Marx on the Limits of Insurrectionism

The whole way of life of these professional conspirators has a most decidedly bohemian character. Recruiting sergeants for the conspiracy, they go from marchand de vin [wine merchant] to marchand de vin, feeling the pulse of the workers, seeking out their men, cajoling them into the conspiracy and getting either the society’s treasury or their new friends to foot the bill for the litres inevitably consumed in the process. Indeed it is really the marchand de vin who provides a roof over their heads. It is with him that the conspirator spends most of his time; it is here he has his rendezvous with his colleagues, with the members of his section and with prospective recruits; it is here, finally, that the secret meetings of sections (groups) and section leaders take place. The conspirator, highly sanguine in character anyway like all Parisian proletarians, soon develops into an absolute bambocheur in this continual tavern atmosphere. The sinister conspirator, who in secret session exhibits a Spartan self-discipline, suddenly thaws and is transformed into a tavern regular whom everybody knows and who really understands how to enjoy his wine and women. This conviviality is further intensified by the constant dangers the conspirator is exposed to; at any moment he may be called to the barricades, where he may be killed; at every turn the police set snares for him which may deliver him to prison or even to the galleys. Such dangers constitute the real spice of the trade; the greater the insecurity, the more the conspirator hastens to seize the pleasures of the moment. At the same time familiarity with danger makes him utterly indifferent to life and liberty. He is as at home in prison as in the wine-shop. He is ready for the call to action any day. The desperate recklessness which is exhibited in every insurrection in Paris is introduced precisely by these veteran professional conspirators, the hommes de coups de main [men of helping hands]. They are the ones who throw up and command the first barricades, who organise resistance, lead the looting of arms-shops and the seizure of arms and ammunition from houses, and in the midst of the uprising carry out those daring raids which so often throw the government party into confusion. In a word, they are the officers of the insurrection.

And now the good stuff:

It need scarcely be added that these conspirators do not confine themselves to the general organising of the revolutionary proletariat. It is precisely their business to anticipate the process of revolutionary development, to bring it artificially to crisis-point, to launch a revolution on the spur of the moment, without the conditions for a revolution. For them the only condition for revolution is the adequate preparation of their conspiracy. They are the alchemists of the revolution and are characterised by exactly the same chaotic thinking and blinkered obsessions as the alchemists of old. They leap at inventions which are supposed to work revolutionary miracles: incendiary bombs, destructive devices of magic effect, revolts which are expected to be all the more miraculous and astonishing in effect as their basis is less rational. Occupied with such scheming, they have no other purpose than the most immediate one of overthrowing the existing government and have the profoundest contempt for the more theoretical enlightenment of the proletariat about their class interests.

 

The chief characteristic of the conspirators’ way of life is their battle with the police, to whom they have precisely the same relationship as thieves and prostitutes. The police tolerate the conspiracies, and not just as a necessary evil: they tolerate them as centres which they can keep under easy observation and where the most violent revolutionary elements in society meet, as the forges of revolt, which in France has become a tool of government quite as necessary as the police themselves, and finally as a recruiting place for their own political mouchards [snitches].

Marx in the New German Times, 1850  

I came across this passage, specifically the second paragraph, via Walter Benjamin (who quotes it to describe Baudelaire’s politics) being quoted in Gayatri Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” She quotes it to describe the politics of Foucault and Deleuze.

Tronti on Generational Conflict

Those of us who had lived through the struggles of the factory workers in the early 60s looked on the student protests with sympathetic detachment. We had not predicted a clash of generations, though in the factories we had met the new layer of workers—especially young migrants from the South—who were active and creative, always in the lead (certainly compared to the older workers who were exhausted by past defeats). But in the factories, the bond between fathers and sons still held together; it was among the middle classes that it had snapped. This was an interesting phenomenon, but not decisive for changing the structural balance of forces between the classes. At Valle Giulia, in March 68, we were with the students against the police—not like Pasolini. But at the same time, we knew it was a struggle behind enemy lines, to determine who would be in charge of modernization. The old ruling class, the war-time generation, was exhausted. A new elite was pressing forward into the light; a new ruling class for the globalized capitalism that lay in the future.

…

The remarkable youth of 68 did not understand—nor did we, though we would grasp it soon enough—this truth: to demolish authority did not automatically mean the liberation of human diversity; it could mean, and this is what happened, freedom specifically for the animal spirits of capitalism, which had been stamping restlessly inside the iron cage of the social contract that the system had seen as an unavoidable cure for the years of revolution, crisis and war.

Mario Tronti, “Our Operaismo”

So if we take Tronti’s prescience at face-value, what he already detected during 1968 was intercapitalist competition within generational struggle. With the ambivalence that marks the entire essay, Tronti shows how the Old Fordist CEOs were being challenged by those who would later extract surplus value from Foxconn workers and pageclicks: their children.

employee training

Sometimes you learn more than you expect.

best margin comment on a term paper ever?

Thanks, prof.

me and lorenzo…

…rolling in a benzo

Interesting Twitter Juxtapositions Pt. 1

Death List 2010

Well, after 2009′s stunning success, I can’t very well back out this year. Here are my picks for the celebrities most likely to drop dead in 2010.

1. Bernard Madoff – I can imagine the will to live is receding. Plus prison is never good for one’s health, especially with Bernie’s propensity to “fall out of bed on to his face.”

2. Fidel Castro – Never a good bet for death poolers, Castro nevertheless must drop at some point. I’m calling 2010.

3. Mickey Rooney – Really really old!

4. Gene Wilder – A bit of a wild card pick, but he’s had cancer, hasn’t looked good.

5. Helen Thomas – Had chutzpah to survive the ignominy of the Bush years, but she’s almost 90.

6. Alan Greenspan – Wishful thinking?

7. Rev. Sun Myung Moon – Newly prominent on my radar since my move to Washington D.C., this self-professed messiah and media mogul is about ready for his (next?) acsension to the afterlife.

8. Aretha Franklin – Judging from her appearance at Obama’s inauguration, her fashion sense is the only thing healthy about her.

9. Bobby Brown – Another wild card – drug problems probably haven’t improved since his divorce from Whitney.

10. Barbara Walters – Toss up between her and Burt Reynolds, but I wanted more female representation on my list. Still going strong at 80, so this could be one of 2010′s most high profile deaths.

Changes

I’ve finally revamped the design of this blog, with an according (slight) adjustment in what I do here. First of all, I’m dropping the pseudo-anonymous character I’ve inconsistently deployed in the past — so inconsistent that I was outed almost immediately. I’m Gavin Mueller, a PhD student in the Cultural Studies program at George Mason University. I live in Washington D.C. Pleased to meet you. Please don’t steal my credit card information.

Today I’m reading the requisite Clifford Geertz to prepare for tomorrow’s classes, so no big updates. Instead, why don’t you check out the newly-minted blogs of a couple of friends. At For The Commonweal Matt shares his thoughts on teaching, writing, and the academic grind in general. Katherine at Pomegranate Express muses on issues on Armenia and the Caucasus; if you’ve enjoyed my posts on Armenian music in the past, make sure to check out her post on the current Armenian-Azeri Eurovision controversy.

Recent Google-Directed Traffic

 

Answer: No.

Celebrity Death List 2009

 

To be honest I was a little apprehensive about doing another celebrity death list this year — not only is it morbid, but I felt that such an endeavor falls short of the quasi-intellectual tenor I gesture towards in this blog. Plus Charles kicks my ass every year. On the other hand, celebrity death allows an unparalleled peek at the awful economics of the fame industry — Charles’ often-brilliant commentary (unfortunately relegated to a long-dormant Myspace profile) parses who’s been unjustly overlooked, who’s been given a token farewell, who had the misfortune of dying in the same week as someone more famous or more beautiful, exposing the merciless side of celebrity (the side that includes, of course, lists such as these). So I’m doing one for 2009 — in any case, I think I’ve gotten better at this and might actually have a decent showing for once. 

1. Nancy Reagan – Recent hip problems are the fabled “kiss of the death” for the elderly.
2. Nate Dogg – Two strokes have left him in a coma. 
3. Ted Kennedy – News articles are already treating him as a dead man walking.
4. Robert Novak — Brain problems, and I don’t mean his Republican affiliation.
5. Dick Clark – Eternal teenager no more.
6. Dear Abby – Has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for over 10 years.
7. Michael Jackson – It’s gotta happen sooner rather than later.
8. Jerry Lewis – Hasn’t looked healthy in a while.
9. Patrick Swayze – Cancerous.
10.  Dick Cheney – I think he’s accomplished all the evil he set out to do.

Lots of Republicans on this list — wishful thinking about marking the end of an era?