Autonomy in the UK

[butchersapron]

Most of it is simply reportage and old fashioned 50s-70s-style participant-investigation that the operaismo style approach was designed to get past - certainly not worker inquiries. The sort of thing that Toynbee does when she goes undercover poor for a week. For a start, worker inquiries are collective projects. Jamie Woodcock's (the main editor i suspect) book was the same. The overwhelming dominance of academia and academics is worrying and pretty far from the tradition of conricerca or co-research. I think they jumped the gun here and should have carried out (or helped organise) some actual long term WI then report back instead of getting carried away and padding a few bits of reportage with already published articles on the subject. And maybe reached out a bit more...even to people not from the 2010 student protests. Maybe that will happen now. Good to see at least some moves this way.

The work/rent bulletins are crap - they should be directed to AWW for lessons.

 

[LDC]

Angry Workers of the World... They did a great intervention (or at least not toeing the party line) at the final plenary at the last Plan C Fast Forward event.

Counter-power at the Plan C Fast Forward Festival

 

[seventh bullet]

Well the bulletins are obviously aimed at workers...

Patronising too.

 

[seventh bullet]

You can tell they were written by people who are not really of that place of shit work for life. The use of 'mates,' as if some prick was trying hard to think of ways in which 'the proles' speak. This from people displaying their credentials. Well, the academic bit is convincing. The other I'm struggling at the bottom credentials smell of middle class bullshit. 'How can we talk to the workers.' Fuck off.

Just a supermarket worker's uneducated opinion.

 

[chilango]

The Bulletins are pretty weak imo. They could, and should, be a lot better, but that would need input from outside/beyond. But I guess if the Bulletins draw more in then then they may get better...

That's a big 'if' though.

Not sure why but I'm reminded a little of Processed World. But that was waaay better.

They should drop the weak agitational stuff and just collate and distribute some first hand accounts. Like Echanges et Mouvement used to do. No sense at this point of crudely tacking on an exhortion to "organise!".

 

[imposs1904]

Thanks. Looks interesting.

...but "Seth Wheeler is a PhD student at the University of Royal Holloway, his study is paid for by precarious labour..." Really?

Could he be referring to someone else's precarious labour?

 

[equationgirl]

To me it just feels like an academic exercise (current research topic du jour) rather than a real attempt at making things better for workers.

 

[Lurdan]

Found this text by Claudio Albertani on my hard drive over Christmas. (Translated it years ago and forgot about it).

Claudio Albertani - Empire and its Pitfalls.pdf

It's a critique of Negri and Hardt's Empire but the long central section is an account and assessment of operaismo. Don't really share Albertani's political perspective at the time he wrote this but it makes some valid points imo. (Back in 1978 Albertani wrote an interesting text about the events in Italy which was translated into English although afaics that isn't online).

 

[butchersapron]

Found this text by Claudio Albertani on my hard drive over Christmas. (Translated it years ago and forgot about it).

Claudio Albertani - Empire and its Pitfalls.pdf

It's a critique of Negri and Hardt's Empire but the long central section is an account and assessment of operaismo. Don't really share Albertani's political perspective at the time he wrote this but it makes some valid points imo. (Back in 1978 Albertani wrote an interesting text about the events in Italy which was translated into English although afaics that isn't online).

Thanks for that. There's a chapter by Maria Turchetto in the Historical Materialism book Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism that has the title From ‘Mass Worker’ to ‘Empire’: The Disconcerting Trajectory of Italian Operaismo that seems to follow the same line. It was published in French in 2001. Claudio Albertani recommends her writings in that 2003 piece.

(oh yeah, for those not clicking on the CA piece the title is Empire and its pitfalls: Toni Negri and the disconcerting trajectory of Italian workerism)

 

[butchersapron]

Notes From Below

Seems new.

Good new interview with Steve Wright Italian workerism and its enduring legacy: Steve Wright interview

Audio:

Weathering the Storm: The Enduring Legacy of Italian Workerism

Last December Viewpoint hosted a roundtable discussion on Steve Wright’s seminal history of Italian workerism, Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism. Wright was joined by two Viewpoint collective members, Cinzia Arruzza and Evan Calder Williams, and by contributing writer and comrade Sandro Mezzadra. As we gear up for some more IRL events this spring and summer, we’re glad to share an audio recording from our conversation that night.

 

[butchersapron]

New Notes from Below - again doesn't appear to be a single actual workers inquiry despite their proclaimed rubric but instead people writing about workers or renters etc. Obv some interesting stuff in there but i wish they'd drop that workers inquiry angle - i suspect i know why it's there, it's to carve out a niche in the growing academic interest in operaismo and autonomism.

 

[redsquirrel]

Cheers for the link Butchers.

 

[butchersapron]

May be of interest to some in the area gawkrodger :

Almost There: An undisciplined history of the sociology of Operaismo

Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta (University of Naples Federico II)

Wednesday 20 February
4.30pm
University of Birmingham (Muirhead 122)

The talk offers a cartography of Italian Autonomous Marxism practices, theories and debates from the mid-50s, passing through 70s molecularization and military repression until the recent revival of cognitive capitalism and the ‘institutions of common’ during the latest decades. This socio-historical contextualization will show how the practices and discourses of the Italian technocratic elites reacted to the unmanageable everyday practices of lay and undisciplined subjectivities from which Operaist sociology built and developed antagonistic epistemological methods, sophisticated conceptual innovations and political tactics and strategies. Starting from this discussion, the recent development of post-operaisti will be critically analyzed within current debates about hegemony, praxis and institutional compromise of the European social movements.

 

[gawkrodger]

aye, received an invite earlier. Should be able to make it

 

[gawkrodger]

May be of interest to some in the area gawkrodger :

Almost There: An undisciplined history of the sociology of Operaismo

Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta (University of Naples Federico II)

Wednesday 20 February
4.30pm
University of Birmingham (Muirhead 122)

The talk offers a cartography of Italian Autonomous Marxism practices, theories and debates from the mid-50s, passing through 70s molecularization and military repression until the recent revival of cognitive capitalism and the ‘institutions of common’ during the latest decades. This socio-historical contextualization will show how the practices and discourses of the Italian technocratic elites reacted to the unmanageable everyday practices of lay and undisciplined subjectivities from which Operaist sociology built and developed antagonistic epistemological methods, sophisticated conceptual innovations and political tactics and strategies. Starting from this discussion, the recent development of post-operaisti will be critically analyzed within current debates about hegemony, praxis and institutional compromise of the European social movements.

Really wasn't a strong talk, though did record it if anyone wants me to upload

 

[butchersapron]

Mario Tronti's seminal Workers and Capital has finally been fully translated into English and is being published by Verso next month. I'm glad the translation has been done by David Broeder.

 

[chilango]

Mario Tronti's seminal Workers and Capital has finally been fully translated into English and is being published by Verso next month. I'm glad the translation has been done by David Broeder.

Great. Will buy this when it's in one of their sales.

 

[redsquirrel]

Mario Tronti's seminal Workers and Capital has finally been fully translated into English and is being published by Verso next month. I'm glad the translation has been done by David Broeder.

Cheers for the heads up

 

[Lurdan]

While the paperback is out next month the ebook version seems to be available now. It's currently listed at 40% off - I assume that means it's part of the sale which runs for another couple of days.

 

[chilango]

While the paperback is out next month the ebook version seems to be available now. It's currently listed at 40% off - I assume that means it's part of the sale which runs for another couple of days.

It is.

But a tenner for an ebook is still too steep for me.

A tenner for a paperback + ebook bundle. Sure, maybe.

Or I'll wait till it's 70-90% off at some point.

I'm tight like that.

 

[gawkrodger]

Mario Tronti's seminal Workers and Capital has finally been fully translated into English and is being published by Verso next month. I'm glad the translation has been done by David Broeder.

great news

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Also as chilango has pointed out elsewhere - Pluto have an ebook sale on which means you can get this lot for 2 quid a pop:

Towards a Gay Communism

Storming Heaven - Second Edition

Commoning with George Caffentzis and Silvia Federici

Wages for Housework

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Meanwhile I have finally entered the Deleuzian netherworld of the Semiotext(e) Italian issue courtesy of Walthamstow Barnados...

 

[Fozzie Bear]

 

[butchersapron]

Ugh

Anyway, keeping up with the original 'autonomists' (though i doubt he would welcome that description) theme the great Marco Revelli (ex lotta continua as it goes) has just had The New Populism: Democracy Stares into the Abyss translated and published - it's a very good in-depth look across europe and the US that is politically harder than stuff like Goodwin's and much more analytically useful.

 

[chilango]

Ugh

Anyway, keeping up with the original 'autonomists' (though i doubt he would welcome that description) theme the great Marco Revelli (ex lotta continua as it goes) has just had The New Populism: Democracy Stares into the Abyss translated and published - it's a very good in-depth look across europe and the US that is politically harder than stuff like Goodwin's and much more analytically useful.

Another one to add to the sale shopping list hurry up and do one of your 90% off ebook sales please Verso.

 

[chilango]

Another one to add to the sale shopping list hurry up and do one of your 90% off ebook sales please Verso.

...and as if by magic!

90% off right now.

 

[redsquirrel]

...and as if by magic!

90% off right now.

Ta for the heads up chilango

 

[Lurdan]

The Revelli has already leaked to libgen where there is currently a 100% discount.

Very interesting book IMO (albeit coming from a political perspective I don't share). There's an associated David Broder interview with him at Jacobin.

 

[butchersapron]

Verso are doing physical copies of Workers and Capital half price to email subscribers (a tenner) and 30% off to others for now.