hydrarchist writes:

"The End of Work or the Renaissance of Slavery?

A Critique of Rifkin and Negri"

Introduction

The last few years in the U.S. has seen a return of a discussion of work that
is reminiscent of the mid-1970s, but with a number of twists. In the earlier period, books like Where Have All
the Robots Gone? (Sheppard 1972), False Promises (Aronowitz 1972)and Work in America (Special
Task Force 1973), and phrases like "blue collar blues," "zerowork" and "the refusal of
work" revealed a crisis of the assembly line worker which expressed itself most dramatically in wildcat strikes
in U.S. auto factories in 1973 and 1974 (Linebaugh and Ramirez 1992). These strikes were aimed at negating the
correlation between wages and productivity that had been the basis of the "deal" auto capital struck
with the auto unions in the 1940s. As Linebaugh and Ramirez wrote of the Dodge Truck plant wildcat involving 6000
workers in Warren, Michigan between June 10-14, 1974:

Demands were not formulated until the third day of
the strike. They asked for "everything." One worker said, "I just don't want to work." The
separation between income and productivity, enforced by the struggle, could not have been clearer (Linebaugh and
Ramirez 1992: 160).

hydrarchist writes "

Remembering the Kwangju Uprising

By George Katsiaficas

Archimedes once declared, “Give me a fixed point and I can move the earth.” Historically speaking, the Kwangju people’s uprising of 1980 is such a fixed point. It was the pivot around which dictatorship was transformed into democracy in South Korea. Twenty years afterwards, its energy resonates strongly across the world. Among other things, its history provides both a glimpse of the free society of the future and a sober and realistic assessment of the role of the U.S. government and its allies in Asia.

hydrarchist writes

Multitude/ Working Class

Paolo Virno

Maurizio Lazzarato: Could you define the similarities and the differences between the notion of "multitude" as it's been conceived in the history of philosophy and the use that we make of it today? Is there continuity of rupture between the concept of "multitude" and the concept of "working class"? Can the two concepts be integrated or do they refer to two "different politics"?

Paolo Virno: There are some analogies and many differences between the contemporary multitude and the multitude studied by the political philosophers of C17th.

The aftermath of the terrorist attacks has revived imperialist ideology in the United States, rather than caused it to query its world role. Writers do not hesitate to draw parallels between their nation and ancient Rome, which they hold to be a model for world domination in the 21st century.

The Westward Course of Empire

Phillip S. Golub, Le Monde Diplomatique (English language version)

A WHILE before 11 September the American historian, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, suggested that despite the "absence of international checks and balances" in the modern unipolar world, the United States would not "stroll too far down the perilous highway to hubris . . . No one nation is going to be able to assume the role of world arbitrator and policeman" (1). Like many American intellectuals, he remained confident about US democracy and the rationality of decision making. And Charles William Maynes, an influential voice in US foreign policy, asserted: "America is a country with imperial capabilities but without an imperial mind" (2).