Identifying 'neutral' points of domination

[bricolage]

It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.

This critique and this fight seem essential to me for different reasons: firstly, because political power goes much deeper than one suspects; there are centres and invisible, little-known points of support; its true resistance, its true solidity is perhaps where one doesn't expect it. Probably it's insufficient to say that behind the governments, behind the apparatus of the State, there is the dominant class; one must locate the point of activity, the places and forms in which its domination is exercised. And because this domination is not simply the expression in political terms of economic exploitation, it is its instrument and, to a large extent, the condition which makes it possible; the suppression of the one is achieved through the exhaustive discernment of the other. Well, if one fails to recognise these points of support of class power, one risks allowing them to continue to exist; and to see this class power reconstitute itself even after an apparent revolutionary process.

Just to say I know Foucault isn't the first person to have ever said this I just think he expresses it pretty clearly.

Anyway where do people think fits into revolutionary strategy? How can we translate it from theory to practice?

[blake 3:17]

I think Foucault gets it right a lot of time. I don't necessarily see any practice flowing from his thought. Like many anarchists, the diagnosis is right, but the prescription is lacking, Where's the quote from?

What he and Nietzsche get that a lot of socialists don't get is the processes in which we internalize oppression and learn to love it. Their rejection of Marxism and humanism means they don't get alienation or material relations of bureaucracy.

[RED DAVE]

I think that the fundamental point of domination, as Foucault puts it, lies, from the Marxist point of view in the conditions of labor. Capital has near-dictatorial control over the dispersion of surplus value. This is the great "secret." No matter how much the ruling class may be involved in political democracy, it maintains economic semi-dictatorship.

And, to take it one step further, most people accept this dictatorship more-or-less unthinkingly as "the natural order of things."

RED DAVE

[cenv]

Anyway where do people think fits into revolutionary strategy? How can we translate it from theory to practice?I think this has two components.

First, we need to engage in struggles outside of workplaces. Workplace struggles are important, and our goal is to seize the means of production, but the network of bourgeois power encapsulates everyday life. To this end, we need to challenge bourgeois modes of existence throughout everyday life. Some focal points of this struggle could include what Althusser termed the key "ideological state apparatuses," like bourgeois education, the structure of the media under capitalism, etc.

We also need to recognize the way bourgeois power shapes the content of people's lives. For instance, capitalism's project of relentless compartmentalization and separation fragments our communities and destroys our collective power and solidarity. So community organizing can be an effective way of challenging this power, provided it's done in a way that rejects bourgeois modes of interaction and existence. One example would be the formation of popular assemblies, neighborhood community centers, etc. -- the Argentinian experience has shown us how powerful these can be.

The second component of realizing this theory in praxis is making a conscious effort to resist appropriating bourgeois forms of existence and activity for our revolutionary project. At times, Marxism can tend towards economic determinism based on the crude simplification of Marx's base-superstructure model. So some revolutionaries seem to think that all we have to do is put the means of production under democratic workers' control and the other aspects of everyday life will automatically fix themselves. But we have to make sure we smash the bourgeois paradigms of government, education, art, etc. -- in short, everyday life as it appears under capitalism, in all its alienated and impoverished forms. Foucault had a good debate on "popular justice" with some Maoists where he talked about the need to recognize the traditional court as a form of bourgeois legal practice and smash it instead of appropriating it.

Rejecting bourgeois power in its many forms is going to be harder than it sounds. We've lived our lives under capitalism, so even as revolutionaries we have internalized some aspects of bourgeois ideology, and we need to self-consciously fight this internalization and recognize its tendency to manifest itself in our revolutionary projects.

So I think the crux of Foucault's point is recognizing that the institutions of capitalist society are shaped by bourgeois power, which means challenging them instead of limiting ourselves to isolated economic struggles as well as resisting the temptation to carry these institutions over into a post-revolutionary society.

[bricolage]

Where's the quote from?

It's from his debate with Chomsky.

[blake 3:17]

It's from his debate with Chomsky.

Thank you. Chomsky is so right on with a lot of stuff, but he's so duuuuuulllllllllll. I've watched the debate at least once and in terms of final judgement I might end up with Chomsky, but not sure.

Foucault has a grasp of the irrational and allows it to be and accepts it and looks at the deep formation of it that Chomsky just doesn't have a clue on. Foucault gets why people do crazy stuff, or accepts that there isn't a reason, and Chomsky always tries to take it back to something easily comprehensible.

More Chomsky bashing: I've been reading Zmag/net cofounder Michael Albert's memoirs and he's a former student, colleague and collaborator of Chomsky and he takes him to task for not proposing courses of action or strategic visions.

[Ravachol]

It's rather late and I'll post a more in-depth response tomorrow, but in my opinion this is linked to the idea that there exist forms of opression and exclusion outside of class struggle and a rejection of the reductionism associated with some Marxist currents. To me as an Anarchist, it is no more than obvious that it is not sufficient to change control of certain social structures and institutions but that we must challenge the structures themselves. 'The State' being the prime example of course. What I do reject is the position of some currents that oppose working inside these structures AT ALL, such as opposition to trade-union work.

[jake williams]

Michael Albert [is] a former student, colleague and collaborator of Chomsky and he takes him to task for not proposing courses of action or strategic visions.
You could, as far as I know, make similar criticisms of Albert. As far as I know he mostly focuses on fantasies about hypothetical economic systems. Has he actually supported specific movements or actions in the last few decades? He may have but I haven't seen it.

[Sean]

I think Foucault gets it right a lot of time. I don't necessarily see any practice flowing from his thought. Like many anarchists, the diagnosis is right, but the prescription is lacking, Where's the quote from?

What he and Nietzsche get that a lot of socialists don't get is the processes in which we internalize oppression and learn to love it. Their rejection of Marxism and humanism means they don't get alienation or material relations of bureaucracy.
I'm genuinely suprised how you dont find at least tools from Foucault. There's certainly not a movement but I'll be damned if the guy didn't cut up history perfectly for various movements.

I think you'd appreaciate Foucault, but having tried to read him solo, I'd say he's not easy, but there are notes for him.

I've heard people that have listened to the chomsky interview and nothing else wrongly thing thinking that it was some bitter debate that chomsky one (stop laughing people who have read both).

[Ravachol]

I'm genuinely suprised how you dont find at least tools from Foucault. There's certainly not a movement but I'll be damned if the guy didn't cut up history perfectly for various movements.

I think you'd appreaciate Foucault, but having tried to read him solo, I'd say he's not easy, but there are notes for him.

I've heard people that have listened to the chomsky interview and nothing else wrongly thing thinking that it was some bitter debate that chomsky one (stop laughing people who have read both).

Foucault's thought is to be used, as he stated himself, as a toolbox. He offers, in my eyes, a very refreshening, clear and radical analysis of power structures and social functions and the constructs of society as an aggregate function of these 'micro-powers'. Especially to Anarchists his thought is invaluable.