Should communists be union reps?

Once again. No I do not pose the "structure" before "class relations", that has never been my point. The point of my argument is that what you call class relations is the structure which precedes the two poles of antagonism. I have never said that class relations are "after" the fact of accumulation of value, but instead that class relations are exactly accumulation of value. The classes are thus constituted through the class relation (accumulation of value, ie. separation of producer and means of production) and not the other way around. I do not see the disagreement at all, except the fact that I claim that there is no such thing as a structure without class relation, but that the structure is exactly the class relation. And the class relation is prior to classes. That is what I have said, nothing else. The posing of accumulation of value as something other than the class relation is thus the fetischisation of the class relation. The relationship of capital really is a relationship between things, that is its mode of existence, this is the really existing fetisch which is a class relation. Value is a class relation, surplus value is a class relation (and everywhere you find is in my writing it is short for is and becomes).

Yes, class struggle does not overcome itself, even if it has a gap, the proletariat is a negative moment within the relationship of capital, its negativity is constituted in and through its relationship with capital, there is no other way of conceiveing of it, which you also affirm. Thus the proletariat is and becomes the negation of capital through its formation as a class, that is entirely correct. But, the class power which is wielded through this formation is a power which is directly dependent on the existence of capital, without the existence of capital the proletariat cannot wield power as a proletariat. This is the dilemma of class struggle and that is also why there must be a creation of externalities, why there must be transition from the relationship of capital (class struggle) to communism (the not-"class struggle"). Class struggle closes the gap between labor and capital as class struggle is reciprocal and presumes the existence of the Other of the dialectic, while communisation over quite a lengthy period of time destroys the gap (as well as the closing of the gap) altogether and thus destroys the dialectic of capital (ie. class struggle). So, we actually do need an externality, which is created through revolutionary action, through the opposition of the proletariat to its own existence as proletariat (ie. negation of the negation) and through the construction of commons (the production which arises in the negation of the negation). There is nothing mystical about it, it is merely a theory of the revolution which supercedes class struggle, which is in coherence with what a revolution really is, the supercession of class struggle.

Finally, I once again say that I do not put value and its accumulation prior to the class relation, but instead claim that value and its accumulation is and becomes the class relation. I hope there is no further misconception of this (since I've said it about three-four times now).

And I agree with Lenin that there is a need for communists' activity, but just as Dauvé I do not think that communists are those who are involved in a Party or in an Association, but precisely those who are involved in the communisation of our relations, and they do not need a Party, but they will need to spread their activity, their communisation, in order for it to expand on the expense of capital.

There is an interesting French group, which has published a book called Appel, where they use the definition of the Party as those emerging cells which are not based on wage labour (thus not based on class struggle), they define the Party as emerging communism. And I think it is a useful conception of the Party in relation to, for instance, Lenin and Bordiga. This makes the Party notion coherent with the notion which Dauvé poses in the mentioned quote from Capitalism and Communism.

I hope the discussion continues,
cph

In what sense is communisation 'free' of wage labour?

In what sense is anything appearing within capitalist social relations not an expression of those relations?

Is communisation based on mere say-so?

How would we be sure it wasn't 'communistion ideology'? (the Tiqqun/Appel group call themselves 'criminals' – is that what it means?).

Why is communisation not a return to 'lifestylism' and a substitution, once again, of the Party for the class...? What next, going 'underground', 'armed struggle'?

How can transcendence of the relation be achieved except through the factories, and within the relation, from which it is reproduced?

How can we recognise what communisation is until the present social relation
is in crisis, and thus demands it?

P. (speaking as someone interested in the concept of communisation)

Aye, I've heard communisation mentioned a few times, but have never heard it explained in any depth

From what i have heard argued it seems to rest on the notion of a direct swtich from capitalism to communism, rejecting councilist, syndicalist and autonomists ideas of working class counter power (the working class afterall being totally subsumbed in capitalism) but rather a fully communist society must appear straight away through the working class disorganising itself. Therefore all forms of workers control that don't immediately end class society are useless.

This just seems absurd shite, a programme born in the leftist ghetto seperate from working class struggle. How does the working class just disorganise itself? Does it walk away from the factories? The shops? the Hospitals? Or are we looking at just pure insurrection? But one which will take off with out a base of self organisation? Will the bourgeois call it quits when it can no longer find a "working class" in name? Or will it just laugh then launch reborn primitive accumulation, as the working class have given up it's organs of defense and production, and so they are forced back to work through gun point and starvation? Or will there just spring from nowhere a revolutionary movement, one without already laid networks and organs?

It just reeks of overly subjectivist bullshit. If we just announce the end of our class, if we just suddenly disorganise under the banner of "negation of the negation", so what? What does it change? If the spanish proletariat had fucked off to the beach and not tried to organise and manage production, afterall until capitalism is totally destroyed it's just self exploitation, would they have won? Or would they have been crushed in two days?

It also seems to rest on a kind of idealisation of capital, imagining it as pure as the worst Economist reader. Capital just through it's autonomous power will reimpose itself on the class. This is bullshit, capital may not be reducable to particular ruling classes, but it can't exist without one, it was born of gun powder, slavery and enclosure, all of these need human agents. Therefore the struggle is for the working classes organs to prevent the development of hierarchies and classes, whilst at the same time developing communism and in doing so negating itself as a class.

Edit I have just read through most of the Theorie Communiste piece "Self-organisation is the first act of the revolution ; it then becomes an obstacle which the revolution has to overcome" And it seems to be saying nothing really new.

I mean the CNT never imagining that wage struggles would just lead to "social revolution", they were fuly aware of the need to make a leap, for negation. The CNT took part in various unsuccesful insurrections before 1936 and all of these involved a leap, the seizing of buildings,land and goods, the raising of the red and black flag and the disbandment of the civil guard.

I'd like to add that my first points are aimed at people I have seen arguing "communisation" against "self organisation" as a kind of "sophiscated insurrectionism" and not at this TC article, which though I have certain not fully articulate issues with is much more nuanced.

revol68: Huh? I don't like crazy rants and I don't answer crazy rants. I will only answer one thing. Those who theorise communisation does not "reject" working class power, that would be moralism and totally opposed to the entire theory.............. We merely consider what working class power really means.

(By the way, I read The Economist.)

I was able to get some newly hired union workers who were cheated out of work makeup pay. They'd been sent home due to "lack of work" while non-union workers stayed on in violation of the contract.

I was able to keep a worker out of prison if i couldn't save his job. don't ask for details on that one, but it was something that wouldn't have happened if i hadn't been a steward, and an anarchist.

Being a steward wasn't always a waste of time, looking back on it, my one term as a labor counsil delegate was. There was a national strike of some tactical importance during the period. I did more practical solidarity work for the strikers as a wobbly than as a delegate.

hello cph_s. As a matter of fact, by Revol's standards, that was a fairly restrained polemic, and I do think he raises some valid points. I don't see how the proletariat can negate itself without first affirming itself, which means affirming itself as a distinct social and political force.

The discussion on communisation is important and should be continued, but probably elsewhere because I think it's taking us away from the main focus of this thread (the role of shopfloor union reps). The discussion about the Exeter postal wildcat in Current Affairs has tried to take this discussion forward.

Well, I don't think he raises any valid points at all... Mere misconception is not polemic, it's rant. If he had taken into consideration the rest of the discussion in this thread, maybe he wouldn't be so quick to rant...

Maybe you should read the full thing then, as it was clearly not aimed at you at all. I mean ffs my first reply to your post was to say i could see where you were coming from in the need to bridge the "gap", to "negate the negation".

Now unless you've been arguing againt "self organisation" I don't see how this applies to you?

Now having read over the Theorie Communiste piece a bit more I have to say I'm not very impressed with the concept of "communisation".

Firstly as I said in my "crazy rant"

Further more it seems as if by renouncing theories of "autonomy" and "self organisation" as always already trapped in the capital relation, it fails to distinguish between forms of "self organisation". And so it matters little whether struggle is waged under leftist, unionist or reformist methods, and for what ends, rather things only matter at the peak of "struggle", when the jump must be made to "communisation".

Now if this jump is merely the spreading of strike commitees, the generalised seizing of the means of production, and armed defence, carried out under the working class organs of struggle eg workerplace and neighbourhood assemblies, then how does this differ much from say councilist and anarcho syndicalist notions of revolution? Afterall they all asseted that a revolution needs to go beyond "struggle" and become an affirmation of communism?

My bigger worry is that it is eeking out a place for a new "political" vanguard, who see their job as to launch "communisation" seperate from any proletarian organs, to become a kind of "dictatorship of the negation of the negation". This to me seems to be a tad close to rewarmed insurrectionism, Bakunin's "invisible pilots", or a new Bolshevism, same form but with oh so hip "communisation" content. Infact much of the article reads like the Italian autonomists heading towards the "social worker" and "armed struggle".

Many of my theories come from TC and especially their piece on self organisation. There is indeed a difference from the ideologists of self organisation and autonomy, which is precisely the recognition of working class power as a problem within capitalism and the need to go beyond this.

There is of course a general limitation to self-organised struggle, which is precisely its usage by a class within the capitalist mode of production. However, I'm currently reading and translating the piece from French to Swedish, and when I read it I apparently don't read it the same way you do. They make quite clear distinctions between different sorts of self-organised class struggles, especially in respect to their actual overcoming. See for instance the difference between the self-organised struggles in Italy and Spain which are brought up in the section on "Self-organised struggles today" and compare it to the narrative of the Argentine insurrection in 2001 or the Algerian insurrection the same year.

As a class, the proletariat struggles by self-organisation, and we can of course not do away with this by merely saying "bad proletariat, don't self-organise", but the contradiction with self-organisation must be evolved through the development and furthering of the contradiction with capital, ie. through the usage of self-organisation. However at a point the struggle must be aimed at the entire relationship of capital and not just the adversary, it must be turned against the entire proletarian state. Otherwise the struggle will remain self-organised and limited to (essentially) wage struggles.

Furthermore, it matters very little whether struggles are waged under different flags, what matters is the struggles themselves. I don't give a fuck about whether people call themselves unionist, reformist or leftist, that is mere identity politics (and true lifestylism). And the rupture is not achieved just at the "peak" of a certain struggle, it is achieved in a certain conjuncture of struggles, whereby the self-organised, ie. trade unionist, struggles can surpass their own character as economical and political struggles.

The point of TC is precisely that it is not enough with the generalisation of strike commitees, generalised seizing of the means of production. See for instance their comments on Argentina. There is a difference in different types of seizing the means of production. Communisation is not mere socialisation, it is rather the desocialisation of capital. The Brukman and Zanon factories were "retaken", but kept producing for a market, the self-organised workers took the means of productions in their hands without lifting the anchor, without posing the means of production as something other than capital, their labour was waged etc.

It is not a place for a political vanguard, however there is a notion of vanguards, at least for me. The anti-vanguard ("libertarian") ideologists are still stuck in thinking through representation, they still want to represent the workers. Workers' vanguards exist without both leninist parties and councilist ideologists. The break with representation must imply admitting difference and the fact that certain workers will start the revolution while others will follow. These people who start the revolution are indeed a true vanguard, even if they do not need a party to be a vanguard, they don't need to read Marx or Bakunin or Bordiga to be a vanguard, they don't even have to know what communism or communisation is to be a vanguard. My experience is that only a few of those who theoretically and ideologically discuss communism and revolution are actually practical vanguardists, at least here in Sweden, while most of them are stuck in activism and actionism.

It is indeed a kind of "bolshevism without a party", ie. it is a call to action, however it is not a vanguardism based on idealism and voluntarism, but instead founded in the grassroots of the real movement. It is a complete and total break with representation, a break with Leninist as well as Councilist representative practice. See for instance Kamunist Kranti's discussion on representation.

Well i'm far from opposed to the idea that certain sections of the working class will be in the vanguard, that the "vanguard" is always a temporal thing, not a reified party or organisation.

So, what does this tell us? Firstly it says nothing about what type of self organisation up to this point, or what relation particular forms of self organisation will have to the ability to either reach the point or to jump over it.

Well I'm not bothered about what flags people label themselves under, but I don't see Trade Unionist struggles as self organised. Workers can go beyond the union structures and this involves self organisation, but it involves the breaking of "trade unionism" at some level (even if it is not formalised), and I don't think I have to list all the times "self organised" struggles have been sabotaged by unions, or the role of Unions in stopping the development of struggles in the first instance. You are confirming my fears that this critique of "self organisation" is too blunt, that it faills to deal with the numerous levels of organisation and mediation. That "trade unionist" organisation has to be broke with before we even get to "self organistion".

This is just stating the obvious, but what it seems to miss out is that a large reason the Argentian insurrection failed to move beyond this is because it's self organisation was not developed enough, the "socialisation" had not been generalised.There was no network or organisation that could facilitate a revolutionary seizure of the means of production. Communisation can hardly happen one or two factories at a time. What should they have done? Given away their produce and then begged, as they wait for the generalised insurrection? The point isn't that the "self organised" workers failed to grasp their need to "negate the negation", it was that there wasn't enough "self organised" workers grasping the means of production across all sectors, to allow them the material base to "negate themselves".

I can accept that it is not a space designed for leninist "vanguards" but the simple fact is that it is a space that is ripe for them. If we have these various vanguards of workers (not politicos) pushing forward, they themselves must be organised, no? They themselves must have forms of self organisation eg soviets, shora's, councils, assemblies, communes, strike committees and so on.They must have organs for the facilitation of production, for communication and defence. Now the proletariats forms of struggle, for it's self recognition and organisation, are these just disbanded? And new forms of "communisation" set up anew? What kind of structure will they have? Or do they have no structure, is communisation just pure negation, and if so what will be left in the ashes? What will co ordinate and organise communism? Any group of nutcases with guns?

Actualy under US labor law it does. Some. The steward is legally regarded as equal to the higest management representative on site in all issues between workers and management. It's been a few years and i forget the exact wording, which i used to have it committed to memory, but thats the broad meaning of the act.

In that particular incident, once I had noticed the non-contractual workers, I had the right to check all time keeping paperwork, union and non-union, and present the documented "oversight" to management and demand restitution.

It seems to me that the idea of communisation is important/relevant in this thread because it is a theoretical alternative to both self-organisation and unions.

I think the concept begins with Dauve's famous presumption:

Communism is not an ideal to be realized: it already exists, not as a society, but as an effort, a task to prepare for. It is the movement...

Communism is a 'movement', therefore it must be tangible. But where? For some it is always just coming into view. We are privileged to be present at the beginning of the 'new' coalescing party. Theorists always see the time they happen to inhabit to be the key moment.

Communisation is also recognised by its 'acts' – it defines itself as expropriations. And by definition it is illegalist, ie belonging to hidden groups.

I am not at all against this practice but the problem is one of achieving 'the tipping point' – to whom would it appeal in its early stages?

I would see myself as a cautious 'early adapter', that is if the process of communisation attracted say half a million practitioners within this country then I would involve myself (my assumption is that I would one of perhaps a 1,000 or so 'converts' per week), with that sort of growth it could probably sustain itself as a non-wage relation/lifestyle.

But it seems to me that such a movement cannot realise such scale until other objective factors have come into play. So for the moment I, and my demographic, must be content to contain our ambitions to the level of being the negation of the affirmation, ie higher wages, less hours.

P.

I think there is a difference of opinion here on what you mean that is unlikely to be resolved. So be it, that is what it is.

This really captures it. We were discussing which is logically prior to the other. We do not agree that actual classes are constituted upon those relations, but I am not arguing about defining classes and so for the most part the discussion of actually constituted classes is not immediately relevant.

You assume an identity of the antagonism with value and its accumulation. I disagree because logically the antagonism takes the form of, exists only as value and eventually, accumulation. To take it your way, the antagonistic class relation is equally the mode of existence of value, its social form. But how, logically, is this possible?

I would agree if you said that value is the way that the antagonistic class relation exists. And I would add, in the mode of being denied, as the value form, money form, etc., the very form of appearance of the fundamental antagonism, erases that social antagonism in the form of social relations between things and material relations between people. As such, the antagonism exists through struggles within its very forms over money, wages, working conditions, etc.

But because the antagonism is not identical with, is in fact in a relation of consistent non-identity with it, that the antagonism is unstable and explosive.

You still have not provided an adequate explanation anywhere how, if the class relation and value (and accumulation) are identical, how the antagonistic class relation is not always-already resolved in favor of capital except by a deus ex machina or an under-theroized (part of Revol's astute points) point of rupture.

For you, class struggle closes the gap. For me, class struggle has the possibility of being ruptural exactly because labor and capital are not identical, but are asymmetrical, non-identical in their relation for the simple reason (simple to me) that capital needs labor, but those who labor do not need capital. The separation of the producers from the means of producing, the core of the antagonism, must always be re-produced.

Your identity of the two assumes their always-already secured reproduction, and so you pose communisation as a rupture, but as a rupture from outside. So if we take an example, my rupture is more like that of say birth or of the critter popping out from inside the crew member's body n the Alien flicks. Yours is the rupture caused by a sharp blow to the spleen or kidneys, something which from without breaks through. But where is this "from without"?

The result is a certain attitude towards struggles is to "get our hands dirty", but also to "keep our minds pristine" by refusing to engage in the dirty task of critique. It has a certain pragmatic, apolitical risk associated with it.

It is its own brand of Identity Theory.

This sounds interesting. It is rather closer to my conception of Party, as what tends to get left out of what people do in these discussion is their coming to consciousness of what they are doing. Sadly, it is "revolutionary intellectuals" (by this I do ot simply mean a class position, but those of us as a whole who are involved in the critique of capital in ideas, whatever heir particular theoretical level: people who argue and write from an explicit hostility to capital. They tend to be the ones most likely to discount consciousness and replace it with a dumb/unconscious practice, as if realizing what a revolution entailed would not lead to its defeat.

Cheers,
Chris

I think it is a mistake to believe that being a union rep means you can't do anything. On the contrary, it is a position of being able to do for other people when they cannot do for themselves. This is its danger, and also its attraction, much like being a good social worker or lawyer. I see no reason to villify individual union or shop stewards.

Chris

No, you were reading me in a completely different manner from what I wrote, we were not discussing which of accumulation or class relations was first. Ever since the beginning I have claimed that accumulation is and becomes a class relation, not that accumulation precedes class relations. Now I'm up to circa 5 times saying this...

The whole point of the dialectic is that this identity, ie. the foundation, is a non-identity. I have also said that there is and becomes a non-identity between classes, the proletariat is not "class-for-capital", it is and becomes indeed a class-in-and-for-itself, but only as a consequence of the existence of accumulation (ie. separation of producer from means of production). Accumulation (ie. the "first" class relation, separation) is thus the foundation on which both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie play out their struggles. What I have claimed is that this foundation must be destroyed, since the very existence of a proletariat must be abolished, and thus the foundation of the existing proletariat must be crushed (probably not by sledge-hammer .

I have never said that labor and capital are identical (then you ought to read my posts again), their non-identity however becomes an identity since they play on the same ballfield. To once again take the love relationship as an example, the man and the woman does not constitute an identity, they are non-identical, however they play on the same ground, the love relationship, whereas in that aspect their non-identity becomes the identity of the foundation, the relationship.

And since I do not claim that there is an identity between labor and capital, I do not propose that capital always wins, that would be absurd. The proletariat wages struggle and sometimes win, however that win is based on the actual existence of an antagonist, ie. based on the reproduction of the foundation. And, once again, since I do not want to repeat the same thing next time too I do not propose an identity between labor and capital (SIC! SIC!).

And furthermore you are completely wrong about capital's "need for labor". Of course, capital needs labor, but the postulate that labor does not need capital is precisely the postulate of autonomism, and that's where I think you are stuck right about now. The fact of the matter is that with accumulation, the "first" class relation, whereby producers get separated from the means of production, the actual and real existence of the proletariat is based on a dependency of capital. To keep existing as a proletariat, ie. as a waged class, the proletariat needs capital, ie. it is dependent on the first class relation: separation of producer and means of production (ie. accumulation of value).

Once more, I honestly think that you are quite unfair in your reading of me. Maybe it's because I'm unclear, but since I have had to tell you that I do not claim an identity between labor and capital in almost every post (I have never even come close to this notion) and that I propose the accumulation of value (ie. separation) as the first class relation and not as something "preceding" class relations (as if there were something as absurd).

The rupture is caused from within, but not as a birth (capital does not come bearing communism), but the idea of the critter popping out in Alien seems like quite a nice analogy of the idea of communism. A parasitic organism, which expands on the expense of the social body to finally kill it off and live on its own ground (and this parasitic organism is not the proletariat, but rather the communisation process, the body of communisateurs).

Yes, it is pragmatic, and yes, it is apolitical. I am interested in doing what I am able to do, and this has to be pragmatically resolved, ie. it must come from practice within class struggle, and that is where the word pragmatic evolved from (pragma = practice), I am not interested in theories which do not help me in my daily life (for instance I would probably never read Negri). And furthermore, I am fairly uninterested in the workings of the State (polis), and I do not see the need to build big and shiny political organizations, thus I am at the moment quite apolitical and do not even see the societal need for politics, at least not for what I am able to do together with my fellow comrades.

I am even further not very interested in critique for the sake of critique, the critique must come bearing with a projective outcome if I would be interested in it... Critique for the sake of critique is an ultimate sign of ultra-leftism, a "principal" and totally abstract discussion without any meaning in the real world.

Identity Theory? I don't know what that means in this context...

Of course, consciousness is a necessity, but the main deal is not to equate consciousness with theoretical consciousness (ie. a bourgeois notion of consciousness). I have never seen such idiotic people in the workplace as those who have read to much Marx and never read a single work place inquiry or even some short text on work-place struggle. They are often totally ignorant to class struggle around them, and most often they are intellectuals in the classic sense. I could go on ranting about academics for a long while, but the half-witted retards who teach in academic institutions and at universities (there are a few exceptions) are not even worth my rant.

Cheers,
cph

See this is the problem, the foundation of the proletariat is capital, and so in the very same act of smashing it, the proletariat undoes itself. It is all in one movement. It isn't a matter of blasting the fuck out of capital and then turning the gun on itself. Rather like the final scene in Fight Club, the narrator shoots himself in the head and kills Tyler. He does not kill himself, but rather by killing Tyler he comes back to himself, he brings to life that kernel of truth that was always latent within him. Even if this truth was never experianced as itself previously, but rather as gaps and contradictions.

Which leads onto...

You seem to be reducing labour to the proletariat here.

The kernel of truth (or rather the potentiality) in the proletariat is "labour". Labour does not need capital, labour is that which has always been since we made fire, it is human activity, it is excessive, always extending beyond capital. Ironically it is this excessiveness, that allows capital to reproduce itself, to drive on, without swallowing it's own tail. It is the space between capital and labour, that constitutes the gap, it is that dangerous but necessary nether world of possibility where capital must continuosly reproduce the seperation of labour from it's fruits. But this metaphor should not be taken literally, because it is not a singular event in time and space, but rather is a constant presence, the spectre of proletarian potentiality that can never be exorcised. Labour is not the "proletariat", rather the "proletariat" is just a particular formulation of labour, one divorced from itself by the castration of capital.

*Note* Maybe your confusion is coming from the different ways Marx defines labour. In one sense he talks about it in a manner I have above,as the kind of species being of humanity. However later he also uses it in a much more narrow, technical sense, as our "labour power" put to work for capital. However even if we accept this definition and reject the early use of "labour", it still does not make "labour" dependent on capital, as labour is always capable of producing for itself, rather than capital.

revol68: I would say it's you that are confused, since it seems to me that you use the transhistorical notion of labour from Marx's earlier works. In this sense I'm a follower of Postone, since he demolishes the transhistorical notion of labour (which was common to autonomists, councilists, leninists, reformists etc.) and instead claim the historical nature of labour (like TC, Dauvé, riff-raff and all the "beyond ultra-left" groups).

Labour isn't "human activity", this would be reducing all theory of capital to idealist philosophy (as that of the Paris manuscripts). This labour humanism is nothing for me and will never be. Wage labour doesn't have a "good" part, the concrete labour part of wage labour is not the "better" part of the duality concrete/abstract, they define each other. And labour does not extend "beyond capital", there is no glory in submission.

This teleological notion simply isn't correct, there is no telos within the relationship of capital called communism. We do definitely need to burst out of capital.

I recommend Moishe Postone's Time, labor and social domination for further analysis of the historical notion of labour in capital. It's definitely worth your while.

Well I might be wrong and so might Marx, but I am certainly not confused, i'm very explicit about how interesting and furitful I find Marx's early works.

Now I haven't read Postone and so I will have to plead agnostic on whether he can demolish lego castles nevermind my concept of labour. Though I suppouse if we invent something called the "transhistorical notion of labour" and make it stand for whatever we want, we could probably win on points. I may well get round to reading Postone at some stage but in the meantime perhaps you could do me the favour of outlining his critique, this afterall being a discussion thread and not a reading list.

I can see there could be problems with labelling all human activity "labour", especially when we move from a macro analysis to a micro one, but I'm having real difficulty understanding how it reduces capital to idealist philosophy? Maybe you want to expand on this, or if you were just wishing to convey a general feeling of strong disagreement I'd have went for something much snappier like "crock of shite".

What does this even mean?
I don't respond to crazy rants.

Your quite right Wage Labour doesn't have a "good part", though the fact you prefix Labour with Wage might have guaranteed that. But I would say the labour part is "good"(as much as one can use the term with a straight face) in that it has the ability to throw off it's prefix and organise itself. That the labour of nurses, doctors, chefs, musicians, and artists can be freed from the straight jacket of capital and organised in the interests of the vast majority of humanity, that it holds "use value", not as some sort of positivist category but rather as an imanament critique (I have a feeling that the criticism of "labour" might follow along similar lines as Baudrillards attack on the distinction between use value and exchange value ).

I fail to see where the teological notion comment comes from. Saying the proletariat holds the potential to explode capitalism is hardly determinist. I find it interesting that you are saying that there is no communism within capitalism, because that is the opposite of how I have read Dauve, that rather there are moments of communism that arise and need to be generalised, that we see in many struggles flickering glimpses of communism. But you seem to saying that communism comes from outside the struggle,but I ask where is this outside?

And I find Marx's early work to be the preamble for his break with idealism, thus rendering his early notion of labour as the basis for all human activity transhistoric (out of historic context). Capitalism makes labour the basis for all human activity, it is not a transhistoric, platonic Idea.

Postone touches on many subjects and provides quite a rigorous interpretation of Marx, so I'll get back to you on that. The summary can be partly found in this thread.

The theory of capital is based on a historic notion of labour, ie. labour as wage labour. Thus labour as we perceive it, labour as it exists today is only wage labour, there is nothing hidden inside wage labour, no activity which out of historic context can be transposed to another setting (for instance a communist Gemeinwesen or a feudal society). Labour plays a specific role in the capitalist mode of production, it is one of the centers of this mode of production (capital being the other), whereas it did not play this crucial role in feudal society for instance, nor in slave societies etc.

Labour humanism is the idealist notion that labour contains something "good" in itself, that "labour" equals "human activity", ie. that labour is "human" in essence. This is a remainder from Marx's early works as well as the theories of a bunch of bourgeois ideologists, such as Bernstein, Taylor, Keynes etc. In short, "labour" = "human", which is simply not true, it is instead capitalism which puts labour as the "truly human" activity, only giving creed to labour, and never "improductive" activities. This separation is impossible to conceive of if we base ourselves in a communist setting, thus communism does not mean the liberation of labour (which you propose), but rather the destruction of labour as a separate activity.

The use values produced by wage labour are not "good", they are capitalist use values, determined by the capitalist production process as a whole, which includes the concrete labour (nursing, doctoring, cooking, playing concerts etc.) involved in the production of value and surplus value. One of the most important parts of the capitalist economy is that of usefulness (correlate to productivity), the need for use value, which is why Marx distinguishes clearly between naturliche Dasein (natural use value, something that can be involved in some sort of chain of event) and use value in its capitalist sense. The later concept involves usefulness, the product has to be useful to someone else, it must be able to sell on a market. Thus there is no possibility for the use values to be "free" from the shackles of capital, rather their characteristics are determined by its juxtaposition as exchange value. The commodity is a unity of use value and exchange value, the use value is not a good part of the commodity, it is a part of the commodity, ie. a part of the capitalist cellular level. Likewise with abstract/concrete labour and labour/value process. There is a definite distinction between use value and exchange value, but they are dialectically and unseparably united in the commodity. Use value can not be ahistorically separated from its coexistence as exchange value. It's quite simple really.

Teleology is not the same as determinism, if they were the same why would there be a need for two words? Teleology means that there is a "nucleus" of communism within capitalism which only needs to break its shell, ie. capitalism bears the potentiality for communism (most often ascribed to the proletariat and/or labour). And Dauvé has this teleological notion, but Dauvé has many other benefits, which makes this flaw seem quite irrelevant.

I have not said that communism "comes from the outside", read the part on the Alien analogy again, or even one of my posts. Of course communism must begin as an internal contradiction with capital, but in its struggle with capital the proletariat must break this contradiction, disinvolve itself from class struggle. Class struggle is ever-ongoing, it never stops and it is this stop which must be produced through and opposed to class struggle (communisation). Certain moments of communism pops up now and then as class struggle is stopped for seconds, minutes, hours, days or months in smaller or larger areas. The creation of an outside is only the beginning, the continuation must come whereby this outside constantly must fight the proletarian condition.

of course communists should be union reps if possible, there can be no decent argument against it really

So you haven't read this thread then?

But to cater for your laziness, how about why should communists put themselves in a position where they'll end up acting against workers' struggles?

Pete

are you an ICC member or supporter? if so i have interest in further debate, because you are a worthless cuntwit

I am quite sure that Peter is not a member, or supporter of the ICC, and neither am I. I think that we do both hold a similar position to them on the unions though.

The level of debate here; 'you are a worthless cuntwit' is impresive though. Some people might consider it flamming.

Devrim

In rejecting a tranhistorical notion of labour doesn't this merely affirm a transhistoric notion of capitalism? Where does this capitalism come from in order to produce labour? What happens if we just skip the semantic sophistry and rename labour "human activity"? Does it change anything? Does it illuminate anything more, are the serfs and plebs no longer spinning in their graves, will they send word via a Ouiji board that they are grateful that we no longer seek to violently reify, reduce and homogenious the singularityof their"activity" into a normative bourgeois concept such as "labour"?

This notion of a transhistoric, platonic Labour Ideal, seems to be at best a rather redundant critique of "orthodox" Marxism or at worst a straw man for Postone to use as a punch bag. Who has ever imagined labour as a pure form? As something not historically contingent and conditioned? Rather is not labour just an empty category, one that must be filled by particular, historical forms? Is not labour infact pure potentiality, but one that must manifest itself within certain historical circumstances and structures? Like Derrida's notion of justice or undecidability? or Foucault's concept of power, as an excess that must be structured but which can never be contained? or Zizeks real that must be symbolised but always exceeds it?

I'd be very interested to see how labour did not play a crucial role in feudal and slave societies? The very fact they are named after the dominant form of labour in each society would seem to jar somewhat.

Labour is not "good" in itself, what an absurd suggestion. A paedophile who builds a play pen to attract kids to molest them is engaging in labour, fuck he might even do it in the freedom of communism, but his labour is towards bad ends. A murderer might put alot of labour into stalking her victim but it is hardly a "good". The point about labour is that it is "potentiality", a potentiality that "wage labour" tries to harness towards the accumulation of capital.

I had a suspicion that old Baudrillroots critique of "use value" would be linked to this. Of course we can not seperate a use value from exchange value in some objective manner, for example the use value of cars is bound up in the needs of exchange value, in the atomisation of transport, out of town shopping centres, road building and oil economies. It's use value is not some platonic form outside the dirty world of exchange and accumulation, BUT it is not at one with exchange value. When I buy a car I may wish to drive a thousand miles in it but can't because I have to work on Monday. When a car is used to distribute fliers, to co ordinate flying picketd or is armoured up CNT style to go fuck up some counter revolutionaries, it is taking on a use value that exceeds or is attempting to exceed the commodity form. As Ersnt Bloch would no doubt have agreed, the symbolism of the car, of it's total freedom, contains a utopian desire of escape. Now capitalism may provide forms for the sublimation of this desire but it can never totally destroy it.

Or a more mundane example, if we take my desire for various scarves, the use value of them for me is not some one dimensional function but rather is bound up with various symbolic regimes not explicitly transparent to even myself, and are no doubt tied up to various flows of cultural capital and accumulation eg looking like a coolass muthabitch. But I also don't want to pay for them, nor do I want someone to be working 12 hour shifts to produce them in order for capital to expand itself ie exchange value. Therefore there is a split between what I desire in the scarf and the economic system it is produced in. Capital on one hand makes labour repellent, and yet makes sacrosanct the commodities it produces, it doesn't take a rocket science to work out how us twats working 40 hours a week might interpret this towards revolutionary ends. To really labour(hoho) the point we could look at something even simpler, food. The food mountains of Europe and the US are testimony to the enslavement of use value to exchange value. Millions of tonnes of food are dumped for reasons of exchange value whilst millions around the world are literally dying to experiance it's use value.

Well if that's teleology then you've got me, I just always assumed it was an immanet critique, coming from a rejection of determinist objectivism and niave utopianism. The reason I believe that capitalism bears the potentiality for communism, is because on an individual level I can imagine capitals networks of communication and production being put at the service of humanity rather than humanity put to the service of capital. Historically we have seen inspiring glimpses of communism attempting to break out of capitalism from the commune, to the russian and spanish revolutions and on smaller scales the various forms of self organisation that moved towards communism.

But if there is no seperation between use value and exchange value? If the labour is always stuck within capitalism then where does this "stop" come from? How does the "proletariat" disinvolve itself from class struggle? Leave the factories and run to the beaches? Should the Kronstadt sailors have said "fuck this, let's go ice skating"? The Class struggle mustn't be stopped, and anyone who seeks to shut it down should be taken out and shot. The class struggle must burn itself out,it must be generalised and deepened and it is in this process that the proletariat negates itself.

This is what I have been concerned about, where has communism popped up and the class struggle stopped seconds, minutes, hours, days or months? Even in Spain the site of the most far reaching social revolution in modern history, the class struggle did not stop, and infact it was when the proletariat "temporarily"set aside it's class struggle, that it was fucked. The May Days and Chekivist torture cells are brutal proof of what happens when you convince yourself the class struggle can be stopped. Where is this outside being created? In some fucking punk squats? In a LETS economy? Fuck in a student house where everyone shares their food? How can this outside fight the proletarian condition, fuck you haven't even shown how it has escaped it?

So far the only things I can imagine are Eurosquatters, autonomens and various other "drop outs", marauding through cities, smashing up shops, bus shelters and traffic lights. Setting fire to peoples cars in order to dreail capitals circuits of valorisation, afterall if you can't commute to work then your communised. Negri might have been pushing his poetic luck in liking communism as developing like christianity through the networks of the Roman Empire and eroding it from within, but it's infinitely more desirable than leaving it to the black block barbarians at the gates.

if he's not an ICC member that's fine, i'll come back with a sensible answer in the morning

suffice to say anyone who takes an ICC line on anything is politically worthless to say the least

This is ridiculous. I'm an ICC member. I agree with Peter's post. Why not just answer the arguments? The communist critique of the trade unions wasn't invented by the ICC and it's not only defended by them today.

Pepe, I'm not an ICC member or supporter. I do however have similar positions on many things. These positions are not the property of the ICC or myself or any other communist group or individual. Now you may not agree with any of them but you'll have to come up with a better argument than:

1. The ICC believes X
2. The ICC is bad
3. Therefore X is false and whoever affirms X is politically worthless.

But I guess sloppy arguing is your forte, you did jump into the end of a 12 page discussion and declare there can't be any decent argument about the subject of that discussion.

Pete

I think that this thread needs some sort of a split.
Dev

I agree, in fact I said it first.

I also think this post should itself be split:

"So far therefore as labour is a creator of use-value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necesity, without which there can be no material exchanges between man and nature, and therfore no life" (Marx, Capital, vol 1 chapter 1).