From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Thu May 11 2006 - 07:42:36 EDT
Another _Mute_ article. Concerns a recent divide among autonomist Marxists. Sorry -- but I don't have time now to re-format. In solidarity, Jerry ========================================================== The Archipelago of Immateriality Published on Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net (http://www.metamute.org) The Archipelago of Immateriality By mute Created 08/05/2006 - 4:55pm By The Melancholic Troglodytes, et al. Last weekend Mute visited the dreaming spires of Kings College, Cambridge for the conference 'Immaterial Labour, Multitudes and New Social Subjects: Class Composition in Cognitive Capitalism'. With the high-priests (Negri and Lazzarato) jumping ship early on, the conference struggled to bridge the divide between the historical legacy of the rigorous and innovative Autonomist and Post-Autonomist movements and the acolytes who inherit, but don't advance on, some of their key interests : immaterial labour, the multitude and the common. Over the next few weeks we will be collecting some short responses to the conference. The Melancholic Troglodytes kick off claiming that some Autonomist Marxists are openly making overtures to neo-social democracy and Richard Barbrook, whose response follows, concurs, but commends them for it! Response 1. By The Melancholic Troglodytes The Melancholic Troglodytes felt there were two fundamental and interrelated problems with the Immaterial Labour Conference [henceforth ILC]: first, the mode of organising was (at best) a Zone of Bourgeois Development (ZBD), and second, the content of Autonomist Marxism seemed impoverished. We will elaborate on these two problems below: Problem of organising Neo-Vygotskians have made a distinction between two different ways of organising, the Zone of Bourgeois Development (ZBD) and the Zone of Proletarian Development (ZPD). The Zone of Bourgeois Development (ZBD) is a convergence space for modern science, technology and academia. Its endpoint is the creation of instrumentalist knowledge and bourgeois individualism. Its historical midwives were rationalism, positivism and empiricism. The ZBD has three main characteristics, namely, organisational dualism, organisational fetishism and organisational religiosity. The ILC is not a party or a permanent organisation; it was just a weekend conference and a semi-permanent network of associates. Therefore it suffered more from organisational dualism than fetishism or religiosity. Organisational dualism manifests itself in a number of dichotomies as for instance the one between intellect and emotion which Leninist, Anarchist and Social Democratic parties have historically resolved through the mind-body metaphor. The mind or brain (the party’s central committee) takes care of decision making whilst the rank-and-file provide the emotional demiurge for enacting the committee’s decisions. It leads to the creation of specialisms and control of one-way (monologic) communication by experts. Melancholic Troglodytes were not expecting anything other than a ZBD at Cambridge. We went there fully cognisant of what we were getting ourselves into. If you want a ZPD (characterised by Joint-Dialectical activity and organisational Heterogeneity and organisational Carnivalesque) you have to create it yourself. However, we were expecting a competent ZBD- one that delivers according to its own limited and anaemic criteria of communication and development. Sadly, we felt we did not even get that. What we had most of the time was a Zone of Bourgeois (under) Development. The reasons for this failure are connected to the second major problem of the ILC. Impoverishment of thought Autonomist Marxism is finished! That is not to say it was once a revolutionary trend because it was always enmeshed in leftism. But in the 1960s and parts of the 1970s it had life, ideas, dynamism and a real connection to the class struggle. Since then its various factions have become guardians of theoretical orthodoxies and keener to defend their territory than say or do anything new. Autonomist Marxism which made some genuine attempts to break free of structuralist Stalinism has today collapsed back onto the Leninist terrain. One faction - what we witnessed at Cambridge- has become the post-structuralist Stalinist wing which is now openly making overtures to neo-social democracy. The other faction (Negri, etc) is gravitating toward wishy-washy post-modernist Leninist-Trotskyism and is also making overtures to neo-social democracy but more covertly. Conclusion It saddens Melancholic Troglodytes to see this degeneration. We used to rely on Autonomism for a good deal of our thinking, since no one group can solve all the complex problems of the class struggle alone. We will continue to read and perhaps even learn from Autonomism in a limited way. But no amount of trendy vocabulary and no amount of super-celebrity performances can hide the fact that Autonomism as a viable project is now well and truly dead. Perhaps the onus is on the rest of us to create an alternative. Response 2. by Richard Barbrook Kautsky in Cambridge ‘How was the conference?’, Simon asked. ‘Very interesting’, I replied. ‘The Autonomists have finally come out of the closet as reformists!’ At the opening session of the Immaterial Labour conference in Cambridge, Andrea Fumagalli had told us that Toni Negri and the other gurus of the movement now advocated a commendably pragmatic political programme: a guaranteed income for all citizens; employment rights for precarious workers; the democratisation of the European Union; and more environmental protection. ‘As left-wing members of the Labour party’, I pointed out, ‘we can no longer criticise the Autonomists. Their policies are also our policies!’ I continued, ‘It’s particularly good to see that – after 25 years – the Autonomists have at long last aligned their practice with their theory.’ Back in the early-1980s, Simon and I had both diligently studied the Red Notes booklets which had first made available the key texts by Negri, Tronti and their comrades to an English-speaking audience. What was then so striking about the writings of the Autonomists was their engagement with Marx’s critique of political economy. Unlike their Althusserian and Trotskyist peers, these Italian leftists did have something intelligent to say about the neo-liberal restructuring of capitalism. However, at this point, the Autonomists’ admiration for Marx’s theory didn’t extend to his practice. Far from being social democrats, they took pride in their revolutionary intransigence. Autonomism was the extreme left of the Ultra-Left. ‘What was the comrades’ reaction to Andrea Fumagalli’s speech?’ Simon asked. ‘As you might have guessed’, I replied, ‘it didn’t go down very well with most of his audience. For the old school, it was a betrayal of the holy precepts of Autonomism. For the younger generation, it was a bit like going to see Johnny Rotten and discovering that he had always been a Bee Gees fan!’ ‘What did they expect?’, Simon exclaimed. ‘It was obvious that Autonomism was reformist right from the beginning. Haven’t they ever read Negri’s article on Keynes from the mid-1970s? If you – correctly – point out that ‘effective demand’ is a euphemism for working class struggle, then you’re arguing in favour of social democracy!’ ‘Maybe’, I mused, ‘their horrified reaction proves that the revolutionary image of Autonomism was always more important than its theoretical achievements? It can’t be an accident that its acolytes prefer reading the Grundrisse to Capital. If they carefully studied the chapter on the Factory Acts in Volume 1, they would realise that Marx himself was a social democrat!’ ‘So was your visit to Cambridge worthwhile?’, Simon enquired. ‘Back in the early-1980s, we might have disagreed with their politics, but we always enjoyed going to their conferences.’ ‘Of course’, I responded. ‘It’s not just our politics which have converged. Do you remember the cyber-communism article which I wrote in the late-1990s for the McLuhan conference in New York? At the time, it was meant as a satirical piece: America invented the only working model of communism in human history – it’s called the Net! Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that there were two excellent papers at the conference which put forward the same argument.’ ‘Very good’, Simon said. ‘But do you think that anyone outside the academic Left is listening to what was said?’ ‘I do hope so since the conference was – rather appropriately – being held in Keynes hall at Kings. Looking at the current state of the Labour party, it certainly needs some fresh ideas. Maybe – as in the 1930s – Cambridge can again provide them?’ My comrade smiled somewhat sceptically, ‘I look forward to that day!’ ‘You never know’, I joked, ‘in a couple of decades time, we could be going to a similar conference in the Negri hall at Kings!’ ‘After Blairism’, Simon announced, ‘Autonomist reformism!’ ‘We should drink to this future!’, I concluded – and so we left for the pub to continue the conversation over a few pints… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source URL: <http://www.metamute.org/?q=en/Archipelago-of-Immateriality>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed May 31 2006 - 00:00:03 EDT