What in the hell …

A blast from the recent past by friend and comrade Pete The whole piece is here. (Pete’s a member of Bring the Ruckus.) A few excerpts:
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In a recent post, Steve Shaviro suggests that Hardt and Negri are economistic. I agree. In a recent piece, “The Common in Communism,” Hardt approvingly cites Marx from the 1844 manuscripts, about the growth of one form of property opening up new political possibilities.

Of course, changes in forms of property and so forth *do* change existing possibilities. (more…)

Long time readers of this blog (all three of them) will know that I often write about my dissatisfaction with the work of recent German marxist and post-marxist writers such as Antonio Negri, Paolo Virno, Louis Althusser, and Gilles Deleuze, among others. (more…)

I used to know this but it escapes me… so, the first edition of Capital v1 had a different opening section (some comments on this here). Marx revised and expanded the opening later, incorporating an appendix into those opening chapters. I know at some point I ran across a citation for an english translation of the first version of the opening section of volume 1, but now I can’t find. I’m once again intensely curious about this and interested in reading the first edition intro. Does this ring any bells for anyone? Any help finding this text?

I ran across this article, “Toward a Breakdown of the Capitalist Subject?” via a post at Jodi’s. I think the piece is inadequate and evidences a widespread and mistaken understanding of capitalism which overemphasizes the sphere of circulation; this is common in conversations that conflate (anti-)capitalism with (anti-)neoliberalism. (more…)

I took a whole mess of notes on Don Hamerquist’s recent essay on Lenin and contemporary radical organization. Then I beat those notes into a slightly less jumbled thing, trying to work out what I think is going on in the piece and what I think of it.

The essay is doing a lot. (more…)

There’s an essay on that topic by Don Hamerquist here. Definitely worth a look, as are the responses. I took notes on a printout of the essay, I’m working on typing them up in the body of this post, when I’m done I need to read over all these notes and see what, if anything, they add up to, then I’d like to bang them into a more concise and coherent reply to at least some parts of the essay. (Don suggested I might do something that “extends Wetzel’s response in relationship to “autonomy for mass organizations”" and asked about my views “on democracy, participation, consciousness, and organization in terms of revolutionary strategy.”)

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I’m still in prefatory mode with regard to the reading group on chapter 25 of v1 of Capital. Duncan and NP have kicked things off good and proper with posts on chapter 25. There’s been some particularly substantial discussion at Duncan’s, I need to re-read it soon when I’ve had more sleep than I did during my first read through. Check it out.

Like I said, I’m in prefatory mode still. This post is my notes on chapter 24. Chapter 25 next, soon-ish. (more…)