Having just sent a posting (to "Discussion of Empire 26.10.01") I thought I would follow it up.
Although not in the language of Hardt and Negri (which I also find difficult) you seem to be calling for as radical a rethink.
But can it succeed in a compete break through images of graveside and burial?
After all Marx wrote about how communist society emerges [his emphasis] from capitalist society and is thus "in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges."
So is this not likely also to be true of the left wing tradition?
On these lists the spontaneous consciousness is to look for fellow isolates from the cruelty of capitalism and to bond together in sectarian and superior separateness from ordinary people. A smattering of knowledge of marxism, plus an arrogant supply of self-confidence can silence more enquiring voices looking for radical change which may not always lead to a violent revolution but will unite with much larger numbers of people.
Perhaps we cannot ask left-wing people to bury their past but to celebrate it and re-explore it.
When you say:
The proof of the pudding, and all that, is all around us.
That for me is reminiscent of the proposition in the Communist Manifesto that
"The theoretical conclusions of the Communists... merely express in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes."
But then if we sound too optimistic about that, we can be accused of utopianism....
Back to the graveside!
Chris Burford
London
