and capital's cajoling power The on! constitution oi both l a b o u r s sell a n s w e r possible is the denunciation of capita] as subordinating labours autor omv and a study of the changing composition of labours re\ tivity which is seen as being in opposition to a presupposed log= :apital In sum, the internal relation between capital and labour is I rormed into a relation ol mere opposition, thus reducing the internal relation between form and material) nple juxtaposition ol opposition Thereb;, labour is taken as a one-sided abstr n At the same time the essentialisation of the su* goes hand in hand with the fetishisation « C o n t r a r y to seeing th« uion between capital and labour as a social rela

methedange 'he

oher-

-ur's sell in be found in the '!n, the development of which is open to the class struggle itself. Autonomist approaches disentangle the internal relation between transcendence and integration i

>nstruing social pr

e solely in terms of transcendence.

O n the other hand, approaches which stress that labour exists merely " m " .pita! dismiss the antagonistic character of capitalism, neglecting the contradictory relation between transcendence and integration. Instead, capital is conceived of as a one-sided abstraction at the same time as social practice is sa< be

mine*

I the class struggle

reated as a derivative of this

"tW«8 I '" s struggle lies in the circumstance that the msti tutional lo i dynamic m needs to be overdetermined by an "economu rlass struggle in whii h the balance of class forces is moulded by mai tors I

rid the value form itsel

lessop. 1983, p 90)

lie form defines the coherence of the

In other words, the

talist mode of production, a coher-

ence which is achieved, in pi a. tied through the contingent forces of conflict in the "real

world. Structuralism and voluntarism are complementary

(see

nefeld, 1993). Structuralism depends on a distinction between structure and struggle — each ol which, however, is supp coherent. Structure is seen as e

render its contrasting term

ing determinism because it is qualified by

agency and agency is seen as escaping voluntarism because it is qualified \

n the altar of scientism These approaches are structuralist-functionalist

"structural constraints. However, the intelligibih

e what for them really counts are the inescapable lines of tendency and

ing from agen

-re is seen as den

ice versa. The dualism between structure and struggle

direction established by capital's projects. Labour no longer exists in opposition

thus sustained only through a tautological movement of thought. Adding togeth-

to capital but is, rather, a part

er, eclectically, two fallacious positions hardly amounts to a theoretisation

apitaJ s own project. Structuralist approaches

contend that the reproduction of capital is not simply given by the logic of cap-

wherein either one of them can be redeemed.

ital. Capitalist reproduction goes forward through class struggle. Structurally

In sum, the problem of autonomism and/or structuralism arises from a con-

predetermined views of social development entail a conception oi the subject as

ceptualisation

merely (but at least) the bearer — Tragcr — of social categories. The subject who

(autonomism) or merely /// capital (structuralism) Structuralist and autonomist

bears categories must, at the same time, be the subject w h o transforms them. But

approaches are complementary because both depend on the notion of "capital

on a structuralist approach, he or she can transform them only by reproducing

as a logical entity. While structuralist approaches emphasise capital as an

them. The contradictory' logic of capital requires "human agency."

autonomous subject, autonomist approaches emphasise capital as a machine-

^ ^

The conception of human practice in terms of "human agency" is based on the notion that the abstract nature of capitalist laws stands above class relations.

that sees labour as existing either merely «;.

like thing. Both approaches depend on a determir as capital is perceived fetishista-ai

/ capital

ew of capital inasmuch

an extra-human thing.

The notion of labour as existing in and against capital does not provide sim-

Class struggle transforms thus from a struggle for human emancipation into a is seen as an

ply a middle way out of the problem as, for example, implied by the notion of

autonomous subject and labour exists solely within capital. Class struggle

"objective laws but also class struggle." This notion, which is central to the

becomes subordinate to the internal logic of different social structures such as

po

the pol

opment causes societ

sociological

category

of

capitalist

reproduction.

Capital

I economic, leading on to a conception of class only via volun-

ism Structuralism asserts the subjective in the form of a voluntarist concepn of class, i.e, a conception of class as a structure-reproducing agency. For

debate, construes capital as a one-sided abstraction whose devel-

ete as providing "emj

in terms of social confli* I This view sees the conJ indicators" of underlying (i.e. general) tendencies.

In this view, the concrete is seen as an expression of more fundamental laws

example, in Jessops approach, class conflict "does not as such create the totali-

whose existence is logically presupposed. In other wor-

ty nor does it give rise to [capitalisms] dynamic trajectory" (Jessop, 1991, p.

between the supposedly inner logic of capital and the historical ana

154). This is because the "conceptual identity of classes is given by the cap

italism. H u m a n practice stands external to the fundamental laws of capital

relation itself rather than being constrained by classes which shape the relation

>ther words, Jessop conceives of "capital" as a self-relation

whose internal lo£ words, clas^ internal log

ital

ructures tl>

>ss struggle in the "real" world. In other

iggle is firmly located within the framework established by the apital. 4 Hence, "capital

SO

is seen as some-thing which deter-

action is made ip-

Units between structure and struggle is realised not on the fundamental level o f the formation ol a t t r a c t i

^pts but on the contingent level of historical

development within the liarnework of objective I understanding, the notion oi labour as e the internal re I

In contrast to such an

ng in and against capital stresses

n between materiality .md social form. The presence of

81

Werner BorufeU Human Prm /

labour in and again ' is understood as labours constitutive power that exists in a mode of being denied ill thi I ap.talist form d UH ml reprodi The notion "mode of being denied" stresses the social constitution of whaj asserts itself r social relations as mere thinghood; a contradictory unity through the presence of labour which is also a presence in and against capital The notion of labour as e n and against capital makes it possible to understand the contradictory mode of existence ot social phenomena and t« conceive the movement of this contradiction as one of the transformative power f human practice. In other words, the notion "in and against'' does not entail an externality between two complementary perspectives: in nd" against. Rather, it emphasises the circumstance that obje tv and subjectivity engage with each other in an internal, nonetheless contradictory, way. I offered the notion of 'alienated subjectivity" to emphasise this point. This notion means that, in capitalism, human relations exist, contradictorily, in the form of relations between things The critique of political economy amounts to a critique of "economic categories' eiiommah* In other words, the critique of fetishism does not entail a division of a social world into appearance (fetishistic forms) and essence (human content) Rather, human relations subsist in and through these forms. They do so in a contradictory way I offered the notion of an asymmetrical constitution of the capitalist class antagonism to emphasise this point.

CONCLUSION

Structuralism finishes up by invoking precisely the romanticised subject celebrated in approaches which counterpose the virtues of subjectivity to the alleged fetishism of structures. Equally, approaches predicated on the notion of labour's autonomy" finish up by invoking precisely the untheorised object celebrated by structuralist approaches which counterpose the virtue of structure to the aJleged existence of class struggle outside any law. Whereas the structuralist version of the subject entails the inescapability of capitalist reproduction as it merely seeks an empirical testing of preformed categories, the notion of labour's autonomy," muuu the idea of an internal relation between structure and struggle, entails the revolutionary testing of a reality which it is unable to comprehend. Both approaches beg the question of the objectivity of subjectivity and, conversely, the subjectivity of objectivity. If one were to integrate form and content, one would be able to analyse the asymmetrical relation between capital and labour (i.e the notion of capital depending on labour but labour not depending on capital) as a relation of class struggle, a struggle which is constitutive of social reality, which is a constituted social presupposition and at the same time a constituting social practice. 82

--,

I

e d t h t term, "integration" and transcendence" so as i eptual.se the nme1 relation between capital and labour The dialectical continuum of integration and transcendence emphasises the idea ol • pra orld in which the integration of labour mto the capital-relation and the revolutions transcendence of capital are neither logically presupposed nor historical determined. The notion of "integration/transcendence" connotes the idea th structure and struggle stand to each other in a relation ol diflcrence-in-uniNeither are structures identical with labour's constitutive practice nor do structures exist separately from labour. The dialectical continuum of 'integration'' and "transcendence" is founded upon the notion of a "perverter ir ld in sts — as itself — contrad' which the constitutive power of social pr torily. It exists in a mode of being denied. In sum, structuralist approaches see society as an organism which develops according to its own immanent laws. Labour is seen merely as an aspect of this organism. Structuralism sees social practice as a sociological category, so treating human activity in the letishised form of a commodity. Structuralism presents an apologetic theory ot capitalism. Structuralism and autonomism, while complementary to each other, stand to each other in an asymmetrical way. Structuralism depends on a voluntarist understanding of social practice as a structure-reproducing entity. Autonomism depends on a revolutionary understanding of social practice as a structure transforming human a Autonomist approaches emphasise the transformative role of human prauv The emphasis is on "transcendence/' i.e. the revolutionary transformation of a society in which humans exist as commodities. Therein lies an important difference from structuralist approaches. Indeed, autonomist approaches are much more alive to the contradictory unity that obtains between integration and transcenden The emphasis on "revoluti* ubje< supplies ao"anticipatory perspective" or the revolutionary transformation. Thus. mist approaches focus on the revolutionary liberation of transcendence" from between integration "integration." Rather than conceptualising the dial* and transcendence, they pose the question of political power {Mack), They do so, however, in a way which contradicts their own ical perspective. As v argued abo n autonomist approaches, the subject is perceived ver which stan rnal to its own perverted world. However, the critique of political econom n be made manifest in practice only when 11 has seized the masses; when, in other words, the masses are seized by the understanding tl it is their own labour, their own social practice, that produ I world tl oppresses them (cf. Mar> 76, p. 182). Rather than presupposing the revolunary immediacy of the social subject, autonomist approaches need thus to be 83

Werner Ji Human

the social(fence of k d contradii -rveriol fbrmi

stitutes, suffuse

r as a power which ,

Mar. use. H (1 1988' 7 A ! ree Assi

K I:

volume Bonefeld/Hollt> tnd Gam bi n o t contribution to this volume. )n t* ^ee, i and his contribution to this volume loulier (1! on this inti >n of Negri's worI r a simil. jm* ol I i n i| ar critique of Poulantzasysee Clarke (I

hiloi

and ( | l^ndon

pilotVa\ ill. i

\\ M '

Pr,

J Th hart

in

r
ble s. In the that point sees the hrough which we are still passing — of post-Fordism. >e regula 1 justi^ im r the interpretation i the processes of valorization with changes ace ie socio-political sphe; e-versa It was to make this I de> >s on the apparatus and position it wr> mo< n the writings ol Hirsch ^B ossop in Br ling to Jessop, the regula!• > t h prist ns of research/ initiated by Aglietta, studies regimes < mul. d models of g 'heir economic determinations, and it irsl inter ve I 0 th nited States Other studies ns — sometimes to examine the sprea lar circumnehmes to follow the par •velopment — independent!;. m the question ol the insertion Rati thin the int nal econ ircui

vel1 a

'

,,!

fl

nplementar etw«en differkis involves examining su :h as the sion and/or e state and n ifn t h c economic tendencies to autarcl losure and/or intemation. open-

nes:-

*

inter d econ« mens the var,.^^ . . . - iar ^ ^modeU ^ ^ ^ of international reg us pa. »

s. Tne

ln

'

n

analyses the overall mode the social structures of lonal level Reproduction of society depends on an ensern hich guarantee at least a degree o: blc ol institutionally mediated pr correspondence between different structures and a balance of compromise between social es. This strand of regulationism de^ particular attention to t ies of state and hegemony, which i iers to be central eh ments of social regulation. The fourth strand, the least developed of the four s the interdepenthe basis dences of emerging international structures, and various attemptof a world order through international institutions (which the regulatiomsts call gimes' ) aimed at establishing or re-establishing an international order Now, even from this summary listing ol the regulation school's principal themes it becomes obvious that the centre of gravity ot its interests lies in the analysis not so much of the social relations of production, but rather of the economic/state institutions which oversee them. In ', the reguL itru*i fractures, ani* lend* to overlook human. the pernuuu happening to them with thc odm rti From the start regulationism has been fascinated by the g power tal post-1968. despite the United States' defeat in Vietnam. >rding US to the regulationists, in the period after World War 11 one has to grant the US "the dominant imperialist position":8 it therefore becomes necessary to underures and those of its allied stand how, am* thank.* to what uvtilu&W its si indu^ luntries maintained their stability Within this hypotrn here is an underlying assumption, in which Western institutions are seen as remaining solid remely solid in the case of the US), while not only the institut of movement, but also living labour power as a * hole appe;. the I inescapal nhiugated to the unstoppable march ol mulation in short, in the me Uld long term capitals stately progress is destined to >nue, whil I melt on the horizon Thus it becomes a question oi studying the lav M h Western J has succeeded in perpetuating itself Ii was from v n th. ork that Michel Aglietta'. book* emerged in the year following the first oil p.

shock, which was also the year of Washington s

political and military defeat in Vietnam 91

90

Ferruccio (iambi A Critique of tk

I

RTAIN C-ONTOi |

For the r e g u l a r

|

hool, post-Fordism is like a

Rpig

stal ball in which "1>

mg • the still not completely foreseeable COnaequen molecular and genetic technology" it is possible to read some signs of the future. Particularly in the nc rmation technology, in telecommunications and in data processtechnologies, all

h could become the basis for a hyperindustrialisa.

tion," they see a potential for revolution in the world of production. Radically

thr

l


industrialised countries g r e w more than productivity, generating a crisis which i then attempted to resolve by seeking out production options and mat"*

the

ed in

Fordism mobilised industnal capacities at both the extremes of high skilled and

longer given

lie

In the 1980s the debate entered the public domain with the publi

lowing the S e c o n d World War, these t w o conditions had been satisfied,

sa

stJ* Mea ipphed th nth*-

tu

If w e then look at the discontinuity between Fordism and post-Fordism, it talist accumulation and I

T h e p r o p o n e n t s of the advent ol i Fordism discovered To; m as a variant -ost-Fordism tow the en the 1 9 8 0 s . l 3 In the 19* Vest ion o nese capitalism l 4 At began belatedly to take account of the ex; that time it was understood as a phenomenon which combined shrewd con J policies. 15 mercial strategies with an en< nformism and inadeq O n the Left there were some who — correctly, an
What was the reality* of Fordism for those workers who experienced it at first hand? Put briefly, Fordism is an authoritarian system ot production imposed "objectively - by the assembly line, operating on wages and working conditions which the workforce is not in a position to negotiate collectively Pre-trade union Fordism, with its use of speed-up. armed security guards, ph J intimidation in the workplace and external propaganda, in the 1920s I the worU and 1930s was one oi the key elements in the .'/n, which was exported, and then also produced abroad. The continuity not with regulationist Fordism but with the U S auto sector turns t to \ r stronger than the Toyotophile vulgate would be willing to admit. A a difficult period of post-War reconversion, Toyota tried the path of the p run-about (the Toyotapet), and experienced major strikes in 1949 and 1953 It was saved principally by the intransigence of Nissan, when they destroyed the Zenji auto union, but also thanks to United States orders arising \d for a further twenty years to come, out of th >rean War Subsequent! Tc range of products, .\ni[ those of the other Japanese auto companies, as restricted to a very limited number ot models. U p until the 1960s the defective quality of these models meant that exports were not a great success Faced ith this lack of success, there began a phase of experimentation based on using multi-jobbing mobile workteams on machine tools with variable programming, and on attention to quality with a view to exports.42 It was the success ol one single model (the Corolla runabout) in the 1970s that laid the basis for a diver•*-versa; and it was a success that Toyota on of production, and no' was able to build on abroad as well as at home, where the market was far less buoyant. U p until the 1980s, the variety of Toyota models was prudently limited, and only in the 1980s, when the domestic market experienced a standstill, company e.\ I their range of production with a view to winning new the needfor a variety of medtb, hut the nwodisatL markets overseas. Thus. the a i hiftoric wrking-clcLM Meal that explain* . Hr Ohno's experiment.' The principal novelty of his experiments was that whereas General M m the 1920s had been itent to have several ranges of cars built on separate lines, Toyota created work teams that could be commanded where and when necessary, to multi-jobbed labour on the production of a variety of models along the same assembly line. As for "just in time" production, this had already been experimented with in its own way, by the auto industry in the United States in the 1920s, and even

of tU I

« f the Regulatu

auto union in the United States.^ In the 1936-37 showdown between the 1W and General Motors, the union was victorious on the planning of stocks and on the elimination of seasonal unemployment. Perhaps those who sing the praises of jutt in time production could take a page or two out of the history of Detroit in the 1930s, or maybe a page from the history of the recent recurring strikes m Europe and the US by the independent car-transporter drivers operating within the cycle ot the auto industry, who are actually the extreme appendages of the big companies. As regards the second thesis, the supporters of the notion of post-Fordism claim that production now requires, and will continue to require, ever-higher levels of communication between productive subjects, and that these levels in discretionality to the so-called "producers," spaces which turn offer spao B relatively significant, compared with a past of r. ommunicating labour, of "the silent compulsion of economic relations"^ of the modern world. This communication is supposed to create an increasingly intense connectn between subjects, in contrast with the isolation, the separateness and the silei imposed on the worker by the first and second industrial revolutions. While it is certainly true that processes of learning in production ("learning by doing") tiding have required and still require a substantial degree of int verbal interaction, between individuals, it remains the case that from Taylorism onwards the saving of workrime is achieved to a large extent through reducing to a minimum contact and informal interaction between planners and doers. ase Taylorism tried, with scant results, to impose a planning in order to \ productivity, depriving foremen and workers of the time-discretional ity which they assumed by negotiating informally and verbally on the shop floor. However, in the era of pre-trade union Fordism it should be remembered that m th ,Js of restructuring of the factory, of changes of models and nological innovation, the "whispering" ol ition was not only produce, bin llv essential to the successful outcorm the operation. Anyway, the silence imposed by authority and the deafening noise ol tor of the overall movement of [ IM tn,, R u t n s c a k m soP d * A * » ol many when the te that "it is Jbnyg ital itself and the structures mposes ob> on the backs ol the ( gonists. that sets in motion the decisive conditions of class struggles and of processes < ^ Thus it is not surprising that the conclusions that the regulationists draw from their position tend to go in the only direction which is not precluded for them; namely that conflict against the laws of capitalist development has no future, and also that there is no point in drav ing attention to the cracks in the edifice of domination. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, one might hat if the regulationists have only a pan-Fordist hammer, thev will see only post-Fordist nails to bang. In taking up this position, not only do the regulationists deny themselves the possibility nalysis Ol conflictual processes both now and in the futu; but they also exclude themselves from the multi-voiced debate which is todfocussing on social subjects. 60 This is the only way in which one can explain the regulationists' reduction of the working class in the United States to a mere Fordised object.^ even in its moments of greatest antagonistic projectuality as it was expressed between the Depression and the emergence of the Nazi-Fascist new order in Europe. And given the limits of its position, regulationism is then unable to understand how this working class contributed decisively in the pla ing of that selfsame United States capitalism onto a collision course with Nazism and fascism. Pre-union Fordism was transient, but not in the banal (but nonetheless significant) sense of Henry Ford financing Hitler on his route power and decorating himself with Nazi medals right up until 1938, but because what overturned the silent compulsion ot the Fordised workforce was the workforce itself, in one of its social movements of self-emancipation — a fact of which the regulationists are not structurally equipped to understand the vast implications at the world level, and for mam years to come, well beyond the end of World War II. As regards today s conditions, what is important is not the examination of the novelties following on the collapse ol ous certainties in the wake ol the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the possibility or otherwise of avoiding the mevitab.htv of the passage to a P ost-Fordist" paradigm in which labour power figures once again as a mere object and inert mass As Pelaez and Holloway note, the insistence with which the regulationists invite their audience to look the future in the face arouses a certain perplexity.** Alter all, a belief in the marvels of technology Wi1 the organisations of the labour movement has led to |>"A , S

s,(l

>ol looks at the impl *

lhe cenlr

io5 H^^^^H^^^^HI

....

he

erwise of a

p^

y

A

* here is not ,UM the inevitability or oth-

rls t h e "l' w l m h c' V P*l biblio al references for the debat For the regulation « see, among others, the iollowing v B Robert la regula: * anafyee , ,ne Boyer, Li tl i m , \^ \ 1986; Robert Boyer (ed.), p a r i 8 p r c S ses /cU

•*> - « hl< h hM too .. able, but even the possibility of any u, er tentati >n the part o( social s u b l e t s . What is at stake her the possibility of r< *g a pr< I subordination ol labour power to tl,, inexorable New Times that are imposed in part, certainly, by the computer chip, but also b wrerful intra imperialist hostilities, which for the moment are disguised behind slogans such as petition and tree trade. What the present leads us to defend is the indetermmation of the bound anes of confl tl action We shall thus h to re-examine a means or two, to clearing the future at least or the more lamentable bleatings. tion and anatomisation of labour-power as a Up until now the decom "human machine" has been a preparatory process of the various stages of mechatton, it is a process which capitalist domination has constantly presented as necessary The point is not whether post-Fordism is in our midst, but e of "human machines" on the pyramids of accumulation whether the sa< n be halted. TRANSLATED BY E D EMERY 4

2

3

• r a timely critique of the term immaterial production," see Sergio Bologna, "Problematiche del lavoro autonomo in Italia" (Part I), Altreragiom, no. 1 p. 10 Michel Aglietta, (1974 ), Accumulatwn el regulation du capitalism* en tongue pe'rlode Lexempli -1970), Pans. INSEE. 1974; the second French edition has the title Regulation el cru*e76; English translation, A The apitalu*t Regulation: the US Exptruncc, London and New York, Verso. 1979; in 1987 there followed a second English edition trom the same publisher. The link between the category of Fordism and that of post-Fordism may be considered the term "neo>rdism," proposed by Christian Palloix two years after the publication of ok Cf. Christian Palloix. "Le proems du tra the first edition of Aglie vail. Du fordisme au neo-fordisme," IM Peru* 185 (February 1976). pp 37-60, according to whom neo-Fordism refers to the new capitalist pi • of job » hment and job recomposition as a response to new r< ements in the management of workforces. For the regulationist interpretation of Fordism prior to 1991. see the fund m mental volume edited by Werner Bonefeld and John Holloway, JW-JR * t Debate on the 1 rdvi .-, London. Macmillan, 104

,,/

1

m - the

»TES

thcl :, Ixmdon, Verso\ 1987; Alain Lipietz, "Fordism and post-Fordism W. Outhw and Tom Bottomore (eds >. The Bbukwell I nary rd. BL 1993. pp. 230-31. Twentieth-Century Social Thought, I ientref Benjamin Conat, Peruer Tenvers. Travail c •e, Paris, Christian Bourgois. 1991, Italian translation, Ripensan I iutaxioiu del lavoro. Concetti e pnu.u del inoikIlo . Ban. Dedalo, with introduction and translation by Mirella Gianmni 1 say "relatively high productivity" because the assembly line has n ways produced results. For example, the So\ iism ol the first two ti ear was the object of some experimentation, particplans (1928-32, 1933ularly on the assembly lines ol the Gorki auto hank part to the i, but prodi. turned out to be technical support of Ford technu about 50 per cent lower than that of Fords US factory. Cf John P. Hardt and George D. HoIIid.* technology Transfer and Change in I iet

Bconotnii

>tem. in

Fleron, Jr.. Ted

wnuniei

Culture: the & ittural Impa, Vechn "d L >n, Praeger. 1977, pp. 18" 3. In his "Fordism and post-Fordism." or> \ U\ ***** u the term Fordism' a scopert modello giapponese nelh identali," Stato e Mercato, no. 39 (I h >er 1993), pp. 4 3 7 - 6 6 . which discusses the variously critical recep106

Prentice Hall. 1994. 28 Irving Bernstein. Turbulent )

Op. cit.. pp. 32-33.

Upper Saddle. N.J.,

A Hu'tory of the Ameruan Work*

Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 196^ p. 737. 10

W-Wl,

A Critique fifth* Ftfrditm ••/ ihc Hen unshell. From tht lm

Wt*f* toJfa** Pniaetiaa

Baltimore and London, The Jokn Karl A' ttiaaj none*

Penguin,

;

(18i

41

i>kms University 1' qf the t

-v,

. p

">d.-

viduals. but expresses the sum ol interrelations, the relations within win. |, these individuals stand -rephen Meyer III. The Five Dollar Day Labor M unload m ny, i 1921 A l l N Y . State University ol Newtfu York Press, 1981, m particular \ o-202, ce SI Peterson. Atru Uomobile Worker** 1900-1933, State University of N e w York. I9i letroit Strike.' The Soti

W ' « [" Marie-t

Harold Garfinkel ztbodologxai York, Rout ledge & Kegan Paul, 198*

The

down production during the fall months in ordei to prepare the new yearmodels; and the automobilie worker has to stretch the high wages' of >,

Fever (

Instability of Employment in the Automobile Industr

Monthly Libor R,

vol. XXVIII, pp. 2 1 4 - 1 7 .

Bernstein, Turbulent Yeoro, op. cit.. p. 744. 34 David Noble, "Social Choice in Machine Design," in A n d r e w Zimbalist, Caje on the Ltihor I

N e w York. Monthly Review Press, 1979. pp.

18-50. oi these p