Several questions were triggered by the readings.
(1) Subaltern Development. Eve has mentioned in several posts the nationalizing attempts in Latin America as models for counterhegemonic resistance, but it seems that Hardt and Negri see these movements as mistakes. “As an alternative to false development pandered by the economists of the dominant capitalist countries, the theorists of underdevelopment promoted real development, which involves de-ling an economy from its dependent relationships and articulating in relative isolation an autonomous structure...Any attempt at isolation or separation will mean only a more brutal kind of domination by the global system, a reduction to powerlessness and poverty.” How does the idea of “exodus” (Hardt/Negri) or “defection” fit in as resistant if leaving the Empire does more harm than good?
(2) Individual versus Collective. I am having trouble reconciling Virno’s multitude with the the panoptic individuation in post-Fordism I agreed with when reading Robins & Webster (and elaborated by Harvey – “a general shift from the collective norms and values that were hegemonic in working-class organizations...towards a much more competitive individualism as the central value in an entrepreneurial culture” (171))
(3) The ephemeral commodity. I was very encouraged by Terranova’s concept of the ephemeral commodity – its transparency making the labor process more evident thereby eliminating the fetishism of the mass-produced commodity. Harvey seems to speak to this less durable, ephemeral product but it seems less empowering here, a mere ploy by capital to accelerate the turnover time of consumption: “The relatively stable aesthetic of Fordist modernism has given way to all the ferment, instability, and fleeting qualities of a postmodernist aesthetic that celebrates difference, ephemerality, spectacle, fashion, and the commodification of cultural forms” (156).
(4) “The assembly line has been replaced by the network” – what a strange way to speak of informatization and post-modernization given that the assembly line is the Taylorist labor control model of production par excellence. Perhaps Taylorism or scientific management isn’t “post,” but rather it has changed with the primacy of consumption dictating production.
(5) Capital versus Labor. Dyer-Witherford argued that capital is not the agent, but rather is simply reacting to strengthening labor opposition; however, Harvey seems to narrate a much more complex story with roles played by the state, capitalist, and labor. Harvey’s narrative seems to give capital more weight: this change to flexible accumulates is attributed to capital’s reduction of crisis in overaccumulation (and the implied efforts to maximize profits). In fact, I’m trying to reconcile the Hardt and Negri and Dyer-Witherford concept of the “socialized worker” with the labor under flexible accumulation described by Harvey (a hybrid of highly productive Fordist production coexisting with resurgent traditional (i.e., paternalistic, familiar, artisanal) labor). The idea of peripheralized, casualized labor (more common to tertiary service sector labor) seems to be a common thread in both.
(6) The role of the welfare state in Fordism. Most of the reading speak about the government and the welfare state of the 1930s-1970s as an integral part to the relative success and stability of Fordism: “What is remarkable is the way in which national governments of quite different ideological complexions engineered both stable economic growth and rising material living standards through a mix of welfare statism, Keynesian economic management, and control over wage relations. Fordism depended, evidently, upon the nation state taking a very special role within the overall system of social regulation” (Harvey 135). However, Hardt and Negri speak about the welfare state in very different terms in the section on the commons, views as a public space appropriated by private interests: “The rise and fall of the welfare state in the twentieth century is one more cycle in this spiral of public and private appropriations. The crisis of the welfare state has meant primarily that the structure of public assistance and distribution, which were constructed through public funds, are being privatized and expropriated for private gain."
Long post. Had to get this out.
1 comment:
Just to throw my two cents in relation to your first point. There are some affinities between Eve's example and the potential of immaterial labor if we say that a farmer's immaterial labor consists of knowledge-info-affect-communication about farming in general. Because they have used their knowledge and skills of farming against the system of capital that tends toward growth of profits through agriculture, then this would be a valid form of resistance.
Also, there is no reason why we couldn't divorce this type of subaltern development from general theories of developmental economics, which tend to lump all forms of independent development together (industry, agriculture, banking, etc.). To do this we would need to posit that growing food for consumption is a basic human right.
All said, though, Hardt and Negri fail to pull agriculture along with their theory of dominant forms of production where informatisation or tertiary production comes to dominate factory production just as factory production dominated agricultural production during its height in Fordism. It should follow from their theory that agriculture should also bear the marks of informatisation.
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