Comments on: … is biopolitical sindicalism? http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/ A working notebook Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:38:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: Nate http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-1584 Mon, 28 May 2007 20:27:44 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-1584 This post is linked to from the piece I co-wrote for Turbulence, here - http://www.turbulence.org.uk/compositionalpow.html Eventually I should review Franco and the Precarias a la Deriva's remarks on biosyndicalism and write a more coherent response. Also Virno's piece on the ImWW, here http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/01/03/did-i-tell-you-to-do/ This post is linked to from the piece I co-wrote for Turbulence, here - http://www.turbulence.org.uk/compositionalpow.html

Eventually I should review Franco and the Precarias a la Deriva’s remarks on biosyndicalism and write a more coherent response. Also Virno’s piece on the ImWW, here http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/01/03/did-i-tell-you-to-do/

]]> by: Nate http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-899 Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:26:56 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-899 hi Eric, Well put. I think that's an important point. To my mind I think the question is partly how one conceives of the relationship between the technical and political, or objective and subjective. The point you're making about thinking of the class as reactive gets at this - the political is taken as a response to the technical, the object conditions the subject. This is to some extent true - we do want to respond, as you say - but the determination is not exhaustive or one way, and ultimately what's important about the technical/objective is that it is already political/subjective, that of the enemy, and as such should be taken as the target to be abolished, not the condition that conditions us. take care, Nate hi Eric,
Well put. I think that’s an important point. To my mind I think the question is partly how one conceives of the relationship between the technical and political, or objective and subjective. The point you’re making about thinking of the class as reactive gets at this - the political is taken as a response to the technical, the object conditions the subject. This is to some extent true - we do want to respond, as you say - but the determination is not exhaustive or one way, and ultimately what’s important about the technical/objective is that it is already political/subjective, that of the enemy, and as such should be taken as the target to be abolished, not the condition that conditions us.
take care,
Nate

]]> by: Eric http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-898 Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:10:12 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-898 I'll see if I can expand. The organizations and principles outlined in the piece almost uniformly take the conditions of current production arrangements as the starting point of action. (A more or less random example: "The conditions of life of the precariat are in constant change. A biopolitical sindicalism would be able to construct flexible organizational dispositifs capable of accompanying this mobility constitutive of precarization.") Not of course that responses to and a recognition of the conjuncture are unnecessary or undesirable, but from what I can tell this biopolitical syndicalism has the creating of the correct response as its single point of focus, which is why I called it reactive. I don't see any statements, or even room for them, about understanding and formulating the precariat's desires and the organizations and means to work toward those desires. In this way it gives the initiative to capital. But it also tends to see a biopolitics as a becoming-autonomous, the process of positioning and developing itself outside capital. In other words, biopolitics is to act as the transcendent subject capable overcoming capital.... At least this is my initial interpretation. And I think this goes with your stuff about solidarity unionism (and the aim of a higher unity), the priveliged subject, and the fetishizing of novelty. I’ll see if I can expand. The organizations and principles outlined in the piece almost uniformly take the conditions of current production arrangements as the starting point of action. (A more or less random example: “The conditions of life of the precariat are in constant change. A biopolitical sindicalism would be able to construct flexible organizational dispositifs capable of accompanying this mobility constitutive of precarization.”) Not of course that responses to and a recognition of the conjuncture are unnecessary or undesirable, but from what I can tell this biopolitical syndicalism has the creating of the correct response as its single point of focus, which is why I called it reactive. I don’t see any statements, or even room for them, about understanding and formulating the precariat’s desires and the organizations and means to work toward those desires. In this way it gives the initiative to capital. But it also tends to see a biopolitics as a becoming-autonomous, the process of positioning and developing itself outside capital. In other words, biopolitics is to act as the transcendent subject capable overcoming capital…. At least this is my initial interpretation.

And I think this goes with your stuff about solidarity unionism (and the aim of a higher unity), the priveliged subject, and the fetishizing of novelty.

]]> by: Nate http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-897 Fri, 28 Jul 2006 02:55:04 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-897 hi Eric, I don't think you're being either thick or unfair, but can you say some more about what you mean? I'm not very convinced by what little I've read about biopolitics, which is mostly Hardt and Negri. I'm keen to read more on the term, more Foucault and that, when I get a chance. My own criticisms of this piece center on the newness/nowness stuff - "outmoded conceptions that assign the condition of worker based on a type of contractual relation that is increasingly exceptional", "sindicalism after precarity" etc. I like the model of a union put forward here a great deal, I like that it takes a form of sindicalism as a viable response to the world today, and I like it particularly in the context of present debates about precarity. On the other hand, all this sounds to me very much like what I call solidarity unionism (I get the term from Staughton Lynd), which has existed in some capacity for a really long time such that there's a lot to be learned from reading about the past. The same goes for precarity. Some sectors are newly precaritized, and that matters a lot, but other sectors are continuing to be precarious. It might even be said that some sectors are less precarious. (One could I think argue that the move to some reproductive labor functions becoming waged rather than unwaged provides a greater measure of control on the part of the - usually - women who do that work than was had when it was unwaged work. At least some of the time.) All of these changes are important, I don't see why one or the other should be made into the figure from which a new epoch is declared. This is the same problem that figures in what I've read of the class composition analysis stuff in operaismo. In this sense, then, rather than the primacy of the working class, the primacy of a sector of the working class is proposed, in the name of the whole class. That said, of course what matters most is what people are acting and aggregating around. The most visible is new precaritization and I've got no criticism of folk trying to act against that. Overemphasis on novelty, though, might impede cooperation between the newly-precarious and the still-precarious. Some of this may be a matter of national differences as well. I don't know the history of Argentina very well, particularly not its labor movements and working conditions. Perhaps it's a more tremendous change there than in the US. I think it's also a matter of emphasis: I think the old union model (like the party model) was never a good idea - in the US starting from the CIO in the 30s - and that various alternatives always existed (such that the models I reject were the hegemonic models rather than the sole existing models). It is the case, though, that real changes have occured, not least of which is the breaking on capital's side of the compromise that underwrote the business union form. take care, Nate hi Eric,

I don’t think you’re being either thick or unfair, but can you say some more about what you mean? I’m not very convinced by what little I’ve read about biopolitics, which is mostly Hardt and Negri. I’m keen to read more on the term, more Foucault and that, when I get a chance.

My own criticisms of this piece center on the newness/nowness stuff - “outmoded conceptions that assign the condition of worker based on a type of contractual relation that is increasingly exceptional”, “sindicalism after precarity” etc. I like the model of a union put forward here a great deal, I like that it takes a form of sindicalism as a viable response to the world today, and I like it particularly in the context of present debates about precarity. On the other hand, all this sounds to me very much like what I call solidarity unionism (I get the term from Staughton Lynd), which has existed in some capacity for a really long time such that there’s a lot to be learned from reading about the past.

The same goes for precarity. Some sectors are newly precaritized, and that matters a lot, but other sectors are continuing to be precarious. It might even be said that some sectors are less precarious. (One could I think argue that the move to some reproductive labor functions becoming waged rather than unwaged provides a greater measure of control on the part of the - usually - women who do that work than was had when it was unwaged work. At least some of the time.) All of these changes are important, I don’t see why one or the other should be made into the figure from which a new epoch is declared. This is the same problem that figures in what I’ve read of the class composition analysis stuff in operaismo. In this sense, then, rather than the primacy of the working class, the primacy of a sector of the working class is proposed, in the name of the whole class. That said, of course what matters most is what people are acting and aggregating around. The most visible is new precaritization and I’ve got no criticism of folk trying to act against that. Overemphasis on novelty, though, might impede cooperation between the newly-precarious and the still-precarious.

Some of this may be a matter of national differences as well. I don’t know the history of Argentina very well, particularly not its labor movements and working conditions. Perhaps it’s a more tremendous change there than in the US. I think it’s also a matter of emphasis: I think the old union model (like the party model) was never a good idea - in the US starting from the CIO in the 30s - and that various alternatives always existed (such that the models I reject were the hegemonic models rather than the sole existing models). It is the case, though, that real changes have occured, not least of which is the breaking on capital’s side of the compromise that underwrote the business union form.

take care,
Nate

]]> by: Eric http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-896 Fri, 28 Jul 2006 01:52:53 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/07/27/is-biopolitical-sindicalism/#comment-896 Thanks for translating this and for posting it. There's lots of good stuff in here, but I can't shake the notion that this sort of project puts working-class activity in a reactive mode, that it advocates merely responding to and organizing inside capitalist productive arrangements instead of the working class acting for itself. In other words, it seems to retreat from Tronti's insight. Does that make sense? I wonder if this is intrinsic to "positive" biopolitical approaches. It's a serious question, because my only real familiarity with biopolitics is Foucault's. So though I'm not that familiar with, say, Negri's take on biopolitics, I'm inclined to be skeptical of it for the reasons above. Am I being thick or unfair? Thanks for translating this and for posting it. There’s lots of good stuff in here, but I can’t shake the notion that this sort of project puts working-class activity in a reactive mode, that it advocates merely responding to and organizing inside capitalist productive arrangements instead of the working class acting for itself. In other words, it seems to retreat from Tronti’s insight. Does that make sense?

I wonder if this is intrinsic to “positive” biopolitical approaches. It’s a serious question, because my only real familiarity with biopolitics is Foucault’s. So though I’m not that familiar with, say, Negri’s take on biopolitics, I’m inclined to be skeptical of it for the reasons above. Am I being thick or unfair?

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