Autonom(ous)(ist) Marxism - Half baked anarcho-syndicalism?

I'm going to get into trouble again for saying this, but: there is no Autonomist Marxism.

The groups and individuals in the Anglo-American countries that claim to represent it (Cleaver, Midnight Notes) are really promoting a sort of bastardized Operaismo with some anarchoid garnish.

Operaismo in Italy was actually quite Leninist, though not in the caricatured sense of the word. The mistake, as far as I can tell, is made when Anglophone anarchists assume that any political tendency that emphasizes extra-parliamentary activity and opposition to trade unions is necessarily "anarchist".

And to call Hardt & Negri "anarcho-syndicalist" is an insult to "anarcho-syndicalism". Negri these days is nothing but a solid mainstream reformist, from his praise of the German Greens to his lavish encomiums to the European Union. Only, gullible American radicals have been snookered by the likes of Harry Cleaver into thinking that Negri is some kind of radical. Dude has been coasting for 30 years on his reputation from the 1970s, only unlike Joschka Fischer, he hasn't been denounced as the charlatan that he is.

P.S. Just to prove how diplomatic I can be, I really love that "bolo bolo" booklet by PM.

Agree largely with Angelus Novus. I still wonder why Negri has such a great reputation in the Anglo-American academy, given how utterly disastrous and discredited his political career has been. (Well, actually, I do know the answer ...)

I agree that there are a few similarities between autonomist Marxism and anarcho-syndicalism, but I think you (Omar) are overstating them. There may be a certain convergence in that they both combine elements traditionally associated with anarchism and Marxism. My understanding of the historical development of these tendencies is that anarcho-syndicalism arose out of the interaction between anarchism and the industrial labour movement—and thus was influenced by early Marxism—but has more recently been influenced by the dominant lifestylist/identity politics tendencies in the anarchist movement (both adapting to and critically reacting against them). Autonomist Marxism emerged from encounters between 'workerist' strains of Marxism (with various degrees of Leninism) and extra-parliamentary social movements dominated by identity politics and/or lifestylist anarchism.

However, while anarcho-syndicalism is oriented towards anarchist organising within the sphere of labour (i.e. the workplace), autonomist Marxism brings a Marxist analysis of labour to bear on areas of struggle outside of the workplace (i.e. areas usually considered to lie outside of the direct labour/capital relation). So in this sense they are actually mirror images of each other.

I really don't know enough about anarcho-syndicalist theory to comment on how the specific concepts you outline line up with their autonomist counterparts. My understanding of the autonomist concept of value is that it is generated not only within the narrow sphere of production but also within the sphere of the reproduction of labour (i.e. the 'social factory' concept you mention), and that it is 'excessive' or only incompletely captured by capital. This does seem to 'fit' well with some anarchist ideas and practices, but I'm not sure of their particular expression within anarcho-syndicalist theory. Could you elaborate on how some specific anarcho-syndicalist theorists have analysed labour as being 'immeasurable'? For comparison, I would say that (excluding Negri's more recent work), autonomist Marxists tend to conceive of labour-as-value as being ultimately 'immeasurable', yet still subjected to capitalist measurement.

Sorry Angelus Novus, but ideas don't work that way. Regardless of your opinion of their ideas, there are actual people—theorists and activists—who are developing, discussing, and applying these ideas in various struggles. Even if autonomist Marxism is merely 'a sort of bastardised Operaismo with some anarchoid garnish'—which I agree is actually a fair characterisation of some cruder forms of autonomist Marxism—how on earth does this mean that it does not actually exist? Surely 'the groups and individuals in the Anglo-American countries' you refer to constitute a fairly identifiable if heterogenous autonomist Marxist current. These theorists are obviously influenced by their own readings, reinterpretations, and recontextualisations of Operaismo, but for the most part they take it in a different (and IMO more useful) direction compared to the 'post-Operaismo' of Negri, Virno, et al. For example, Midnight Notes (or De Angelis and other contributors to The Commoner) have not rejected 'value' as a useful analytical concept, and their understanding of the commons and enclosure is more historically grounded compared to the 'information society' hype which Negri and some of the 'digital autonomists' have embraced. The idea that 'so-called primitive accumulation' is an ongoing process is very useful—though by no means unique to autonomist Marxism.

Autonomist Marxism as a tendency should not be conflated with the work of Negri—while perhaps the most prominent in intellectual circles, he is by no means representative of autonomist Marxism as a whole, particularly as it is understood within Anglo-American movements. Arguably, Negri is no longer a Marxist as such—he is an autonomist Spinozan with (post)structuralist influences. However, 'autonomism' or 'autonomist Marxism' can be a useful label to refer to Operaismo, post-Operaismo, some strands of 'open Marxism', and related currents which share various traits, concepts, and historical connections. Specifically, autonomist Marxism is identifiable by its (useful) analysis of class struggle and value within the sphere of social reproduction, and by its (problematic) emphasis on the role of labour over capital.

So, I'd argue that autonomist Marxism certainly does exist as a relatively distinct political and theoretical tendency, with some minor influence in various social movements and within academia. Broadly speaking, autonomist Marxism is a political tradition arising out of the interaction between a certain strand of Marxist theory and roughly 'anarchist' forms of political practice. Thus, it is not surprising that there are some commonalities with anarcho-syndicalism, as noted by Omar. But despite my reservations about the 'one-sidedness' of much autonomist theory, and my real dislike for Negri's political theory in particular, I think it is unfair and inaccurate to label it as 'half-baked anarcho-syndicalism'.

Yeah, sorry, I have a tendency to aim for arresting generalizations. Of course to the extent that there are people who apply the label to themselves, it certainly does exist.

It's just that I think the label is applied to phenomena that are far too heterogeneous to be subsumed under a common label (Cleaver groups together Council Communism, Anarcho-Communism, Operaismo, Johnson-Forest, Socialisme ou Barbarie). Whereas "anarcho-syndicalism" refers to a rather clearly defined tendency of the historical workers movement. So "anarcho-syndicalism" is quite specific, whereas "Autonomist Marxism" is expressive of a sort of vague affinity thought to exist between different historical currents (albeit currents that we all probably have varying degrees of sympathy for).

The other thing is just purely methodological: I don't like Cleaver's use of terms like "self-valorization", and I think Holloway is pretty keen in his critique of how the Cleaver/Midnight Notes sort of Autonomist Marxism positivizes class struggle, in a way rather contradictory to Marx's own intentions in Capital:

I think the "Open Marxism" folks, with their notions of inverted subjectivity, are far closer in their grasp of Marx than the "classically" Autonomist folks like Cleaver. The emphasize of the former on "negativity" might seem like mere semantic quibbling, but I think it makes a world of difference.

And incidentally, since Postone seems to be a favorite punching-bag around these parts recently, I think the overly literalist reading of "capital as subject" by the Postone-ites is the opposite pole of "labor as subject" by the Autonomists Marxists. The "Open Marxism" school neatly subverts this dichotomy.

there's definitely similarities between workers tactics in the Italian hot autumn of '69-70 and the movement of '77 with anarcho-syndicalism - namely direct, confrontational action accross the social sphere, under the direct control of workers and tending to an insurrectionary volatility. however i think the subsequent theorists lumped together as 'autonomists' progressively move away from this (Holloway et al perhaps excepted), until in the recent Negri, Virno, Bifo, De Angelis etc it's completely lost.

i think 'self-valorisation' is actually a belated discovery of proudhonism by former leninists - we can valorise our own labour without those pesky bosses and the state! this is particularly true in stuff like Virno's notion 'exit'... now there were proudhonian syndicalists in and around the old french CGT, so arguably this is a similarity with the revolutionary syndicalism from which anarcho-syndicalism emerged. but while anarcho-syndicalism moved away from proudhonism towards libertarian communism, the trajectory of 'autonomous marxist' theory has arguably gone from communist to neo-proudhonist.

i think the social factory thesis says more than capital dominates all spheres of life and thus sites of struggle exist outside the workplace (a revelation to former workerist leninsts, but something anarcho-syndicalists had known since at least the CNT rent strikes of the 30s, the mujueres libres, anti-clerical activities etc). the notion of the social factory contends that value is produced everywhere human activity takes place, a positivist hangover from their workerist origins, which leads to all sorts of dodgy practice - the aforementioned neo-proudhonism, since the problem with capitalism is reduced to "distinctly feudal" (Negri & Hardt) bosses and states leeching off potentially 'autonomous' labour, and not the way value structures the entirity of social life (they explicitly argue against the law of value, usually based on giving Marx's 'fragment on machines' the status of divine prophecy).

like i say this was a similarity, but i don't see much Trontian influence on todays 'autonomist marxism.'

the various permutations of class composition (re-, de-) are useful concepts, but they seem to have been largely eclipsed by 'the multitude' in contemporary 'autonomist marxism.' one big unionism was never really an anarcho-syndicalist thing either, that really belonged to the revolutionary syndicalism of the IWW etc. anarcho-syndicalists often sought to establish workers councils to administer production, they did not expect the whole class to join the union. that said there are all sorts of tendencies making up anarcho-syndicalism, some much more anarchist ('the uncontrollables' of 1937 etc), some much more revolutionary syndicalist.

anyway, just my thoughts. been reading up on anarcho-syndicalist history lately, and used to read a lot of 'autonomist' stuff, so an interesting question.

i really don't think this is a fair characterisation of anarcho-syndicalism. whilst certainly it focussed heavily on the workplace, there was always conflicts accross the social sphere - from anti-church activities to rent strikes to the mujueres libres to the self-education in the centros obreros. the world beyond the factory gates appeared novel to those emerging from leninist workerism, but wasn't new to the class struggle or other tendencies within it.

hmmm...i see some similarities but some differences too. some of the similarities have been noted (though i have some reservations), and soem of the differences have been noted too (as noted above, operaismo & autonomia are largely leninist. a lot of the italians wanted to investigate the class struggle to bring new life to the party form, to make it more relevant to the conditions and struggles on the ground. (however, o & a have had some libertarian components and moments).

another important difference is that o & a view anarcho-syndicalism, iirc, as a product of the past. o & a view self-management (a key ingredient of anarcho-syndicalism IMHO) as a product of a certain class composition that was dominant before WWI that was decomposed by the factory assembly line by c. the 1920s IIRC. ie. they view self-management as an anachronistic ideology of skilled workers on workshops who love their work and want more control over it. while assembly line workers don't love their work, they refuse it and don't want control over it, they want to leave the factory. (however, Tronti's critique of the syndicalist IWW seemed a bit off the mark as the IWW was composed of travelling hobos and precarious workers and unskilled workers).

the modern anglo autonomist marxists i have met tended to see anarcho-syndicalism as hopelessly out of date, dogmatic and workerist -- there were some interesting exchanges in australia between rebel worker (anarcho-syndicalist) and love and rage (a student group that was autonomist marxist). while they see autonomist marxism as very up to date, fetishise precarious workers when they are only 20-30% of the workforce in australasia, and fetishise the affinity group network form of organisation (as developed by the anti-summit movement) as the form that is best suited to our current class composition (or is it decomposition?), and tend to reject formal structures like anarcho-syndicalist organisations as being a potential brake on the class struggle.

another difference: the criticism that 'autonomist marxists' lack strategy, they just run around chasing or tailing the latest workers' resistance that pops up, that means in practice they can operate like headless chooks running around doing strike support and running themselves ragged. they tend to see all struggles as important as each other, and don't see some as more important/strategic. i don't think anarcho-syndicalism does this, it's much more strategic and has a clearer strategy.

also, anglo autonomist marxists seem to romanticise all struggle as class struggle, including lifestylism, social centres, summit hopping and nationalist movements in the third world (eg, zapatistas). ie. they take a largely uncritical approach to struggle, and don't see 'reactionary' elements and moments in them. while anarcho-syndicalists are very critical of lifestylism and isolated social centres (tho i hear some punks are in the Spanish CNT), and are much more internationalist and critical of nationalism, and are a bit more sceptical of summit adventure activism tourism.
(sorry if i am mixing up and conflating many different trends here -- operaismo, autonomia and modern anglo autonomist marxism -- but as Cleaver et al lump all these trends together, i might as well do it too)

another difference might be: how does operaismo & autonomia stress on workers' autonomy from unions fit with anarcho-syndicalist stress on the centrality of revolutionary anarcho-syn unions for bringing about a revolution?

another similarity is that operaismo & autonomia and anarcho-syndicalism are both criticised for lacking theory, and stressing practice, class struggle on the ground (altho o & a are a bit more theory heavy than anarcho-syn, and i read in Steve Wright's book there was sometimes a split in some operaismo groups between the theory heavy leaders of the operaismo who stayed at home, and the rank and file who went out into factories)

harry Cleaver wrote an article on the similarities b/w Kropotkin's communism and 'autonomist marxism' -- i remember reading it ages ago and thinking hang on, this doesn't seem right, i wonder if cleaver has read kropotkin in depth. but i may be wrong
http://libcom.org/library/kropotkin-self-valorization-crisis-marxism
got nowt to do with anarcho-syndicalism tho

i normally associate Proudhon with self-managed small business capitalism par excellence, rejection of class struggle and strikes, co-ops and mutual banks, reformism etc. -- how is that compatible w/ self-valorisation?
(but yeah i know you mean the proudhonist proto-syndicalists in the first international and paris commune like Varlin but stilll...)

i'm thinking of Virno's 'exit', specifically modelled on US factory workers 'fleeing' to become homesteaders on the frontier, as well as his notion of 'ius resistentiae' (right of resistance) - borrowed from Spinoza's rising mechant class in the Dutch Republic - which is "a conservative violence, in the good and noble sense of the term" protecting something that already exists, parasited on by a "distinctly feudal" (negri & hardt) capitalism.

the premise of self-valorisation seems to be that the problem with capitalism is that our potentially 'autonomous labour' is 'dominated' by capital, and we need to free it. it reminds me very much of Proudhon tbh, and the Marxian 'theory' that justifies it reminds me more of theological gymnastics the way the fragment on machines gets raised to divine prophecy.

but i'm only talking about those 'autonomous marxists' i'm most familiar with; Virno, Negri & Hardt really. I've read them closely, but only read bits and pieces of the others tbh.

I agree that the autonomist focus on the positive aspect of class struggle is a political and theoretical weakness, and Holloway does have a more dialectical approach (though his 'In the beginning is the scream' is cringeworthy, this is due to his failed attempt at Zapatista-esque 'poetic' writing rather than his conceptual starting point in alienation and antagonism). However, in practice any attempt to realise autonomist-style positive struggle will tend to result in a negative, antagonistic encounter with the power of capital, which may have a correcting effect on their theoretical shortcomings. In contrast, one-sidedly 'negative' theory that focuses on the totalising power of capital tends to lead to abstract critique and pessimistic inaction, with little engagement with actual class struggle. This 'pessimism of the will', lacking a political praxis grounded in class struggle, is a more serious and self-reinforcing error than the autonomists misguided 'optimism of the intellect'.

Again, I think it is important to distinguish between post-operaismo theorists such as Negri and Virno—who may be 'autonomists' but are not really 'autonomist marxists' any longer—and the likes of Caffentzis, Cleaver, De Angelis, etc, who still see labour (however 'immaterial' or 'social') as being structured by capitalist processes of measurement, accumulation, and commodification, and thus as still producing value for capital. Perhaps they are too keen to obscure the differences between productive and reproductive forms of labour, but unlike Negri et al they do not see all labour as being 'non-productive' for capital.

There is an important strand of autonomist Marxism that sees the difference between 'productive' and 'non-productive' labour as a direct expression of class struggle—capital seeks to transform all activity into a source of direct economic value, while labour seeks to extract itself from this value system. This analysis links the commons/enclosure struggle directly to capitalist production and value (hence positing class struggle as value struggle). This does have the weakness of collapsing more complex circuits of value into an inside/outside dialectic, thus overlooking or underemphasising the ways in which 'outside' value systems are still indirectly drawn into capitalism through their role in the reproduction of labour or the realisation and circulation of value, even if they are not directly producing value for capital. But it is not the same as Negri's current analysis which sees capital as 'Empire', a form of political domination purely external and parasitic to immaterial production and the social organisation of 'the Multitude'. I think there are some useful ideas in the Midnight Notes strand of autonomism, though it is incomplete as an understanding of capitalism and class struggle.

Obviously anarcho-syndicalists can and do involve themselves in conflicts outside of the workplace. But if they move away from a focus on workers self-management of production as their primary revolutionary strategy, are they not moving away from 'anarcho-syndicalism' as such, just as the autonomists moved away from workerist Leninism?

I definitely see the link here, with some autonomists interpreting self-valorisation in rather Proudhonist terms, thus advocating autoproduzione (self-production) rather than autogestion (self-management). There is some influence here from Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the smith or artisan—the ideal (revolutionary?) subject as an autonomous and mobile yet socially-embedded producer-consumer. This strain of autonomism has some currency in the anarcho-punk scene and squatting/social centre movement, as a theorisation of DIY production. While this is an improvement on the consumer politics of pure lifestylism, it is still very limited as a form of effective class struggle (it is rather classically petty-bourgeois, when you come right down to it). To me, while the 'artisan' is a rather attractive concept for a post-capitalist subject—it certainly beats the bourgeois star artist or proletarianised designer as a way of organising creative activity—it is doomed as an attempt to overcome capitalism, as it can be so easily drawn back into capitalist processes of accumulation and dispossession. This is precisely the problem with a lot of autonomist (and anarchist) strategies for resistance or 'exodus'—including some forms of anarcho-syndicalism. (While of course Leninist and social-democratic strategies tend to be narrowly 'political', and thus readily integrated into State structures of power).

No dude, he's totally trying to write like Ernst Bloch. Everyone I talk to who has read both immediately agrees. Bloch's works always begin with these truncated declarative statements ("Ich bin. Aber ich habe mich nicht. Darum werden wir erst." etc.).

Whether one appreciates Bloch's expressionist German is a question of taste (I rather like it), but in transfers rather poorly into English, where it just sounds goofy.

I disagree that the Open Marxism folks necessarily lead to political passivity, though. I think their whole riff of "subject-object inversion" neatly subverts the tidy opposition of "structure vs. agency".

i would have tended to agree 6 months ago, at least to the extent that anarcho-syndicalism stressed self-management of production as a goal. we were criticised for conflating such a view with a more proudhonist perspective in our pamphlet, and so i've gone back to the history books and realised there's a lot more to anarcho-syndicalism. at its best, anarcho-syndicalism has been a means of class struggle for libertarian communism accross the social terrain - the CNT had a 'union of unemployed workers' which went and ate in restaurants for free, organised rent strikes, was involved in anti-clerical activities etc. so i think at its best anarcho-syndicalism already recognised society beyond the workplace as a site of revolutionary struggle, even if it (correctly) maintained that the communisation of the means of production was a prerequisite of any revolution.

in many ways the Spanish experience forshadows the Italian one, and for the same reasons, i.e. we see the development of extra-workplace struggles as a material necessity (over rents, food prices...), the emergence of groups like the Mujueres Libres and Lotta Feminisata in response to the domination of the struggle by men etc. Like i say i think there's a similarity, but a subsequent divergence. in that sense its right that they come to be mirror images of each other, in terms of practice at least - summit hopping & social centres vs industrial agitation.

isn't the problem that Negri sees all labour, no, all human activity as being 'productive' ("biopolitical production" of subjectivities etc)? But yes, fair point, i'm much more familiar with the post-operaists, having only read bits and pieces of Cleaver and De Angelis. Unlike Cleaver, De Angelis does seem to lose class struggle though in his analysis of 'value struggles' - which again shows how disparate this apparent school of thought is i guess.

My criticism wasn't really directed at the Open Marxism people, who I understand to have a somewhat more dialectical approach, but rather at traditions such as structuralist Marxism and the Frankfurt School that approach capitalism as a total structure of power, to be subjected to philosophical critique rather than actively struggled against. This seems to be broadly characteristic of tendencies arising from 'Western' or 'critical' Marxism—interpreting capital in (positive but static) social and structural terms, and resistance in terms of (negative or disruptive) individual critique, rather than seeing them both in terms of the 'structured agency' of class struggle.

Yes and no. He does see all activity as being 'productive of subjectivities' (in a kind of fuzzy cult studies 'identity and agency' way), but he also argues that no human activity is now 'productive labour' in the sense of producing measurable value for capital. Hence his discarding of the working class vs capital framework for the purely political relationship of the multitude vs empire. As far as I can tell, Negri seems to think that we have already achieved global communism in terms of production and social organisation; we just need a political exodus from the parasitic global 'state' (empire). His actual evidence for this is somewhat lacking; as far as I can tell it is largely based on stale pomo waffle and (now rather flacid) dotcom hype.

Negri's 'postbiopoliticalcore' thing seems pretty theoretically weak to me, more like a (no-longer-actually) academically trendy shout-out to Foucault and Queer Theory than an actual argument. Some of the 'digital autonomists' like Nick Dyer-Witheford and Tiziana Terranova have produced some worthwhile work drawing on Negri, and it is interesting that the 'bleeding edge' of online commerce seems to attract a lot of capital without any obvious way to actually generate a profit, but the whole network society/informational capitalism thing remains a bit virtual at this point.

I would definitely recommend the 'commons and value struggles' wing of autonomist theory over Negri's current stuff. For example, the recent Midnight Notes article on the economic crisis is a useful counterpoint to all the analyses that focus on the actions of factions of capital while excluding any agency for labour. But it bends the stick a bit too much the other way, and doesn't really stand on its own all that well.

De Angelis may have moved away from class analysis, as although he explores the circuits of capital he tends to neglect labour as such in favour of communities and commons. But I don't think this is a necessary consequence of the value struggle perspective. It can be useful to connect Marx's analysis of capitalist value with a broader anthropological approach to value, in which case class struggle can be seen as a (dominant, but historical and particular) form of value struggle.
It helps to remind us that if capital--and thus labour--are totalising, they are not actually total. I'd say it is the autonomists' development of the Marxist concept of value which is their most useful theoretical contribution--bringing in a more anthropological concern with social reproduction while (at its best) retaining a critique of capitalist exploitation, alienation, and subsumption.

Coming back to the original topic of this thread, I'm not aware of a specifically anarcho-syndicalist counterpart to this theoretical contribution, though I suppose that some forms of autonomist value theory would be quite compatible with anarcho-syndicalist organising and action. David Graeber's work on value might fit--I believe he is a member of the IWW, and his theoretical work is certainly informed by his politics, but in terms of theory he draws (critically) on structuralist anthropology and Mauss more than any identified anarcho-syndicalist theoretical current. He also seems to have an affinity with some forms of autonomism. I guess the issue is that for all their attempts to unify theory and practice, autonomist Marxism is mostly used as a label for a (now rather tangled) theoretical current, while anarcho-syndicalism is a form of political practice. They are not really in the same conceptual category, so while you can look for commonalities and divergences, it is tricky to do a straight comparison.

Hi Omar,

Thanks for posting this. I think your outline and critique of autonomous Marxism is pretty good, covering what I'd agree are the key distinguishing concepts of classical autonomism. I know there are debates over the exact nature of the relationship between operaismo/autonomist Marxism and the broader autonomist movement, and I'm sure some partisans will take issue with the way you present it, but I don't think that's all that central to your argument in any case.

I do think that a sharper distinction could be drawn between operaismo proper, autonomist Marxism, and the later 'post-autonomist' works. I might have put even more emphasis on the association between the experience of defeat and the postructuralist turn in (post-)autonomism—poststructuralism does seem to have a very strong affinity for the aftermath of failed struggle (eg. post-1968 in France, or the triumph of neoliberalism in the UK and USA in the 1980s).

You raise the issue of class 'de-composition', which I think points to one of the main weaknesses of the autonomist approach. Their non-dialectical approach only sees the positive dimension of self-valorisation and refusal, and not the ways in which class recomposition merely alters the conditions of capital accumulation, through the expansion and renegotiation of the working class rather than the destruction of class as such. Thus, I would actually flip the terms—while workers may be actively involved in class recomposition, the extent to which the working class (as the objectified subjectivity of alienated labour) is recomposed actually reflects the adaptation of capitalism to the new conditions brought about through struggle, not a path of escape. Class 'decomposition' should thus be the goal of communist struggle, while it is in the interests of capital for the working class to be continually recomposed.

I'm still not sure you've quite made your case for anarcho-syndicalism as a more viable or successful alternative. Many of the stances you attribute to anarcho-syndicalism would also be claimed to some degree by almost every class-struggle anarchist and libertarian Marxist tradition, and you haven't really pointed out many specifically anarcho-syndicalist successes. (Eg. I'm pretty sure that the NSW BLF was primarily influenced by Stalinist, Maoist, and eurocommunist traditions--perhaps with some 'rank and file' pressure, sure, but as I understand it the BLF's turn to more 'social' issues had a lot to do with Jack Mundey from the CPA using his established authority as a trade union leader to pressure the 'rank and file' to take on those issues, rather than the other way around. Mundey was undoubtedly influenced by shifts in the broader working class at the time, particularly among working class youth, but I don't think the green bans etc reflect an anarcho-syndicalist approach to class organising or even an anarcho-syndicalist theory of class consciousness).

Markets do not equal capitalism. Even Marx and Engels recognised that! What Proudhon advocated was self-managed market socialism, not capitalism. His arguments for workers self-management are lengthy, much more than Marx and Engels. He did reject strikes and was a reformist, but he was well aware there was a class struggle and sided with the working class repeatedly.

For Bakunin, his ideas were “Proudhonism widely developed and pushed to these, its final consequences.” The links with Proudhon and subsequent revolutionary anarchism are many. And many of Proudhon's ideas found expression in the Paris Commune:

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/the-paris-commune-marxism-and-anarchism

Ironically enough, Marx praised all of them -- without mentioning the obvious theoretical influence....

Any arguments backing this up?

If capitalism had never existed perhaps there could have been such an economic system as self-managed market socialism. Perhaps. However, given that capitalism did come into existence, and became the dominant economic system by the time Proudhon began his political theorizing, market socialism (self-managed or not) was by then a non-starter, just another version of capitalism. Whether you agree with that or not, you seem to imply it when you write that:

[italicization by waslax]

Well, if the influence was obvious, then there wasn't any need to mention it, was there?