Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Max B. Sawicky wrote:
>
> >Yes, but some capital is non-hierarchical and
> >some hierarchy does not spring from capital.
>
> I agree with the second part, but not the first. What's capital if
> it's not hiearchical? Machinery is owned by capitalist and worked by
> proles; money capital represents the proceeds of SV extraction and is
> ultimately a claim on the time of workers. ("Money has but one face,
> that of the boss." - Negri)
We need some separate words; Negri's proposition is a denial that capital is hierarchical in some very important senses of that word.
A medieval Bishop or a medieval Baron wielded locally-grounded authority, independently of the authority of those above him in the hierarchy. There could, for example, be nothing like the modern draft in 13th century England, for there was not a direct relationship between king and peasant; rather, the kind would call on his noblemen each to furnish some quota of armed men for a specific purpose. Or to go way back -- Agamemnon had no power whatever over the men Achilles brought to Troy; imagine a brigadier general in a modern army recruiting his own troops and deciding independently of his superiors whether they should go into battle or not. Achilles later volunteers those troops under the command of Patroclus. The dissolution of hierarchy by money (meritocracy?) gets echoed in that amazing line from PL, "By merit more than birthright son of god." If the King rules by merit rather than by birthright, it makes perfectly good sense to chop off his head when that merit appears to desert him.
This is crude, but it points to real complexities in considering capitalism as hierarchical. One can't fire a hierarchical superior (or inferior) the way CEOs (or corporate vice-presidents) get fired. Celibacy of the priesthood was, among other things, useful for breaking the link between a position in a hierarchy and the attachment of that position to local or regional interests.
Carrol
Carrol