hydrarchist writes
"What is the Meaning of Autonomy Today?
Subjectivation, Social Composition, Refusal of Work"
Bifo
I do not intend to
make an historical recapitulation of the movement called
autonomy, but I want to understand its peculiarity through
an overview of some concepts like "refusal of work",
and "class composition".
Journalists often
use the word "operaismo" to define a political
and philosophical movement which surfaced in Italy during
the 60s. I absolutely dislike this term, because it
reduces the complexity of the social reality to the
mere datum of the centrality of the industrial workers
in the social dynamics of late modernity.
The origin of this philosophical
and political movement can be identified in the works
of Mario Tronti, Romano Alquati, Raniero Panzieri, Toni
Negri, and its central focus can be seen in the emancipation
from the Hegelian concept of subject.
In the place of the historical
subject inherited from the Hegelian legacy, we should
speak of the process of subjectivation. Subjectivation
takes the conceptual place of subject. This conceptual
move is very close to the contemporary modification
of the philosophical landscape that was promoted by
French post-structuralism. Subjectivation in the place
of subject. That means that we should not focus on the
identity, but on the process of becoming. This also
means that the concept of social class is not to be
seen as an ontological concept, but rather as a vectorial
concept.