>>as Doug says, there are flaws in the Marxian argument that with the
>>progression of global capital there arises a global civilisation - a flaw
>>that arises from the progressivist attachments of various marxisms to be
>>sure. but I wouldn't particularly pattern it as core and periphery, nor
>>would I argue there is an inability to push deterritorialisation further [1].
>>there are ways of territorialising a low-wage 'periphery' at the heart of the
>>cosmopolitan 'core', and I think Doug has mentioned sweatshops in NY before.
>>Mike Davis essay on the Mex-Us border is certainly about a way in which
>>criminalisation and the management of movements between spaces is itself a
>>powerful instrument in the creation and maintenance of a low wage reserve [4]
>>and I would add the enhancement of regional competition b/n workers in
>>low-wage (and compliant) biddings where the borders are less porous. (maybe
>>the problem is that we too easily lapse into liberalist conceptions of state
>>power as negative rather than productive, even in supposedly negative moments
>>such as making certain things illegal, and so there is a tendency to think of
>>nation-states as obstacles to global powers when that is hardly the case.
>>maybe the problem is simply that we think of global and national as
>>antithetical terms in the first place.)
>>but having said that: I think Doug is right to say that capitalism
>>territorialises as it deterritorialises, that enclosures are an integral part
>>of capital's 'progression', not a contradiction with it. I would add that
>>there is another way in which Zizek's analyses are important: that the
>>inherent contradictions of capital will out, but not necessarily in ways
>>which are useful for any anti-capitalist projects. the failures and
>>antagonisms of capitalism will have to be attributed, and for now, they seem
>>to be being attributed to immigrants, the poor, the unemployed, 'other
>>ethnicities'...
>>as to the question of taking bourgeois propaganda too seriously [3], I don't
>>think this can be easily dismissed: alongside the triumphalism of
>>globalisation there is a generation of people who believe it without
>>exception, that the free movement of money is, or should be, rendered into
>>the right of free movement of peoples - this is a challenge to the new
>>enclosures of people on which the free movement of money relies for its
>>effectivity.... an immanent challenge, but a challenge nonetheless, and
>>certainly one that has the potential to be more combative (or even
>>constitutive of a working class combativeness) than the other immanence on
>>offer (anti-American nationalism). ('do we have anything other than
>>immanentism?' is perhaps a question that drives much of recent theory,
>>including that of Deleuze, Negri.... and I honestly don't think I can see
>>that there is. I'd certainly like there to be...)
>>but as to Michael's comments on the Empire: (and here I am still leaning
>>toward seeing the current moment as a shift away from US hegemony), isn't
>>there a sense in which each new imperial regime has its own privileged codes
>>and structures? that US dominance brings with it certain substantive
>>elements (its cultural motifs, particular modes of control) that Euro
>>dominance (hypothetically) won't (the emphatic code of Civilisation, civil
>>society, moralism, etc that we have seen amplified during the current war in
>>Europe)?
>>Angela
>>---
>>rcollins at netlink.com.au
>>--------------------
>>[1] Doug wrote:
>>>You could argue, following Polyani and/or Zizek (see quote below), that the
>>>construction of the world market produces the very "monsters" that the U.S.
>>>and its allies end up bombing. So, contrary to the classic Marxian argument
>>>about the world market creating a world civilization, it inevitably creates
>>>a cosmopolitan core and an excluded periphery. It may be that you can't
>>>push capital's deterritorializations further, because capital
>>>reterritorializes as it deterritorializes.
>>---
>>[2] Michael Hardt wrote:
>>>global order as if it were completely deterritorialized. There are, as
>>>she says, important territorial obstacles that we should oppose, such as
>>>national border controls and immigration policies. (I'm reminded of a
>>>Deleuze and Guattari line that sometimes instead of resisting the forces
>>>of global capital we have to push its deterritorializations further,
>>>accelerate the process, to come out the other side.) In any case, I
>>>recognize this as a problem rather than knowing how to resolve it: how to
>>>understand simultaneously, as Angela says, the territorialized or local
>>>forces of rule and the processes of deterritorialization.
>>---
>>[3] Michael wrote:
>>>>are the primary elements of hegemony. And in these regards the US is not
>>>>predominant and we can begin to imagine an Empire without center,
>>>>composed on networks of global power.
>>Doug replied:
>>>I wonder how much of these ideas of decentered empire come from taking
>>>bourgeois propaganda too seriously.
>>---
>>[4]>[from Mike Davis, "Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US Big City,"
>>New
>>>Left Review 234, March/April 1999, pp. 15-16]
>>>specific, and La Linea, even in its present Berlin-Wall-like configuration,
>>>has never been intended to stop labour from migrating al otro lado. On the
>>>contrary, it functions like a dam, creating a reservoir of labour-power on
>>>the Mexican side of the border that can be tapped on demand via the secret
>>>aqueduct managed by polleros, iguanas and coyotes - as smugglers of workers
>>>and goods are locally known - for the farms of south Texas, the hotels of
>>>Las Vegas and the sweatshops of Los Angeles. At the same time, the Border
>>>Patrol maintains a dramatic show of force along the border to reassure
>>>voters that the threat of alien invasion - a phantasmagoria largely created
>>>by border militarization itself - is being contained.