
Download this article (pdf) [1]. It discusses the issues round “globalisation” by way of two critiques, of Negri-Hardt and of the “new imperialism” theory of John Rees, Alex Callinicos and other writers associated with the British SWP.
Both accounts have a theological taste to them. But where Negri’s and Hardt’s is enthusiastic, mystical theology, Callinicos’s is the theology of the worldly-wise, “moderate” prelate of a modern established church.
Both Hardt/Negri and Callinicos/Rees slide off the narrow and slippery path of scientific analysis — substituting speculative construction for empirical investigation in one case, dragging the ill-fitting costume of yesterday’s theory onto today’s reality so as better to be able to agitate about “imperialism — just like Lenin condemned” in the other.
Other material about "autonomist Marxismm" on this site:
Autonomist Marxism: three themes, three critiques [2]
Autonomism, workerism, and Trotskyism in Italy [3];
Review of Steve Wright's book on the history of autonomism in the 1960s and 70s [4].
On other sites:
A compact summary of autonomism, in the form of an interview with the American autonomist Harry Cleaver by Massimo De Angelis: www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/facstaff/Cleaver/InterviewwithHarryCleaver.html [5].
Review of Hardt and Negri's Empire: Other texts, including the historic ones like Mario Tronti's "Lenin in England": www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/index.html [Array].
Links:
[1] http://www.workersliberty.org.uk/files/twocritiques.pdf
[2] http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2003/12/27/autonomist-marxism-three-themes-three-critiques
[3] http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2004/01/11/trotskyism-workerism-and-autonomism-italy
[4] http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2003/12/25/storming-heaven-class-composition-and-struggle-italian-autonomist-marxism
[5] http://www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/facstaff/Cleaver/InterviewwithHarryCleaver.html