Feedback from Jay Moore on Hardt-Negri

I thank Louis for his critique of "Empire". I'm glad that he actually made
it through -- which I couldn't do because I was so digusted with it both by
the more general issues Louis hits on and by its near-total divorce from an
examination of the facts on the ground. (Negri may have an excuse since
he's been in prison but what about Hardt?) This is supposed to be the "Das
Kapital" for the 21st century? Hah! Compare Marx's richly detailed
description taken from the British Blue Books of the disastrous effects of
industrial capitalism's rise on the working people in both core and
periphery. There's nothing like that whatsoever in "Empire". It operates
exclusively (except for a paltry few anecdotes) in abstraction.

One thing, however, I would say to Louis and others who may be trying to
get a fix on where these cats are coming from is that the linchpin for the
whole theoretical edifice is Negri's keen interest in Marx's "Grundrisse".
He wrote a long exigesis of it some years ago when he was associating in
France with Althusser's school -- sort of his response to their exigesis of
"Capital". Much more so than the few short (but much-quoted) articles by
Marx about the alleged civilizing effects of British colonialism in India,
the "Grundrisse" (written roughly around the same time period) is chock
full of sections that are conducive to that approach (although somewhat
more dialectical in Marx's original hands). If you want to pull out the rug
from under all of this stuff, that's where you have to go, I think. Good
luck. I'm not!

best, jay 

www.neravt.com/left/ 


Louis Proyect
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