> >yes, could you?
> Probably not.
well, it's not an elaboration so much as a set of confusions and self-contradictions...
yoshie wrote:
> While Negri's reading of _The Grundriss_ was meant to be a critique of
the CP's incorporation into the Keynesian state, and it made sense to
emphasize, for his political purpose, the active role played by workers in
determining economic development and its crisis, his assertion of the end
of the law of value had a voluntarist implication, over-emphasizing
confrontations with the power of the state to socialize production &
reproduction. For instance, Negri used to argue that it was no longer
possible to bargain in the factory and that one could only resort to force
because the relation with the state was now a pure relation of force,
advocating factory take-over and such, which, however, ceased to make sense
once the working-class militancy began to wane. <
note: "negri *used to* argue" [own emphasis]. in the context of the late '70s italy, this was indeed the case. second note: negri does not argue that the law of value has ended, but -- as the citation in the previous post clearly said -- that the law of value had shown itself as a political law. and this is already a thesis drawn from marx (contra the political economy of ricardo, for instance). with negri, it is the periodisation of this, as well as the changes to the mode of production, forms of class struggle and class composition, that is at issue. third note: factory takeovers were not advocated by negri, but indicated as one path that was _already being pursued_ in italy at the time.
> I think that Negri's voluntarism is also fundamentally rooted in the fact
that he never provides detailed empirical analyses of labor composition,
rates of profits, etc. that would support his thesis, unlike James O'Connor
whose work influenced _Autonomia_.<
the influences ran both ways, a meeting of the premise that class forms and 'crises' are the result of a history of class struggles. fourth note: negri discusses class composition all the time. this is why he attempts to locate forms of revolutionary subjectivity. (btw, i don't think i recall yoshie ever once talking about labour composition, rates of profits, etc, so let's mark that up as a self-criticism.) fifth note: negri is not a voluntarist. he emphasises subjectivity, true; but they are not the same thing, and he does so in a way which is hardly voluntarist.
> With the escalation of inflation, unemployment, & the waning of militancy
(on the shop floors and of social movements), of course, _Autonomia_'s
critique of "Keynesian planning" and call for "refusal of work,"
"working-class self-valorization," etc. increasingly lost their relevance
as well. After all, when the state itself began to scale back its
regulatory & social welfare functions, it became pointless to continue to
stake a claim to radicalism on critiques of the welfare state, corporatism,
etc.<
sixth note: perhaps yoshie would do well to read beyond negri's works of the late 70's. perhaps yoshie would also do well to explain why a critique of the welfare state and corporatism (as offered by negri) should be abandoned. (in favour of what? the pretense a revival of keynsianism? this would at least be a discussion worth having seriously.)
> Negri's theory also constantly tried to find a new revolutionary subject:
mass worker, "socialized worker," and of late "immaterial labor." In his
shifting focus, Negri's theory, despite its turgid language, reminds the
reader of pop culture proponents of "knowledge work" & "post-work society"
such as Robert Reich & Jeremy Rifkin.<
perhaps, but negri is far from the techno-utopianism of rifkin. there are a number of critiques of negri's later theses from within the autonomist perspective on this count (eg, caffentzis' essay on new forms of slavery); and in any event, that critique has little to do with the claim that "Negri's critique of law of value through his reading of _The Grundrisse_ -- 'The form of value is pure and simple command, the pure and simple form of politics' (_Marx Beyond Marx_) -- turns out to incorrect & misleading, trapped in the historical conjuncture that it sought to overcome", which was yoshie's initial bumbling assertion here. a claim that yoshie quickly forgot when it comes to the second post, hence your claim of "negri's assertion of the end of the law of value". and btw, caffentzis shares with negri (and marx in the _grundrisse_) the insistence that the law of value is a form of command.
there have been lengthy discussions on negri's work on the autopsy list for a long time, and in those discussions i've been more critical than most; but yoshie doesn't even get close to being at all serious let alone interesting. little wonder, since her original post on this was clearly meant as a taunt and nothing else.
Angela _________