Monday, February 21, 2005

Federation Interviews Louis Proyect

By Glorious Revolutionary Federation

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Posted 02/21 | Add a Comment

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  1. Thank you for the interview with Louis Proyect. Proyect’s writing and reviews of books and films are always thought-provoking and insightful, even if one disagrees with his views and politics.  He has written on many topics that are not usually covered in either mainstream or alternative media.  Kudos to Proyect and the Federation for publishing this interview.

    Posted by Tanweer Akram from West Chester, PA  on  02/23  at  07:37 PM

  2. I agree, but wonder how Mr. Proyect would respond to the charges that his comments, to a lesser degree, indicate the same sense of thinking as he complains about in/re the list out of which grew Marxmail.  It is a valid critique of Hardt and Negri to claim that their writings suffer from a poverty of economic analyses, but surely they aren’t setting out to make excuses for McDonalds, let alone Imperialism.

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  02/23  at  11:49 PM

  3. In Hardt and Negri, the proletariat has become the global multitude. ‘I keep thinking of fast-food workers in McDonald’s all over the world,’ says Hardt, ‘who wear a badge saying “Service with a Smile”.’ But there are stirrings within this ‘multitude’, says Hardt, that reach beyond its smiling servitude to Empire.

    So, even if Empire is ‘a more elusive system of exploitation’ than its predecessor, he says, ‘it also, simultaneously, creates more potential for wider co-operation and connections between people, which are the preconditions for liberatory movements.’

    full: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/global/story/0,10786,524215,00.html

    Posted by Louis Proyect from NYC  on  02/24  at  02:36 PM

  4. And what is wrong with that sentiment?  Surely it is more complicated than representing them as apologists, even if you disagree with their specific approach.

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  02/24  at  03:04 PM

  5. You have to read between the lines. What they are saying is this. Globalization results in the proliferation of McDonalds. That is the downside. The upside is that it creates a “Multitude” that transcends borders. Empire is a double-edged sword. It might lead to the destruction of local economies, but it creates the potential for new forms of solidarity. Okay, Karl Marx said more or less the same thing in his articles on India. But he was wrong.

    For a thorough discussion of all this, I refer you to:

    http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/modernism/hardt_negri.htm

    Comments are limited to 500 characters here, which hardly allows me to give the topic the attention it deserves.

    Posted by Louis Proyect from NYC  on  02/24  at  04:10 PM

  6. “Empire is a double-edged sword. It might lead to the destruction of local economies, but it creates the potential for new forms of solidarity.”

    So if a rapist expands his sphere of influence to extend beyond the community he was originally victimizing… to include the community’s contiguous counties… then the up side of this scenario is that boundaries will be transcended and more people will want to do something about the victimizer.

    *scratches his head*

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  02/26  at  11:29 AM
    7. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. {/if}

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