Negri on globo

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Jan 9 11:11:43 PST 2002


Ian Murray wrote:
>
> -- the
> explanatory manichean relationship between capitalist and wage labor
> tout court?

Two points, perhaps superficial, bother me here. First, your use of "manichean" is a sort of hyperbole, using a cosmic ontology as metaphor not for a state of being but for a hisotrical process. (Class is a process, not a 'thing.') Secondly, it seems to me that critics of marxism all too frequently fall into dogmatism -- that is, they assume that there must be a more or less direct relationsship between fundamental theory and practice. (My image for this has been that of assuming quantum mechanics must dictate the proper oven temperature for roasting lamb.) Capitalist production is a unitary process, and class is an internal relation within that unitary process. That is fundamental to understanding the dynamic of capitalism _and_ its difference from non-capitalist modes of production. But in itself that tells you nothing about the organization of daily life, nor should it, except, as I say, on the premise that quantum mechanics should tell you how to set the oven temperature.

Carrol



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