Gramsci Redux

Peter van Heusden pvh at egenetics.com
Tue Oct 17 02:02:36 PDT 2000


On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Lisa & Ian Murray wrote:


>
> how do we get a decision making praxis going that dismantles the whole
> repertoire of bottom up/top-down categories [damn positional goods,.......];
> and why do they call it the world wide web instead of the world wide
> hierarchy?

Indeed... how? On this score, I find both orthodox Marxist and anarchism sorely lacking. Orthodox Marxism, even in its most 'democratic' forms, stays within the limits of mediation, calling merely for a more democratic administration which will allow your 'free development'. Anarchism, on the other hand, tends to identify some Other - in the form of the State, or the Boss - as the impediment to 'free development' and suggests that without that Other around, we'd be free. (c.f. Gordon Fitch's recent argument with Ken)

Personally, the few snatches of Negri and Hardt's recent work - and also some other work within the broad 'autonomist Marxist' tradition - that I've seen seems suggestive - but I'm quite open for suggestions on this topic.

Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844



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