Aufheben

Aufheben - UK, 1992-present
Aufheben is a journal published in Brighton, UK.

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Shortly after Bob Geldof called for a million people to converge in Edinburgh for the opening day of the G8 summit, Midge Ure, the co-organizer of Live 8, was asked if he was worried about the events being hijacked by anarchists. His response was that Live 8 was, in fact, hijacking the anarchists' event.

The subtitle of this book is Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism. This hints of an attempt to analyse the current state of global class composition, to unearth the tendencies leading out of our current paralysis and offer hope of a new world. A Communist Manifesto for the 21^st Century perhaps?

Toni Negri and Michael Hardt’s recent works, Empire and Multitude, have earned these authors great popularity in the Anglo-Saxon world. Negri is known in Italy for belonging to autonomia operaia in the ’70s and for being on the receiving end of political persecution by the Italian state at the end of that decade. His earlier work (above all Marx Beyond Marx) was a valid contribution to the understanding of the nature of capitalism and influenced many among us who sought an answer to Marxist objectivism and a theory of history based on class struggle. However, Negri’s earlier work circulated among a restricted public, via obscure publishers. The new Toni Negri for the ‘new’ era emerges in 2000 with Empire. A tome written with literature professor Michael Hardt, Empire was warmly welcomed even by the bourgeois press.

It is perhaps difficult to overstate the sheer immensity of the transformation that is being wrought in China. In merely a few years, entire cities have been summoned into existence and vast industries have been brought into being - as China has emerged from being widely regarded as a peculiar autarchic rural backwater, which was geo-politically significant only for having the bomb and a large army, to being recognised as a major economic powerhouse on the world stage.

In Aufheben #11 we published a critique of our articles on ‘decadence’ (from Aufheben issues 2-4) by the French group Théorie Communiste (TC). In the following issue we published our reply to TC’s critique. Since then we have had a number exchanges with TC in which they responded to our reply.

Introduction
One of the main contentions at the core of Autonomist Marxism is that all human activity in either the sphere of production or in circulation and reproduction is potentially productive, that is, can contribute to the valorisation of capital.

Our review article ‘From Operaismo to Autonomist Marxism’ (Aufheben 11) brought a robust response1 from Harry Cleaver the author of one of the two books we were responding to. As we see critique and counter critique as a way of developing theory, this reply, in which Cleaver makes some valid points, should have been an opportunity to clarify our criticisms, to acknowledge weaknesses and inadequacies in what we wrote and to restate some of the issues at stake.

1. 1. http://www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/AufhebenResponse2.pdf

Introduction
For the vast majority of people living in a capitalist society housing is an ever-present concern.

It is now more than a year since the original version of this text was written. The text drew some rather gloomy conclusions about current resistance to British welfare restructuring. Little has happened since then to contradict these conclusions.

1. Introduction

In recent years, unemployment and similar welfare benefits - the dole - have become a focus of struggle in the UK. The small group which produces Aufheben has been involved in this struggle.

What is the link between the struggle to mitigate alienation (for higher wages, shorter hours, more benefits, less work intensity etc.) and the struggle against alienation itself? The answer to this question distinguishes communist practice from merely leftist practice.

Introduction

Three years ago, Loren Goldner circulated a draft of his ‘Remaking of the American Working Class’ for comments among a number of groups and individuals. At first sight it seemed to present an interesting new approach to the development of both capitalism and the class struggle since World War II.