[generation_online] Hardt-Negri "Empire": a Marxist critique, part 4 (conclusion)

[Michael Pugliese]

--- Erik Empson <erikempson at wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> To: <generation_online at yahoogroups.com>
> From: "Erik Empson" <erikempson at wanadoo.fr>
> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 20:20:36 +0200
> Reply-to: generation_online at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [generation_online] Hardt-Negri
> "Empire": a Marxist critique, part 4 (conclusion)
> 
> 
> "But with "Capital", v. 1, this kind of Hegelianism
> has reached the vanishing point. The first chapters
> which deal with the
> nature of the commodity are no longer typical of the
> Hegelian school,
> except in their use of dialectics. The substance of
> Capital is identifying
> economic and social processes. It is jam packed with
> empirical data to
> support his theory of value."
> 
> With all respect you havent answered the question. 
> In fact all you are
> saying is a rehash of the Althusserian
> interpretation of Marx. And if this
> is true are you aware of how many holes are in this
> boat? This was too all
> about finding the authentic Marx and formulae for
> legitimising his discourse
> as itinerent to every social formation. You should
> note that Negri critcises
> Das Kapital for precisely the reasons you endorse
> Marx. Namely that the
> "dialectic" became a constraint upon the content -
> that the system of
> categorical representation undermined concieving the
> capital relation as one
> fundamentally in antagonism with workers (and whose
> dynamics are equally the
> result of class struggle)- that Marx's view of
> capital relied too heavily on
> the perspectivism of the CAPITALIST class. But in
> attacking a Hegelian
> residue in Marx you would find a friend in Negri you
> might learn from.
> 
> The idea that Marx expunges Hegelianism in the
> writing of capital is a
> desperate case, and I'd rather follow the thought of
> people who have
> actually done the intellectual labour - even Lenin
> (you have a critique of
> Lenin's conspectus do you?) - on the issue and who
> have at least the insight
> to percieve that the logic of Das Kaptial has
> definite paralells and is
> (though problematically) Hegelian to a degree, and
> to try and discover what
> implications this has for leaning on Marx. In fact
> your position puts you
> very close to recent post-modern intepretations of
> "multiple Marx's" like
> Terrell Carver's the "post-modern Marx" aswell as
> subject to their
> criticisms. Because firstly you have it that Marx
> allready had the answers,
> whilst at the same time wanting to present a
> particular - personally unified
> Marx - as the authentic one. And why, because of his
> belief that the
> industrial working class are the agent of change.
> Big deal, but is it a
> transcendent agent or an immanent one? Why not
> address Negri at this kind of
> level rather than descending to truisms that will
> satisfy orthodoxy, but
> flatter objectivity none. This is why I quoted from
> the Civil War in
> France - if the forces are allready present, this
> implies that the working
> class are not a transcendent category, but the
> result of immanent forces in
> the (then) present.
> 
> Why was Marx so involved with the structure of
> presentation of Das Kapital -
> why does he continuously adapt the presentation of
> concepts, and change the
> structure of the book? Do you think this is a
> stylistic device or do you
> think it relates to a matter of content. When Marx
> is talking of beginning a
> science what kind of science do you think he means?
> The science of gathering
> data and testing it? Or the Hegelian science of
> abstraction and dissection
> of the totality, the Hegelian science of
> contradiction. Why does Marx seem
> to think that we can represent Capital as a totality
> and look at its
> contradictions internally? Do you think that it
> might have something to do
> with a Hegelian premise that ultimately the real
> totality and the conception
> of the totality must coincide or move towards
> identity? Do you bank on
> Althusser as perhaps clearing this issue up with an
> anti-humanistic critique
> of Hegel, or will you perhaps throw out snippets
> from the 1959 preface that
> seemingly justify a seperation between the thought
> content and the real
> content?
> 
> Where do you find the authentic Marx - in the
> critique of German metaphysics
> or in their rejuvenation as the relations of
> interdependence within a
> conceptual totality aka Das kapital. Why do you keep
> saying that Marx used
> empirical data - do you really think we are so
> stupid we don't know this?
> Why do you keep saying Negri has no political
> economy - do you think we are
> so stupid we cant see this? Do you have any comments
> on how Marx treats his
> data? On his method of appropriating it, on his
> method of representing it in
> thought? Can you not appreciate that the category of
> totality that has been
> invalidated by postmodernisms of the
> epistemologically skepitcal variety,
> are implicitly taken up by Negri. You continuously
> bulk postmodernists
> together to give yourself a reference point against
> them but the field is
> differentiated.  Negri is reasserting a totalising
> discourse the like of
> which Marx utilised to the full. In fact Negri's
> ontology is radically
> holistic, is this not in the broad scheme of things
> true to the Lukacsian
> othodoxy?
> 
> Marx, Lenin and Luxemburg where not the only
> thinkers to deal with empirical
> data - the question for us was were they right in
> their time - it is a
> matter of history and ideas, not ideology and
> dogmatic pedagogy. Not whether
> we can rehash their conclusions or their method. Is
> the latter lukacsian
> celebration of method invalidated by the recognition
> that dialectics for
> Marx were the epistemological architectronics of a
> particular object, the
> constant interplay between the contradictions of the
> content and the manner
> of representing as processes (not facts) to the
> intellect. If our object
> changes i.e. to "the Social" or "the political" -
> which is different from
> "capital" just what does a formalist marxian
> theology offer to its
> comprehension. Is it not one of Marx's fundamentally
> premises that the
> content is prior to and the basis of the means of
> cognising it? and why are
> you so flabbergasted that someone might dare to
> critique Marx, or not feel
> accountable to him. This is what makes your
> deification of Marx so
> inhibiting - and in this sense I stand as resolutely
> post-marxist/
> post-theologian. For instance what is the import of
> ""From the 1860s to his
> death, you can find no attention paid to
> "ontological" type questions"" if
> we need to deal with the question of ontology today
> that just makes Marx
> less useful to the task. And in a sense the
> materialist postmodernism of
> Negri (using the postmodern to describe a paradigm
> shift in the ontology of
> the social), is actually hence grounded in the
> empirical (which is not
> graphs and figures) in a manner you do not seem
> atuned to percieve. As it
> happens I still think there is a lot to be gained
> from understanding the
> manner that Marx concieved of capital, but I don't
> find anything in your
> "old school" dogmatism that is actually helpful to
> elaborating that - in
> fact I think its part of the problem.
> 
> E
> 
> 
> 

=====
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