Comments on: … is the New Internationale? http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/ A working notebook Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:11:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: Jo http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-3580 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:08:34 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-3580 Listen to the song "Workers of the World- Unite!" by The Last Internationale Listen to the song “Workers of the World- Unite!” by The Last Internationale

]]> by: Matt http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-1658 Sun, 17 Jun 2007 22:05:43 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-1658 thanks for the suggestion...I'll check it out. thanks for the suggestion…I’ll check it out.

]]> by: Nate http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-1635 Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:30:59 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-1635 hi Matt, Thanks for the kind words. It's been a long time since I looked at the control society stuff. I remember not finding it convincing. In a nutshell, here's my take - the factory was always-already social, because the capital relation is social, in the sense that the life-time and energy (more succinctly, the labor) commanded by the wage is always larger than the time counted as waged time. The specifics of how this occurs does vary historically (and by geographic, social, labor process [etc,] position). More soon, I have to go to bed, I'm naerly falling over with tiredness. take care, Nate ps- out of curiousity, have you read Jason Read's book The Micropolitics of Capital? It's _excellent_. I'm less enthusiastic about the post-operaismo stuff in it than I was, but yeah, still, excellent. I think you'd like it - there's also a lot on Althusser. hi Matt,
Thanks for the kind words. It’s been a long time since I looked at the control society stuff. I remember not finding it convincing. In a nutshell, here’s my take - the factory was always-already social, because the capital relation is social, in the sense that the life-time and energy (more succinctly, the labor) commanded by the wage is always larger than the time counted as waged time. The specifics of how this occurs does vary historically (and by geographic, social, labor process [etc,] position). More soon, I have to go to bed, I’m naerly falling over with tiredness.
take care,
Nate

ps- out of curiousity, have you read Jason Read’s book The Micropolitics of Capital? It’s _excellent_. I’m less enthusiastic about the post-operaismo stuff in it than I was, but yeah, still, excellent. I think you’d like it - there’s also a lot on Althusser.

]]> by: Matt http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-1633 Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:32:55 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-1633 Nate, So, forms of discipline articulate with modes of production (is there a necessary relationship?). The modes of discipline that Foucault talks about in D&P, for example, organize time and space in such a way that socializes workers to industrial production. In this sense, the transition from "discipline" to Deleuze's "societies of control" is not a progression...seems more of a repetition of the "social factory" as it corresponds to new phases in sectors of the mode of production (immaterial labor, communicative labor, stuff like that). What do you think about trying to reconcile the operaismo-post-operaismo story with the MF-GD account of social production? Interesting post, btw, as always! Nate,
So, forms of discipline articulate with modes of production (is there a necessary relationship?). The modes of discipline that Foucault talks about in D&P, for example, organize time and space in such a way that socializes workers to industrial production. In this sense, the transition from “discipline” to Deleuze’s “societies of control” is not a progression…seems more of a repetition of the “social factory” as it corresponds to new phases in sectors of the mode of production (immaterial labor, communicative labor, stuff like that). What do you think about trying to reconcile the operaismo-post-operaismo story with the MF-GD account of social production? Interesting post, btw, as always!

]]> by: Nate http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-1632 Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:00:28 +0100 http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/06/16/is-the-new-internationale/#comment-1632 Also: Lenin writes in State and Revolution that during the transition to communism "The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay. But this “factory” discipline, which the proletariat, after defeating the capitalists, after overthrowing the exploiters, will extend to the whole of society, is by no means our ideal, or our ultimate goal. It is only a necessary step for thoroughly cleansing society of all the infamies and abominations of capitalist exploitation, and for further progress." Part of the argument here is that, in a sense, society will become a social factory. In the post-operaismo version of the idea of the social factory, where the factory becomes social in the era of real subsumption, there is a sense of historical progress when the factory becomes a social factory. Real subsumption is part of the transition to communism, in a sense, as new and radical possibilities open up with the passage to real subsumption. In the version I prefer, the factory was already social (so it's not a matter of being close to communism in the present but rather we need to carry out communist projects within the present, as was required during every moment when it was the present). Also:
Lenin writes in State and Revolution that during the transition to communism “The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay. But this “factory” discipline, which the proletariat, after defeating the capitalists, after overthrowing the exploiters, will extend to the whole of society, is by no means our ideal, or our ultimate goal. It is only a necessary step for thoroughly cleansing society of all the infamies and abominations of capitalist exploitation, and for further progress.” Part of the argument here is that, in a sense, society will become a social factory. In the post-operaismo version of the idea of the social factory, where the factory becomes social in the era of real subsumption, there is a sense of historical progress when the factory becomes a social factory. Real subsumption is part of the transition to communism, in a sense, as new and radical possibilities open up with the passage to real subsumption. In the version I prefer, the factory was already social (so it’s not a matter of being close to communism in the present but rather we need to carry out communist projects within the present, as was required during every moment when it was the present).

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