So won't you agree it's both/and? That's the character of uneven development, right? So capitalism isn't necessarily a `progressive' mode of production everywhere. We have really BAD capitalism in this part of the world, Doug, but one day we'll get you around to see for yourself.
> How can those "collectives values and eco-social relationships" be
> preserved, or held up as a model, apart from the social structures of
> production they were embedded in?
Well, answer this next query and you'll have at least one insight: How is that the Zapatistas fit into the international neo-liberal movement, pretty much at the vanguard? (I did a couple of weeks in Chiapas on one of those Global Exchange tours in 1998, and found it an exceptionally enlightening experience, with a dual-power vibe like mid-1980s SA townships, where collectivity, identity/consciousness, and concrete social struggle against military *and economic* oppression were synthesised wonderfully.)
> >This celebrated book, which, albeit, I'm only halfway through now,
> >strikes me as fundamentally unsound from a strategic point of view
> >(which I guess is reasonable, if you're in prison, or Durham).
> Negri spends only part of his time in prison.
> Could you elaborate?
Sorry, I shouldn't be flippant. Look, I can celebrate the rambly way these guys attack international capitalism and its `crisis,' and the way they try (not very coherently but at least with enormous creativity) to document the displacement of crisis into various spatio-temporal, cultural and environmental circuits. But that doesn't mean that they have their finger on the pulse of international anti-capitalist praxis, agreed? I mean, check the last few pages on the way the multitudes are resisting. It's wonderfully poetic, but absolutely without content or even real grounding in struggle. The two indicators of H&N's strategic priorities -- intensifying demands for `global citizenship' and for a social wage -- are not actualised in any way that is useful to those comrades engaged in real battles. The ILO and UN and so forth aren't well problematised for future campaigning purposes, and I find no relevant analysis/strategy/tactics for the int'l movement against neoliberalism except a strange and contradictory section on the constitution of forces, which doesn't even really qualify as good balance-of-forces argumentation. H&M's int'l `NGO' (ugh) analysis is bizarre, too. So, these guys seem well-meaning but out of the main loops where, if they want their global-citizenship rap to resonate, they're going to have to be located.
Max S is right that arguing we must not waste time with the nation-state and instead liberate Empire is terribly naive (my Inside-Beltway, Geneva and Berkeley friends have been trying for two decades to reform these institutions, with very little to show for it). Better to smash Empire (e.g., http://www.worldbankboycott.org ) and thereby get the neoliberal boot off the nation-state so we can win that scale of politics back, to start.
Is this too unfair a reading of H&N? I've been too busy to give it really full attention. But I think there are lots of other, better books out there now about globalisation and its discontents (especially for the intelligent activist). What have you been reading, Doug? (And when do we get your New Economy?)