Work as essence [was: Anarchism & still not getting it]

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>From Adam to Angela:
> >why is it necessary to
> >reformulate what is an immanent contradiction within the form of labour (or
> >of value) into a contradiction between nature/society or present/past or
> >even present/future (as a kind of utopian projection)?
>
>I think a sophisticated anarchist (i'm thinking of, for example, Mike
>Watson (aka George Bradford) of the Fifth Estate) would avoid this and
>simply argue that the alienation of labour power arises not from capitalist
>relations but more generally from modern industrial society.  Or to perhaps
>be more precise, that the characteristics of capitalist social relations,
>such as commodification and fetishism, the instrumental logic of the
>Frankfurt school, etc., are inescapable in industrial society even if the
>economic structures were not capitalist in the Marxist sense.
>
>For example, I'm writing this on a plane using my laptop computer -- think
>about every that goes into making this possible.   Sure, I could imagine an
>alienation-reducing airline collective with participatory input from all
>where the pilot shares the duty of cleaning the toilets but this is not the
>natural tendency of the demands of the incredible complex infrastructure
>that goes into making all this work.

Speaking of alienation as a product of contradiction between simple and
complex isn't a very sophisticated move, to put it mildly.  "On errands of
life, these letters speed to death.  Ah Bartleby!  Ah humanity!"

A longing for writing degree zero is a symptom of commodity fetishism.

Yoshie