Negri's Autonomia Operaia.
Saturday, I found myself at Stanley
Aronowitz’ house talking about
Insurgencies
Constituent Power and the Modern State by Antonio Negri.
Social movement are all about things people desire, freedom, autonomy, respect, democracy.
We see this in play from
Hong
Kong to Chile.
The point is how to connect the action in the
street, with thought and theory.
The activity is important.
But so is the thought.
The struggle is the educational apparatus.
What about Negri, asked another
participant in the discussion.
He was born in 1933,
influenced by the 1960’s, thinking about Spinoza, leading Autonomia Operaia, delivering
this work as a counternarrative to neoliberalism in 1992.
This is a
provocative, important book, says Stanley.
There are few works
in the Marxist tradition that have originality.
The erudition here is
stunning.
The story is essentially
a contrast between constituent and constitutional limits,
no limits, vs limits.
What’s constitutionalism
– an attempt by existing order to maintain it.
The larger issue is determination
vs constitutional democracy, based on limits.
Democracy is constituent
power, open to our imagination.
The Soviets turned on
the anarchists, who supported them in Russia,
And their ideas about
constituent power.
Anarchists are advocates of constituent power, without limits.
Two concepts concretize
the imaginary.
Absence and desire,
posits Stanley.
Absence is employed
over and over again.
Representing
democratic constraints.
“
Negri writes:
“The constitutionalist
paradigm always refers to the "mixed constitution," the mediation of
inequality, and therefore it is a nondemocratic paradigm. In contrast, the
paradigm of constituent power is that of a force that bursts apart, breaks,
interrupts, unhinges any preexisting equilibrium and any possible continuity. Constituent
power is tied to the notion of democracy as absolute power.”
Even revolutions must
bow to power.
The Birth of Tragedy
by Neitzche, contrasts the eros of Dionysus and the linear
thought Apollo.
The philosopher writes:
“…art owes its continuous evolution to the
Apollinian-Dionysian duality, even as the propagation of the species depends on
the duality of the sexes, their constant conflicts and periodic acts of
reconciliation. I have borrowed my adjectives from the Greeks, who developed
their mystical doctrines of art through plausible embodiments, not through
purely conceptual means. It is by those two art sponsoring deities, Apollo and
Dionysus, that we are made to recognize the tremendous split, as regards both
origins and objectives, between the plastic, Apollinian arts and the nonvisual
art of music inspired by Dionysus. The two creative tendencies developed
alongside one another, usually in fierce opposition, each by its taunts forcing
the other to more energetic production, both perpetuating in a discordant
concord that agon which the term art but feebly denominates…”
Listening to the discussion, I find myself thinking of the debates about the memorandum us agreement around our
new PSC contract with the university.
The two sides dueling with each other.
Jotting notes about constituent vs constitutional power,
Absence vs desire:
Void – Hope
Reality – Imagination.
Possible vs
Impossible.
Implosion vs Explosion.
The Taylor Law vs Strikers.
Rule of Law vs Anarchism.
Restricted vs free
bodies.
Electoral College vs One person, one vote.
Constituent dreams do
not always come true.
This is a dreamscape,
a living force o f the imagination.
Hopefully, activism
feels invigorating, giving our life
meaning.
Providing solidarity
and support.
Community and creativity.
We have to adapt.
Our politics is complicated.
I left the reading
group to attend an Extinction Rebellion talk right afterward.
We can’t all go off and live in the woods.
These are systemic problems
that are not going to solve themselves, one of the facilitators mentioned
during the Extinction Rebellion Heading Towards Extinction Talk during the 8th Annual Permaculture Festival.
“The planet is in ecological crisis.
Scientists believe we may have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown.
This is an emergency. In this public talk…. members of Extinction Rebellion
will share the latest climate science, discuss the psychology around climate
change, and offer details about this social movement. Everyone is welcome and
there will be Q&A afterwards that includes the representatives from the New
York Permaculture Exchange.”
Its not so easy.
XR is a decentralized
movement.
The IPCC report
suggests we have a dozen years to act.
It’s a hard thing to
talk about.
There are not enough butterflies in the garden.
Its actually ok to talk about it.
What’s our five year,
our ten year plan to cope with increasing greenhouse gasses?
There are too many
fossil fuels.
We’re getting too hot.
There’s too much carbon
in our atmosphere.
There are time delays
to feel it, but we’re feeling it.
Temperatures rising.
July 2019 was the
hottest month ever.
The ocean is acting
as a buffer the heat.
Still, we’re witnessing
sea levels rising.
Sea ice is decreasing
13% per decade.
There is a chance
there will be no permanent sea ice after
2030.
Decrease in glaciers.
No glaciers in Glacier
National Park by 2022.
These small changes
reverberate.
Disequilibrium is the
new normal.
Sea levels rising,
coastal erosion,
With 11 of the 15
largest cities on the coasts,
more migration problems, hurricanes, and extreme storms.
So let’s get organized
and do something about it, implore the organizers.
Lets move this forward.
Some resent XR.
Others resent the MOA
saying it doesn’t go far enough.
Those in XR think we
are not moving fast enough.
Too much capitalism,
Too many debates
about jobs.
I thought about it
all,
On the way to try to
catch bike kill, dreaming about what could
be.
“Next week we will be
back to our usual subjects, death, love,
and climate change,” notes Donna the
next day at Judson, beginning her sermon about the raised fist.
“Relationships are built
at the speed of trust.
Social movements are
built at the speed of trust.’
“Sometimes we can be wrong in the right ways, and right in
the wrong ways…”
“We believe in inclusion.”
And hopefully
solidarity.
“…even the darkness will not be dark
to you; the night will shine
like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my
mother's womb. I praise you because I am
fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,”
Psalm 139,7-14
We hope for solidarity.
To be seen.
Our efforts
acknowledged.
Instead poverty diminishes
us.
Near Eve Adams’ old
tea room, I wondered what they would think.
What came of their dreams?
Spent all weekend
debating,
thinking wondering about
our contract.
As a social movement watcher and supporter for a few
decades now, I tend to follow people who have
delivered in the past. That is why I support
efforts by Barbara, Mike, Penny, Alex, and countless others
in our leadership,
the people i have marched with through the years, the
people who have delivered adjunct healthcare and other gains, and
contract after contract.
I supported a strike as a member of the California Faculty
Association.
There is no Taylor Law in California, that i know of.
I supported our strike resolution a few years
ago. It took hours per member to get signatures, something i
don't think we could get now.
I asked our membership if they want to strike.
And they voted down the position.
And I've taken Stanley Aronowitz’s classes where endorses
strikes,
although to my knowledge, he never lead one
among public sector workers here.
My friend LA Kaufman, author of Direct Action,
reminds us not to fetishize one tactic over another.
We need to be flexible, she reminds us.
I read the 7K or Strike argument that we reject the
moa in favor of a strike.
I'd like to ask if anyone in 7K or strike if they've
ever been a part of a successful strike among public sector workers in
New York? If so, how did it go?
The last strike i know of with public sector workers in New
York was the TWU workers strike of 2005 that came close to breaking the
union.
The results were disastrous. As one writer notes:
"Between the two votes, the Local was fined $2.5
million for ignoring a judge’s injunction against the strike. The Local will
lose its right to have dues automatically deducted from members’ paychecks
after the fine is paid off in June 2007. Each individual striker was fined a
day’s pay (on top of the day lost while striking) for each day of the strike.
And in a stunning development, Roger Toussaint was sentenced to 10 days in jail
for contempt of court.
(9)"
How would we avoid a similar fate if rejected
this offer and went on strike?
The conversation continues all weekend.
With little common ground.
Several agreed 2005
was an unmitigated disaster.
Some suggest it helped
move things forward.
The last public
sector strike to move things forward was the TWU 1980, 39 years ago.
The dualism between
constituent and constitutionalism back and forth.
Mike Fabricant
writes:
Many delegates have been involved in an important debate. A
number of assumptions have both implicitly and explicitly undergirded one side
of the debate. They include but are not limited to the following;
1. If we fail to
ratify the PSC can do better in the short run and the long run
2. This can occur through preparation for a strike and
escalating tactics including a strike
3 Accepting this
contract will demobilize our membership for future fights
4. Chicago and LA
through their strikes produced transformative change
In my estimation each of these assumptions are both wrong
and asserted with little if any evidence.
1. As James Davis and Michael Batson have noted we will be
back to ground zero with NYS and NYC in our bargaining if the settlement
agreement is rejected by the DA. The blowback in terms of future negotiation is
likely to be substantial. To begin with there is little if any incentive for NYS and NYC to return to
the table quickly. Second, all bets are off even if they return quickly. The
settlement once rejected resets the negotiation to our starting point of two
years ago. To imagine otherwise is politically naive
2.it is asserted we can do better if we move to a strike
authorization. On what basis in this moment is it imagined the PSC can
unilaterally break through the restrictions of both the Taylor Law and pattern
bargaining? At best it is the longest of
long shots. Most likely it results in heightened vulnerability and erosion of
PSC power. Some will argue this is a defeatist posture. My response to such
claim is that it is a sober not romanticized analysis of our power in the City
and State at this moment. We have neither the power to unilaterally shut down
the City or a powerful student movement to support a strike campaign. In the
absence of both assets we would be relatively alone and vulnerable if we were
to strike. Work needs to be done to both assist in the building of a student
movement accompanied by a unified labor press to abolish the Taylor law for a
PSC strike in this moment to be successful. Neither of these outcomes will be
produced in the short run. They will
require steady and systematic organizing in and outside CUNY
3. The prior discussion assumes our membership after a DA
no vote would be willing to strike. Again, I would dispute such assumption for
the following reasons (1) our members would be at best divided and more likely
unified in their opposition to such a vote, 2) it would take years not months
to constitute anything resembling union-wide solidarity as a result and (3)
these divisions would in the short term likely produce division and destructive
fall out in relationship to our present agenda. Alternatively, the assumption that
ratification would produce demobilization of members is an explicit statement
of distrust in the willingness of members to continue to wage fights as they
have in the past to improve working and learning conditions at CUNY. I believe
the strengths of this settlement agreement will bring more members to the PSC precisely because
their live have been improved. Organizing campaigns depend on such interim
successes to draw more people to ever larger and more expansive campaigns.
(4) This settlement agreement will improve workers lives
and influence learning conditions. It promises significant structural change
and improvement especially for part time instructors. The outcomes of our
negotiation are not diminished because we failed to strike to achieve these improvements. I am intimately familiar with both the CTU
and UTLA strikes. Karen Lewis, Jessie Sharkey and Alex Caputo Pearl along with CTU and UTLA rank and file members
are to be commended for their courage and long march in building solidarity in
every community where public schools are located. They won many of their
important demands. That said, none of their economic gains comes even close to
what the PSC settlement agreement has won for part time faculty. Secondly they
also struck to improve learning conditions for students. Some improvements have
been made in class size. LA is now contractually required to drop from a
maximum class size of 39 to 36 students. Their most significant and far
reaching demands however regarding an end to school closings and privatization
remain unresolved.
The changes in LA and Chicago improved but did not
transform working or learning conditions. Similarly the PSC settlement
agreement has improved but not transformed working conditions or wages for part
time faculty. I would argue however we are getting closer and closer to
powerful economic incentives based on four cycles of bargaining for much
greater rates of conversion of part time to full time positions. Reaching that
plateau would be transformative.
Clearly the act of striking has a compelling power but
alone it is not a magic bullet for reversing neoliberal policy or the decline
of public agencies. It can contribute to building the muscle necessary to lift
a movement but is only a small part of
campaign tactic and strategy to create the conditions for transformative
change. Similar change can also be produced by pressure tactics of
confrontation and negotiation. That is precisely what the PSC has done to
produce this strong settlement agreement. It is far from perfect. How could it
be given the forces arrayed against us and movement power? But like UTLA and
CTU settlements it will make important contributions to improving working and
learning conditions for members and students. The next steps in the struggle to
transform CUNY await us after what I hope will be continuing democratic debate
and the ratification of the settlement agreement.
In solidarity,
Mike Fabricant
