autonomist Marxism
Lessons from defeat: Antonio Negri, autonomist Marxism and anarcho-syndicalism from seventies Italy to today
A discussion of the history and theory of Italian operaismo, its strengths, weaknesses and legacy. The second part of the essay examines the convergence and divergence of autonomist Marxist thought and anarcho-syndicalist thought.
“...analysis becomes complete only through participation in struggles...”
(Panzieri, La crisi del movimento operaio,1973)
1.0 Into the laboratory
Review - Change the world without taking power by John Holloway - Red and Black Notes
Red and Black Notes review of Change the World without Taking Power by John Holloway. The full text of this can be found here.
John Holloway's book Change the World without Taking Power makes an excellent case for not judging a book by its cover. The cover graphic of a ski-masked protester, paint brush in hand, and the anarchist circle @ might lead the curious reader to suppose the work to be the product of the anti-globalization movement; however, the title of the book suggests a new-age consciousness raising treatise.
The working class struggle against the crisis: self-reduction of prices in Italy, 1975 - Bruno Ramirez
Bruno Ramirez's analysis of the Italian working class' response to the economic crisis of the 1970s, with particular focus on "the refusal to comply with price increases of essential services", also known as 'self-reduction'.
With an inflation rate of over 25%, widespread unemployment, and increasing repression, Italy's current economic crisis shows how far capital is willing to push its attack against the living conditions of the working class.
Aufheben #16 (2008)
Aufheben Issue #16. Class conflicts in the transformation of China, The language of retreat: Paolo Virno’s A grammar of the multitude, Value struggle or class struggle?, Review: Forces of labour: Workers’ movements and globalisation since 1870 by Beverly J. Silver.
Available as printer-friendly pdf files listed below.
Workers' struggles and the development of Ford in Britain
This essay by Ferruccio Gambino first appeared in the book Operai e Stato (Feltrinelli, 1972). It was translated into English and published by Red Notes in 1976 as their first pamphlet. The PDF file is in 2 parts, both about 4MB.
Invaders from Marx: on the uses of Marxian theory, and the difficulties of a contemporary reading - Michael Heinrich
The following text is the slightly reworked version of an article which appeared on 21 September 2005 in “Jungle World”, a leftist German weekly newspaper. In a previous issue, Karl Heinz Roth. one of the main German representatives of Operaismo, had argued that some important Marxian categories are not able to grasp contemporary capitalism. The text at hand answers this critique, stressing the difference between Marxian theory and traditional Marxism, emphasizing the “new reading of Marx”, which developed through the last decades. The German text can be found at the website of the author: www.oekonomiekritik.de
In the past 120 years, Marx has been read and understood in widely varying ways. In the Social Democratic and Communist worker’s movement, Marx was viewed as the great Economist, who proved the exploitation of the workers, the unavoidable collapse of capitalism, and the inevitability of proletarian revolution.
No peace in the class war
Article by Swedish group Kämpa Tillsammans on class composition in Sweden and the syndicalst 'register method'.
Revolutionary perspectives today: society is a factory
1962-1973: Worker and student struggles in Italy
A history of the wave of strikes and occupations that gripped Italian factories and universities during the 1960s. Coming to a head with the Hot Autumn of 1969, independent forms of struggle used by workers represented a significant attempt to break from restrictive trade unions.
Rising from a period of centre-left coalition that had been marked by a constant failure to bring promised reforms to Italian society, the struggles of the 1960s acted as a pressure gauge for many sections of the Italian working class, one which was to reach its climax during the mass strikes of 1968-1970.
Cattivi Maestri: Some Reflections on the Legacy of Guido Bianchini, Luciano Ferrari Bravo and Primo Moroni - Steve Wright
Steve Wright's analysis of the ideas of three Marxists who, along with Antonio Negri, were accused of being the "evil masters" of red terrorism in 1960s and 1970s Italy.
Cattivi Maestri: Reflections on the Legacy of Guido Bianchini, Luciano Ferrari Bravo and Primo
Steve Wright
You were like one who, traveling by night,
Carries the torch behind - no help to him -
But he makes those who follow him the wiser.(1)
Libertarian Marxism's Relation to Anarchism - Wayne Price
The current world-wide revival of anarchism is premised on the decline of Marxism. Yet there remains a strand of Marxism (libertarian or autonomist Marxism) to which anarchists often feel close and whose followers often express a closeness to anarchism.
Its libertarian-democratic, humanist, and anti-statist qualities permit anarchists to use valuable aspects of Marxism (such as the economic analysis or the theory of class struggle). Yet it still contains the main weaknesses of Marxism. And in certain ways it has the same weaknesses of much of anarchism, rather than being an alternative.
