[-empyre-] transforming human culture and the ideosphere through collective intellectuality

[jmp]

hi,

On 29/07/11 16:01, Simon Biggs wrote:
> Kimura's reflections are evocative of the Fordist systems that underpin many
> socio-economic structures currently existent on our planet, especially those
> that are industrial or post-industrial (on both the left and the right). But
> I wonder if it describes all forms of human society and the manner in which
> individuals form in relation to it?
> 
> Anthropologists such as Tim Ingold and James Leach take a different
> approach, considering self formation as a collective activity. This starts
> where Mauss's concept of the gift leaves off and moves into territory I have
> previously termed social ontology. Their work also references Heidegger, but
> to different effect.

On Simon's note, I thought I'd share these thoughts that Alex Prichard
recently posted on the ASN mailing list:

http://lists.anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/pipermail/asn_lists.anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/2011-July/001845.html

Although it is from a discussion about "the state" it seems relevant
here in terms of understanding the relations between groups and
individuals with regard to social organisation and change.

alex wrote:

I think a better way of understanding the state is to think of it as a
group and to see the institutions of the state as a set of relatively
autonomous but institutionally linked groups. This is how Proudhon
understood it and it was hugely influential in the early 20th century in
the pluralist state theory of Laski and others. Later, neo-pluralism was
bastardised to mean business and interest groups and their influence on
the state or the state as the sum total of these group relationships.

So, back to Proudhon. If we see government , the legistalture, the
working class, parish councils and workshops as  a relatively autonomous
groups, we can theorise their relationships in relation to one another.
So, we get a different social form if the government aligns itself with
the upper class than if it aligns with the working class, and we get a
another form of social order if the judiciary and the executive are not
distinct, etc. Taking groups seriously means we can also explain social
conflict in ways we cannot if we take 'social relationships' in the
abstract or individuals as our primary ontological referent. We can also
explain variation in the shape and ambitions of groups by their internal
make up - syndicalists are relatively distinct from mutualists etc. and
when they relate together it is their internal form that will shape
these relations. This internal form is determined to a large degree by
the individuals which make up these groups. but groups can hold their
form beyond the lifetime of an individual because they when individuals
join them they are joining pre-formed groups that will structure their
actions going forward. Of course these relations take place within wider
social relations like capitalism etc, but unless you have a solid sense
of social groups that make up these wider relations, it is hard to see
the differential effects of wider social practices on concrete cleavages
or to explain the changes from feudalism to capitalism etc.

The state is only 'the sum total of social relationships' when all
groups can be show to be pulling in the same direction and perhaps the
only example of this in history is the total wars of the twentieth
century. At all other times, since groups have dievergent interests they
will be pulling in different directions, across borders through things
like working class solidarity or transnational capitalist classes,
social networks, etc. and 'within' states (a phrase I think we should
junk right away). Since we are all always already ensconced in a
multitude of groups, the state cannot represent nor can it be the sum
total of our social relations. That is a figment of the statist
imagination handed down to us by the French and Prussians. The state is
illegitimate because it has no directly democratic mandate and asks us
as individuals to legitimise it when in reality it is our social form
that is more important. So we should be represented as groups to make
democracy meaningful, but this would be to accept intractable social
division in society, which is antithetical to the myth of the liberal
state. In reality of course, the state sustains the interests of some
groups over others and controls force in its own interests. But we can
only see this with a theory of groups or an implicitly group ontology.
It is worth noting in passing that Weber's definition of the state is a
myth. No state has a monopoly of force and in the US, for example, there
are constitutional guarantees of this fact (right to bear arms etc).

In order for this theory to hold, one needs to accept that collectives
are more than the sum of their parts and real. They are not 'ideal', nor
are they purely material - they are real. Proudhon goes to great lengths
to describe how groups gain real, legal and political capacity. First, a
group must have consciousness of itself, its dignity, value and place in
society. Without this a group of like-minded people cannot pull in the
same direction. Secondly, the group must affirm this idea as a
manifestation of its understanding of social life. It's no good knowing
who you share group status with, you have to get together and affirm it:
that is, proclaim yourself as a group. Finally, it is no good to simply
think it through and proclaim it; the idea of collective or individual
capacity must be affirmed practically through direct democracy. It is
this which protects the autonomy of the individual and gives legitimacy
to collective voice. The denial of democracy in the workplace etc is
anti-group and a symptom of the power of the bourgeoisie and
state-group. It is also a structural function of wider social relations
like capitalism, but it is protean to it. It is for this reason that
democratising the workplace undermines capitalist social forms from the
group up.

Proudhon discusses this theory of 'natural groups' The Political
Capacity of the Working Class, Political Contraditions and Principle of
Federation. The best way to organise groups in relation to one another -
i.e., to mitigate conflict but to ensure order and autonomy of the
individual and group, is to organise all groups democratically and then
to federate them according to function. Mutualism is a political theory
of the constraint of groups in relation to one another. So no group has
predominance because it is constrained in formal institutional
structures. It's a balance of group power if you like, that is formally
agreed by democratically mandated groups joining in with one another.

right, now back to the book...

alex
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