I said I'd write a report on the debate between Callinicos and Negri at the European Social Forum and after some helpful badgering off Steve I finally got around to it. First I'll set the scene. The debate called by Globalised Resistance (in this context read SWP) was scheduled to be in a small hall holding 200. Thousands turned up and when they couldn't get in started banging on the walls and doors demanding the debate be held outside. So out we trooped forgoing simultaneous translation for consecutive translation and that nostalgic mass meeting ambiance. People were crowded all around, sat on the floor or standing at the back, on a walkway above, on the stairs leading down, there were even two or three hanging in trees to get a better view. Callinicos spoke first reading from a prepared text he sounded like leninoid university lecturer , which he is. Crap speaker, very dry at one point he talked about the excitement of the movement in the same flat unexcited drone that he used for the rest of his speech. Callinicos opposed multitude to working class. He said Hardt had called multitude a poetic concept; but poetry is different from analysis. He said that he understood Multitude as all those who are oppressed and that oppression was different from exploitation. That the power to change society resides where we work because we are organised at work. He got out a copy of a flier for global magazine and said that the problem with the concept of multitude was the way it was sometimes used. He read out a list of categories from the back of the flier precarious workers, students, migrants, brain workers... he said where 's striker on that list. He then lost the "people sometimes use" section of his statement and treated that like the definition of multitude. He also ignored that the list was just a list of categories on a flier and was no where linked to a definition of multitude. He started to talk of the multitude as the movement of movements, you know all those peripheral struggles; and that we need to take energy of the movement of movements and fuse it with the transformative power of the organised working class. To which we all thought, hmm I wonder what organisation could articulate that fusion. How would it work? perhaps an alliance between globalise resistance and a couple of newly elected left wing union leaders. Both of them delivering their massed ranks and weilding them like generals.
During all this Negri was getting more and more agitated pacing up and down. The Trots clapped Callinicos in a ritual fashion, including embarrassingly after he'd said nothing in particular but was pausing for breath. A couple of times when this happened Negri would join in the clapping in a piss taking exaggerated fashion as if he was saying "yes, yes all hail the dear leader." He was constantly shaking his head and once after a particularly preposterous misrepresentation he wafted his nose as if to get rid of a bad smell.
When he came to speak he was very animated. He would speak in Italian, winding himself up gesticulating wildly building to a crescendo and then stop and hold his hands stretched forwards, palms up with a look on his face which said "Come on, how could you not agree with that." Then he would translate himself into French getting just as agitated this time around. It was truly hilarious but seemed very human.
He started off by declaring the Multitude not a poetic concept but a class concept. The thing is the way work is organised, the way people work has changed since 1968. Production has spread through the whole of society and so has exploitation. In fact exploitation was the thing that the multitude had in common.
He also said that exploitation can no longer be measured through work time because we produce through the whole of the day. He then mentioned Affective labour and made the hilarious statement that women's work was "Knowing where the socks are." This remark brought huge boos to which Negri laughed and wagged his finger saying "no, no just wait". Then explained that "where's the socks?" is the title of a book on affective labour by Christian Marrazi on how work has become more feminised.
Another thing I remember he said was about Immaterial labour and how when Marx wrote Capital there were only 3-400 factories in the world but Marx realised that whole rest of production was being organised in their image.
All this was to oppose this class concept of Multitude to a monolithic concept of the working class, which he called a big mistake. He said the working class has never produced as a mass but as a multiplicity of singularities. He said you can't have alliances between the factory working class and other sections, Stalin made alliances. Instead you have to find what's in common. He then came out with this remarkable anecdote of organising at Alfa Romeo in the 70's. he said something like, the Unions had agreed to work longer hours or on Saturday for no extra pay and that an organisation of the unemployed he was involved in went to the factory to argue with the workers. There was two ways to deal with the conflict. He said what we did was blow up the electricity substation and shut down the factory; but this was a mistake. Now we try a different approach and try to find what is in common. At this point I turned to a friend and said "he's just showboating now."
In the question and answer session all question were for Negri. All question on theoretical issues such as the importance of Delueze or Foucualt were ignored to move on to the political nitty gritty.
Other points I remember was someone asking Negri where the points of attack are and Negri saying I don't know.
Someone stood up very self important, I got the impression he was head of a minor leninoid sect determined to have it out with this Negri fellow. I must have this question answered: "Negri can you abolish capitalism without seizing the means of production?" Negri gave the one word answer "No." and turned away for the next question.
The most remarkable thing was that every comment by Callinicos and nearly every Trot question ignored or misunderstood everything Negri had said and referred back to the straw man Callinicos had set up at the start. It reached such ridiculous proportions that the audience was shouting at them "that's not what he said" or "try listening to what's being said."
I thought that most were being disingenuous at the time but still it goes on. there was a report and a bit of a debate on Indymedia uk . I looked the other day and the last comment is from some arse in Workers power who says "Negri is purposely vague and complex about what he sees as the body which can bring about the revolution... We are a revolutionary party who believes that the working class is the only group in society that can bring about socialist revolution. Does Negri agree? If he does then why doesn't he say so?". This joker claims to have been at the debate and has presumably read the couple of pages of debate and reportage above. It is as if there are these huge blinkers on and that anything said that doesn't fit with their ideology just doesn't register.
Anyway enough of that. What did we all learn that day? Well I never realised Negri was such a good speaker. Obviously he's been through the mill a few times and you're bound to pick up stuff. His Leninist years presumably demanded oratory skills, but it didn't come across as demagogic. He was very human when he spoke. He also didn't speak as an academic, a secret reformer or whatever. There was no break in his life he talked about the 70's as a time when they made some mistakes (Alfa romeo) but they were still trying to achieve the same thing. In a way that was the advantage of seeing him speak live. It was also important because Callinicos got such an arse kicking. Completely stuck in the 1950's he was reduced to lying or mouthing platitudes. This matters because in Britain there a couple of events coming up where the hardcore SWP hacks are probably going to be at their worst and these arguments will go on.
That's all folks
Keir