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Autonomy in the UK

Not sure where to put this, so I'll bump this thread but the new Notes from Below book thing is actually pretty good (at least what I've read so far).


You ought to be able to download it as an epub/mobi there but the page seems pretty glitchy.

They'll send out a print copy for free/postage/donation too.
 
Book out a few months back - The Weapon of Organization: Mario Tronti’s Political Revolution in Marxism - edited by Andrew Anastasi. I suppose you could say it's come from the Viewpoint milieu. It's a collection of early pieces, letters, editorial work, talks and notes from 59-67. It's fairly disconcerting - to put it mildly - to read the preface recommending autonomous projects accept elite philanthropy.

The Golden Horde still not published - now put back until may 2021. Also seeming to be fated to be put back (was promised by end of 2020) is Steve Wright's (finally) book The Weight of the Printed Word. Text, Context and Militancy in Operaismo. I'm sorry to say that it's in the Historical Materialism Book series, so will be going for 150 quid. I'm sure we can do better than that.

Also came across this phd dissertation:

The "Social Factory" In Postwar Italian Radical Thought From Operaismo To Autonomia

This dissertation examines the "social factory" as it developed conceptually within postwar Italian Autonomist Marxism. This concept is defined historically as an outgrowth of the critique of political economy that accompanied a rethinking of Marxism in postwar Italian working class political thought through the experience of Quaderni Rossi, which culminated in the theoretical and practical work of Potere Operaio, with fragments in the area of Autonomia. Historically, this dissertation locates the "social factory" as derivative of two figures: Raniero Panzieri and Mario Tronti, as well as two subsidiary movements that were articulated, separately, by Antonio Negri and Mariarosa Dalla Costa.
 
Further to the above- Steve Wright talking to Anastasi about Tronti:

Why Tronti? Why Now?

The philosopher and politician Mario Tronti remains one of the most important Marxists and political theorists in postwar Italy, yet until now, no critical edition of his work has appeared in English. This is why Andrew Anastasi‘s edited volume The Weapon of Organization is so crucial: it presents Tronti in his own words, bringing together 17 original translations of work composed over the course of the tumultuous 1960s. These essays, letters, and speeches are accompanied by editorial introductions and notes written for a contemporary audience. Tronti argued that revolutionaries ought to conceptualize politics not on the basis of intellectual reflection but in solidarity with the ongoing rhythms of working-class struggle. This anthology aims to provide today’s activists, organizers, students, and theorists with materials that document Tronti’s innovative approach to Marxism with the hope of shining light on new paths of revolutionary thought and action. Steve Wright, author of the definitive English-language history of Italian autonomism (recently released in its second edition), interviewed Anastasi about the new volume and the relevance of Tronti’s thought for the current moment for Spectre.
 
Notes from Below asking people to do a class composition inquiry thing: The Class Composition Project

As someone who's not really that plugged into the milieu/doesn't live in London, I do sometimes find myself wondering what the relationship between the fancy academic workerists of NFB and the proper workerist workerists of AWW/LGR is like. Have they ever cooperated on anything?
 
Notes from Below asking people to do a class composition inquiry thing: The Class Composition Project

As someone who's not really that plugged into the milieu/doesn't live in London, I do sometimes find myself wondering what the relationship between the fancy academic workerists of NFB and the proper workerist workerists of AWW/LGR is like. Have they ever cooperated on anything?

Not 'officially' but a couple of AWW folks are on the edges of the NfB project you mention. I am very skeptical it'll be much more than an academic career boosting project for some at the moment though, but maybe that'll be proven wrong...?
 
Notes from Below asking people to do a class composition inquiry thing: The Class Composition Project

As someone who's not really that plugged into the milieu/doesn't live in London, I do sometimes find myself wondering what the relationship between the fancy academic workerists of NFB and the proper workerist workerists of AWW/LGR is like. Have they ever cooperated on anything?
Every time I see NFB I think notes from the borderland. Which is rather different
 

I'd seen references to this before, but never the actual thing.

Looks pretty cool, by some London-based autonomists (including I think one former person around the "London Autonomists")

The editorial looks like they were trying to be a bit Midnight Notes.
 

I'd seen references to this before, but never the actual thing.

Looks pretty cool, by some London-based autonomists (including I think one former person around the "London Autonomists")

The editorial looks like they were trying to be a bit Midnight Notes.
Just a bit! Enclosure enclosure enclosure!!! Alright yeah
 
Looks pretty cool, by some London-based autonomists (including I think one former person around the "London Autonomists")
My impression at the time was that the people behind it seemed to be in contact with Ed Emery.

On a completely different note, and apologies if this is old news. I had thought the online archives of the defunct aut-op-sy mailing list had all vanished but recently discovered the 1996-2004 archive (together with the those for the other mailing lists hosted by the Spoon Collective) is now at driftline.org. The archive after 2004, when it changed mail server, does seem gone fwiw.
 
Since this seems to be the closest thing to an Ignatiev thread, will plug here that the overachieving dead bugger has a new book out:

Can get it with a 40% discount off Facing Reality and/or a book about 19th century abolitionists I've never heard of, if that tempts anyone.
 
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Since this seems to be the closest thing to an Ignatiev thread, will plug here that the overachieving dead bugger has a new book out:

Can get it with a 40% discount off Facing Reality and/or a book about 19th century abolitionists I've never heard of, if that tempts anyone.

Ah right, good. Been meaning to post this podcast about the book too:


Still a bit shit that Hard Crackers seems to have no distribution in Europe?
 
Since this seems to be the closest thing to an Ignatiev thread, will plug here that the overachieving dead bugger has a new book out:

Can get it with a 40% discount off Facing Reality and/or a book about 19th century abolitionists I've never heard of, if that tempts anyone.
It's tempting. The story sounds the same as over here, constantly trying to put the mill on stop (whilst making it look like an unfortunate accident) to get a couple of hours kip in our hidden cots deep in the cellars. The perfect way to pass a nightshift.
 
May be of interest to history nerds, a letter from Peter Linebaugh to EP Thompson (I think) asking him to join the Negri defence campaign:
 
Polity are publishing the first part of a new Negri trilogy on Operaismo a week today - majority seem newly translated:

Marx in Movement: Operaismo in Context - Antonio Negri Translated by Ed Emery

This first volume in a new trilogy of books by Antonio Negri examines and develops the Italian tradition of radical Marxist thought known as operaismo or ‘autonomist Marxism’ – the tradition to which Negri himself adheres and in which he is a leading figure. The tradition of operaismo emphasizes the role of the worker in capitalism and the primacy of class struggle. Within this framework, Negri’s key contribution has been to theorize the transition from the ‘mass worker’ to the ‘social worker’ – that is, to broaden the concept of living labour and liberate it from the theoretical cages that locked it into the factory. It was only by moving beyond the ideology and political practice of the mass worker that the revolutionary character of the Marxist concept of class could be updated for our times and developed in relation to the exploitation and socialization of living labour, including networks of cognitive work, reproductive work and care work, networks which also have the potential to become the bases for new forms of resistance to capitalist exploitation.By bringing together Negri’s key contributions to the reconceptualization of the worker and class struggle, this volume demonstrates the vitality of the Marxist tradition of operaismo and its continued relevance for understanding the key social and political struggles of our time.

---

The new Steve Wright book in the Historical Materialism series is also now published:

The Weight of the Printed Word: Text, Context and Militancy in Operaismo

In The Weight of the Printed Word, Steve Wright explores the creation and use of documents as a key dimension in the activities of the Italian workerists during the 1960s and 1970s. From leaflets and newspapers to books, internal documents and workers’ enquiries; the operaisti deployed a wide variety of printed materials in their efforts to organise amongst new subjectivities of mass rebellion.

Early chapters may well prove to be useful in clearing away a lot of the rubbish around now posing as workers enquiries.
 
Very sad news, not least because that generation of enraged ultra types (who in the case of the Wises worked as building labourers as well as blagging iirc?) isn't being replaced by anything nearly as good.
 
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