The Politics of Revolution: Learning from Autonomous Marxism
Posted by Geoff on September 29th, 2005
Gary Kinsman gives us the (uncritical) low-down on Autonomous Marxism. Some of you may be familiar with the work of Antonio Negri, entitled “Empire”. Negri is also an autonomist Marxist. So is Harry Cleaver (”Reading Capital Politically”), Hardt, etc. It’s a revisionist trend that is (unfortunately) becoming ever more popular. Here’s a sample: “Autonomy in autonomist Marxism can be seen as autonomy from both capital and the official leaderships of the trade unions and political parties and the capacity and necessity of groups of workers who experience different oppressions to act autonomously from others (blacks from whites, women from men, queers from straights).” For a classical Marxist, this is a sham(e)! Have a read!
September 29th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
This reminds me (more recently) of Holloway’s new book (a good marxist gone postmodernist!) and (less recently) of the so-called “council communists” (Anton Pannekoek, Paul Mattick, Bordiga, etc. etc.). As Hegel says in his preface to the Philosophy of Right, there is nothing new in these ideas, but perennial. “In this press of truths, there is something neither new or old but perennial; yet how else is this to be lifted out of these reflections which oscillate from this to that without method, how else is it to be separated from them and proved, if not by philosophic science?” These people don’t get their lessons from history, rather from fancy! I have to quote Hegel again from the same paragraph, because it’s so well put: “In particular, we have ample opportunity to marvel at the pretentious tone recognizable in these busybodies when they talk as if their world had wanted for nothing except their energetic dissemination of truths, or as if their réchauffé were productive of new and unheard-of truths and was to be specially taken to heart before everything else ‘to-day’ and every day.” Get your lessons!
October 1st, 2005 at 11:00 pm
A lot can be said about this article, but since I don’t feel like re-reading it right now to say more, and I feel like crap, I’ll just say this: generally it reaked of revisionism, mis-reading of Marx and Marxism, and often appeared to be inconsistent.