Who is Jacques Camatte?
Aug 8 2008 22:24
And why does he come up in discussions I have with people? What were his ideas? So far as I can tell he was a Left Communist who became a precursor to Anarcho-Primitivism. Why did his views change? Where can I find some good English translations of his work?
Aug 9 2008 13:07
#2
JC is not one of my favourites but you will find some emglish texts of his on the excellant, if now rarely updated
'For Communism- John Gray' Web site.
try:
Aug 9 2008 13:15
#3
The above link doesn't seem to function but you should be able to access just by typing in ' For communism - John Gray'
Aug 9 2008 13:25
#4
Aug 9 2008 17:21
#5
There is also some stuff on Marxists Internet Archive, and duplicates of the John Gray stuff here in the libcom library.
Aug 9 2008 17:28
#6
I think he had some really interesting and thought-provoking ideas, if read from a communist rather than primmo standpoint.
Aug 9 2008 18:43
#7
fnbrill wrote:
Camatte was a member of the International Communist Party in France. The PCI was the mainline Bordigist left-communist party. In the 1970s-80s Camette grew away from Bordigism towards a theory where humanity was either domesticated (ciiviliized) or against domestication.
That's not his position. I think he was wrong. But this is a misrepresentation of what he said.
Aug 9 2008 18:59
#8
georgestapleton wrote:
fnbrill wrote:
Camatte was a member of the International Communist Party in France. The PCI was the mainline Bordigist left-communist party. In the 1970s-80s Camette grew away from Bordigism towards a theory where humanity was either domesticated (ciiviliized) or against domestication.That's not his position. I think he was wrong. But this is a misrepresentation of what he said.
Then please tell me what he did stand for (honest question).
Aug 9 2008 19:33
#9
Barmy frenchman?
Aug 9 2008 19:54
#10
I think Camatte is a fun read, he have some interesting conclusions and makes some good points. I like "This World We Must Leave and Other Essays" and also On organization. Btw I am certainly not a primitivist.
Aug 9 2008 20:16
#11
Global Dissident wrote:
What were his ideas? So far as I can tell he was a Left Communist who became a precursor to Anarcho-Primitivism. Why did his views change? Where can I find some good English translations of his work?
TBH Camatte was a bit before my time, but this what I can find about him on our website:
Quote:
...like many other fashions of the 80s, this ‘theory’ [formal-real domination of capital] isn’t entirely new. In fact, just as punk fashions were largely a rehash of 50s styles, so the magical properties of ‘formal-real domination’ were first advertised in the late ‘60s by the Invariance group around Jacques Camatte. Invariance was a group that broke with the ‘official’ Bordigism of the PCI (Programma) and began to evolve on certain questions (ie recognising the historical contribution of the German left communists). But its adoption of formal-real domination as the cornerstone of its theoretical edifice didn’t prevent it rapidly abandoning marxism and vanishing into the void of modernism. Indeed, its misuse of the concept definitely helped it on its way. For Invariance, by completing its real domination, especially in the post-1945 period, capitalism, far from being historically obsolete, decadent, sunk in a permanent crisis, had not only demonstrated a capacity for almost unlimited growth, but had become so powerful that nothing could stand in its way. For the modernist Camatte, ‘real-domination’ had come to mean the total, omnipresent triumph of capital, the integration of the proletariat, the end of the perspective of working class revolution. Henceforward, the hope for communism lay as much with the animals and the trees as with the proletariat.
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/060_decadence_part08.html
... and ...
Quote:
The trajectory of Jacques Camatte and the review Invariance provide the clearest illustration of modernism’s underlying approach. Camatte broke from the Bordigist PCI in the 60s, having discovered that Bordigism was not the only expression of the historical communist left. But very rapidly Camatte developed profound doubts in the revolutionary potential of the working class, increasingly defining it as no more than a cog in the capitalist system. This was accompanied by a growing rejection of marxism and of revolutionary political organisations, which he characterised as ‘rackets’. Camatte’s hopes turned to the eruption of a ‘universal human class’ against capital; but very soon these hopes also faded and he took the logical step of retreating to a survivalist commune in the French mountains.
http://en.internationalism.org/book/export/html/460
But you said...
Global Dissident wrote:
... why does he come up in discussions I have with people?
What are these discussions about? If you could add some context then maybe it would be easier to take up the main themes here.
B.
Aug 9 2008 20:16
#12
fnbrill wrote:
georgestapleton wrote:
fnbrill wrote:
Camatte was a member of the International Communist Party in France. The PCI was the mainline Bordigist left-communist party. In the 1970s-80s Camette grew away from Bordigism towards a theory where humanity was either domesticated (ciiviliized) or against domestication.That's not his position. I think he was wrong. But this is a misrepresentation of what he said.
Then please tell me what he did stand for (honest question).
Well it was the 'or against domestication' bit that I was objecting to. The rest of the stuff you say is correct.
He basically argued that all the activity of the worker had become subsumed into capital. We have passed from the phase of formal to real subsumption. As such all the activity of the worker is activity of and for capital. For this reason he thought that the working class was no longer the revolutionary subject. The idea of the working class developing a collective subjectivity had become impossible because the working class had no non-capitalist/anti-capitalist attributes. Rather the rejection and movement against capital was now based on a total break from capital in an immediate affirmation of the (lost) human community.
Aug 10 2008 03:14
#13
Hey all. I wrote an introduction to his work about 4 years ago. It was serialised in Green Anarchy and I think the English anti-civ publishers Re-pressed made a pamphlet of it. Its call "Jacques Camatte and the New Politics of Liberation." There is one book of his work out by Autonomedia. The word on the street is that they were planning another 2 volumes but the translation was never finished
Rebel Love
Dave
Aug 10 2008 03:47
#14
Quote:
What are these discussions about?
I've heard many Primitivists drop his name him when talking about domestication and the ubiquity of Capitalism. Also I've heard many of writers of Fifth Estate were fond of him.
Aug 10 2008 03:49
#15
Quote:
He basically argued that all the activity of the worker had become subsumed into capital. We have passed from the phase of formal to real subsumption. As such all the activity of the worker is activity of and for capital. For this reason he thought that the working class was no longer the revolutionary subject. The idea of the working class developing a collective subjectivity had become impossible because the working class had no non-capitalist/anti-capitalist attributes. Rather the rejection and movement against capital was now based on a total break from capital in an immediate affirmation of the (lost) human community.
Thanks that was a very useful synopsis. I look forward to reading some of his stuff.
Aug 10 2008 05:36
#16
Quote:
He basically argued that all the activity of the worker had become subsumed into capital. We have passed from the phase of formal to real subsumption. As such all the activity of the worker is activity of and for capital. For this reason he thought that the working class was no longer the revolutionary subject. The idea of the working class developing a collective subjectivity had become impossible because the working class had no non-capitalist/anti-capitalist attributes. Rather the rejection and movement against capital was now based on a total break from capital in an immediate affirmation of the (lost) human community.
He also argued that capitalism is tending to abolish the bourgeoisie, that the proletariat is the only necessary class for capitalism, and therefore that capital was tending to proletarianize everyone. Therefore that a revolution would need to be of humanity against capital.
Also, and I think this is correct, that the choice is not between socialism or barbarism but between communism and extinction, either physically or as a creative species - in other words that there could theoretically be a world in which there is a proletariat which is unable to overthrow capitalism.
Aug 10 2008 18:24
#17
double post.
Aug 10 2008 18:24
#18
I think his texts 'The Wandering of Humanity' and 'On Organization' are really wonderful and worth grappling with.
Aug 10 2008 20:13
#19
Has anybody read the book Capital and Community? Is it worth reading? (I know I should find out for myself, but need some motivation )
Aug 11 2008 16:36
#20
Global Dissident wrote:
Quote:
He basically argued that all the activity of the worker had become subsumed into capital. We have passed from the phase of formal to real subsumption. As such all the activity of the worker is activity of and for capital. For this reason he thought that the working class was no longer the revolutionary subject. The idea of the working class developing a collective subjectivity had become impossible because the working class had no non-capitalist/anti-capitalist attributes. Rather the rejection and movement against capital was now based on a total break from capital in an immediate affirmation of the (lost) human community.Thanks that was a very useful synopsis. I look forward to reading some of his stuff.
Just to be clear. I think he's kinda shit. And wouldn't reccomend him to anyone. I think the time I spent reading him was a waste of time.
On ultra-left theory I'd reccomend reading the troploin stuff (Dauve/Barrot, Nesic etc.), the Mouvement Communiste stuff, and stuff by Henri Simon etc. They're all quite easy to read but I'd also reccomend reading the Theorie Communiste stuff which is very very difficult to read. Have a look at the latest issue of Riff Raff on their site they have english translations of a lot of TC stuff. The TC stuff also deals with the problems raised by Camatte but deals with them in a much more impressive way.
I also think in terms of this rebellious humanity stuff, reading Althusser on humanism I think is worthwhile.
Aug 11 2008 18:07
#21
The important ‘contribution’ (not an appropriate term) of Camatte is his break with the communist movement – it is because of this critique, I think, that his brand remains the market leader in relation to his competitors (Dauve and the rest as mentioned above) rather than any specific theoretical rationalisation (theory is only ever an alibi for an incompetent response to conditions). His writing that has been translated now seems horribly optimistic. However, for sake of argument, I think his idea of the human community and the concomitant rejection of the assumption of ‘us’ being a part of an objective historical progress in social relations is more to the point than the left’s inherited bourgeois ideal of endless human mutability. I find more comfort in the myth of a basic human essence that must revolt in reaction to incrementally hostile social conditions than I do in the perfectibility myth proposed by most communist theorists – ie that via the objective development of the forces of production, that is of an endlessly intensified alienation, a section of the human subject might somehow pass through the other side and end up in control of that which it is an affect. Camatte versus Althusser? That would be like Ray Mears versus Ainsley Harriot.
Aug 25 2008 02:31
#22
l've just downloaded and printed a text by Jacques Camatte called "Origin and Function of the Party Form". It can be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/camatte_origins.html
Not the easiest text to read, it talks about "organic centralism" as opposed to democratic centralism, but he does not say what this is supposed to mean. Would anybody care to elaborate? The bloody thing must have cost me about £7 to print, and I still don't understand it!
Aug 25 2008 02:56
#23
Organic centralism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_centralism
Democratic centralism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism
Aug 26 2008 22:13
#24
Quote:
He also argued that capitalism is tending to abolish the bourgeoisie, that the proletariat is the only necessary class for capitalism, and therefore that capital was tending to proletarianize everyone. Therefore that a revolution would need to be of humanity against capital.
How very Fight Club. Even the relatively well off work jobs they hate to buy shit they don't need (or even legitimately desire.)
Aug 27 2008 10:11
#25
Global Dissident wrote:
Quote:
He also argued that capitalism is tending to abolish the bourgeoisie, that the proletariat is the only necessary class for capitalism, and therefore that capital was tending to proletarianize everyone. Therefore that a revolution would need to be of humanity against capital.How very Fight Club. Even the relatively well off work jobs they hate to buy shit they don't need (or even legitimately desire.)
Are you trying to make a point?
Aug 31 2008 18:37
#26
No, just an observation.
Camatte was a member of the International Communist Party in France. The PCI was the mainline Bordigist left-communist party. In the 1970s-80s Camette grew away from Bordigism towards a theory where humanity was either domesticated (ciiviliized) or against domestication.