Defining “Autonomism”: Theoretical Explorations, Practical Applications, & Escaping from Capitalism

1044 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Criticisms of Marxist theory

Mario Tronti in his 1964 essay “Lenin in England” made a groundbreaking theoretical departure from orthodox Marxism that would eventually lead to what could be considered contemporary “autonomism”. “Our new approach starts from the proposition that, at both national and international level, it is the specific, present, political situation of the working class that both necessitates and directs the given forms of capital’s development.”1 Nonetheless, what is “autonomism” in both a theoretical and practical sense? At this time the word “autonomism” is selected mainly to categorize a group of rebellious activities and theoretical frames that meet a particular criterion and emerged from Autonomist Marxism. The term is derived from the concept of autonomy, which is governing one’s self and the ability to make decisions free of coercion. However, it should be noted that this right to govern one’s self is viewed through the lens of collectivism and not individualism as it deals with existence inside civilization but under collective self-government. They are linked through their left wing politics and anti-authoritarian nature, as well as being strong advocates and/or participants of prefigurative practice that is autonomous from systems of power or centralized organizational structures. “In contrast to the centralized decisions and hierarchical authority structures of modern institutions, autonomous social movements involve people directly in decisions affecting their everyday lives. They seek to expand democracy and to help individuals break free of political structures and behavior patterns imposed from the outside.”2 It also highlights that what connects this progressively varied kinship of projects is a particular radical m...

... middle of paper ...

...l therefore rendering theoretical favoritism typically seen obsolete. Through utilizing this approach, he pulls from Castoriadis' expansion of autonomy's definition as self-governed life within society and not separated from it, while integrating Negri and Zapatismo philosophy with the historical developments of autonomism and Marxism in general:
“However, what unifies autonomist thought, beyond its criticism of orthodox Marxism and of course of neoliberal capitalism, is the perception that Marxist historical concepts and categories are undergoing radical transition. Faced with this situation of extreme uncertainty and unpredictability, the best strategy seems to be the Zapatista one of 'walking by asking', avoiding dogmatism and rigid thinking through a process of continual reflexivity in order to discover possible paths of exodus from capitalism.”11

Show More
Related

  • Liberals and Conservatives in Post Revolutionary Latin America

    529 Words  | 2 Pages

    Models for post-revolutionary Latin American government are born of the complex economic and social realities of 17th and 18th century Europe. From the momentum of the Enlightenment came major political rebellions of the elite class against entrenched national monarchies and systems of power. Within this time period of elitist revolt and intensive political restructuring, the fundamental basis for both liberal and conservative ideology was driven deep into Latin American soil. However, as neither ideology sought to fulfill or even recognize the needs or rights of mestizo people under government rule, the initial liberal doctrine pervading Latin American nations perpetuated racism and economic exploitation, and paved the way for all-consuming, cultural wars in the centuries to come.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Chile's Road to Socialism

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first turning point in hope for the Chilean road to socialism was that of the election of Salvador Allende as president, which gave many Yarur workers the belief that a ‘workers government’ was on their side. “For the first time, a self-proclaimed ‘workers government’ ruled Chile, dominated by the Left and pledged to socialist revolution” (Winn, 53). Allende’s role as president gave identity to the Yarur workers that they were being represented and because of this, their struggles of working in the factory conditions set by Amador Yarur would come to an end. This identification with Allende as being represented by their own voice became the first stepping-stone to the demand for socialization of the factory. “The election of a ‘Popular Government’ was a signal for them to take the revolution into their own hands and fulfill their historic aspirations through direct action from below” (Winn, 140)....

    Read More

  • The Zapatista Revolt Against NeoLiberalism

    4187 Words  | 9 Pages

    In the 1630’s Mayans living in the northern part of Guatemala organized in a secretive village-by-village basis and mounted an attack against the Spanish colonial rule. They drove the Colonizers out of the area and it took almost fifty years for the Spanish to reclaim it [i] . Over 350 years later the Mexican government woke up on January 1st 1994 to news of an indigenous guerilla uprising in the southern part of Mexico. Mayans had been secretly organizing, much in the same way as the 1630 revolt, and had formed the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). This new Zapatista movement took its name from Emilio Zapata, a famous champion of indigenous rights. On January first, the day of NAFTA’s implementation, the EZLN rose up and captured the city of San Cristbal de las Casas and several villages in the surrounding area. In the span of eleven days they were able to take hold of more land than many other guerrilla movements, such as the FMLN in El Salvador, had done in years.

    Read More

  • Karl Marx, Gracchus Babeuf, And Owen's Views Of A Utopian Society

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    Socialism as defined by the parameters of the post revolution into the pre industrial period was the nearly universally marked by the race to empower the working class. Yet, within this broad definition of socialism, Karl Marx, Gracchus Babeuf, and Robert Owen differ in their views of a utopian society and how it should be formed. It was to be their difference in tradition that caused their break from it to manifest in different forms. Although they had their differences in procedure and motive, these three thinkers formed a paradigm shift that would ignite class struggle and set in motion historical revolutions into the present. Within their views of a utopian community, these men grappled with the very virtues of humanity: greed versus optimism.

    Read More

  • Rousseau, John Lock And Engels: The Enlightenment And The Enlightenment

    1286 Words  | 3 Pages

    When a system is being changed from capitalism to communism, “dictatorship of the proletariat” is the intermediate system. For Marx and Engels, the Paris Commune that ruled France for two months form March 1871 to May 1871 was a model of dictatorship of the proletariat. Under liberal democracy, Marx argued, it is the only the capital class whose right is protected. Marx viewed the state as an institution established to protect the interest of the capitalist society. Marx and Engels believed it the proletariat’s seizing of power that would result abolishing of private property and insures the communal ownership of

    Read More

  • Zapata and the Mexican Revolution

    489 Words  | 1 Pages

    In every field of endeavor, in every activity known to Man, whether sailboarding or physics, hairdressing or chipmunk catching, there are people who excel, people who go far beyond the rest. They reach the epitome while we mere mortals look up from below and marvel. So, when you have read the 526 pages of Womack Jr.'s book [not counting the appendices], you can tell yourself that you have read THE book on Zapata and his role in the Mexican Revolution. The author used every source available, he interviewed all those who were left alive to talk. I wonder if any new printed sources will ever be found ? Certainly everyone who played a role, however insignificant, in those long ago days of 1909-1920 is now dead, making new interviews extremely unlikely. This is a work of art, a work of love, and a vast labor that surely took a few years off the life of the author, not to mention breaking some relationships. It is the definitive work so far on the subject. If you want to know the story of why and how Emiliano Zapata, a once insignificant small town horse trader and farmer, became a legendary rebel whose name resounds throughout Mexico today---a man who fought unwaveringly for the rights of small farmers and villagers to the land they worked---then you have no choice but to read this volume. This is the epitome, this is the story in unbelievable detail; political, economic, social, military. And yet, Zapata himself almost disappears in the vast bulk of detailed historical and interpretive observations. It is not so much a work on an individual as on the whole period in a small area of Mexico.

    Read More

  • Understanding Zapatista Longevity

    503 Words  | 2 Pages

    Most importantly, the Mexican government lots the war of ideas. Though the Mexican government maintained a virtual monopoly of the press, Marcos and the Zapatistsas managed to diffuse their ideas and goals across the country. Though many did not support their violent tactics, the Zapatistas brought attention to the “plight of those at the losing end of Mexico’s economic globalization, particularly the indigenous groups who were losing both their livehood and their hopes for self-determination” (155). Marcos’ articulate and incisive letters put the government on the “moral defense” (168).

    Read More

  • Marx and Nietzsche's Theories

    3996 Words  | 8 Pages

    Before expounding upon these ideas, it is necessary to establish a baseline from which to view these topics. It is important to realize that we as humans view everything from our own cultural perspective. Marx speaks of this saying, "Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will, whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class."

    Read More

  • A Place Called Chiapas

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this sense, the film tests the resiliency of good human nature. The modern world is becoming increasingly set in its extremes, as the lifestyle of the poor vastly contrasts that of the wealthy. The implementation of NAFTA reflects this movement toward separation, despite the fact that it was intended to boost trade between regions and create more prosperity on both sides of the United States-Mexico border. The Mexican elites saw it as their salvation. Others saw it as “ a death sentence.” The Chiapas region itself exemplifies this gap, as well. The region was split between the relatively prosperous west, which was fertile and characterized by commercial development, and the poor, subsistence-oriented east. It was not by accident that the Zapatista movement began in Chiapas as the struggle between ranchers, landowners, and subsistence farmers was intensified by NAFTA.

    Read More

  • Marx Self: The Anthropological And Spiritual Concept Of The Self

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    This philosophical analysis will define the internal process of actualizing the ‘self” in Marx’s definition of “freedom” through the anthropological and spiritual concept of species-being in the communist ideology. Marx envisioned an anthropological freedom of the human race through the process of liberating oneself from the class division of society, which would define the ultimate freedom in the concept of species-being. Species-being defines the collective unification of the human race as an anthropological form of historical materialism, which eventually manifests itself into a communist collective. These assumptions define the internal aspects of human development that is part of human activity as a means of production in a communist society. This form of “internal relations” is the ultimate form of freedom for Marx, as it defines the highest ontological state of existence for the worker/laborer in the realization of species-being. In essence, a

    Read More

  • The Zapatista Movement

    1694 Words  | 4 Pages

    Indigenous people of the world have historically been and continue to be pushed to the margins of society. Similarly, women have experienced political, social, and economical marginalization. For the past 500 years or so, the indigenous peoples of México have been subjected to violence and the exploitation since the arrival of the Spanish. The xenophobic tendencies of Spanish colonizers did not disappear after México’s independence; rather it maintained the racial assimilation and exclusion policies left behind by the colonists, including gender roles (Moore 166) . México is historically and continues to be a patriarchal society. So when the Zapatista movement of 1994, more formally known as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación National (Zapatista Army of National Liberation; EZLN) constructed a space for indigenous women to reclaim their rights, it was a significant step towards justice. The Mexican government, in haste for globalization and profits, ignored its indigenous peoples’ sufferings. Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, consisting of mostly indigenous peoples living in the mountains and country, grew frustration with the Mexican government. It was in that moment that the Zapatista movement arose from the countryside to awaken a nation to the plight of indigenous Mexicans. Being indigenous puts a person at a disadvantage in Mexican society; when adding gender, an indigenous woman is set back two steps. It was through the Zapatista movement that a catalyst was created for indigenous women to reclaim rights and autonomy through the praxis of indigeneity and the popular struggle.

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting the Revolutions in Mexico and Russia

    597 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Russian and Mexican revolution’s differed in the ideas they adopted but they were similar in the way they met their goals and started their uprisings. The Russian revolution was made with the goal to create an egalitarian government that was based off of Karl Marx’s socialism principles. In short, t...

    Read More

  • Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto and Its Impact on Society

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to the humanities based themes, autonomy and responsibility are defined as “the individual person has the ability to make choices; with those choices comes a responsibility for the consequences of those choices.” [i] This can be related to the Communist Manifesto, which was written by Karl Marx in the 1800’s. Even deeper though, it correlates the class struggles that were apparent in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Marx knew there was a division of classes; the bourgeoisie was the wealthy upper class and they proletariats were the lower working classes of Europe. This is where the theme of autonomy and responsibility steps in and plays a role in the changes that were made in society. The proletariats recognized that they were treated unfairly, which led them to the decision of stepping up and taking a stand. Through the Communist Manifesto, they took responsibility and attained the equality they felt they deserved.

    Read More

  • Capitalism In The Communist Manifesto

    1110 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, a period of political turmoil in Europe. Its meaning in today’s capitalistic world is a very controversial issue. Some people, such as the American government, consider socialism taboo and thus disregard the manifesto. They believe that capitalism, and the world itself, has changed greatly from the one Marx was describing in the Manifesto and, therefore, that Marx’s ideas cannot be used to comprehend today’s economy. Others find that the Manifesto highlights issues that are still problematic today. Marx’s predicative notions in the Communist Manifesto are the key to understanding modern day capitalism.

    Read More

  • Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto

    1715 Words  | 4 Pages

    The first section of the Communist Manifesto describes the history of all society as the history of class conflicts. Claiming, that every society is essentially divided into, the oppressors and the oppressed. Furthermore, Marx adds, in the past, societies were organized in more complex combinations and hierarchies, but modern society is being split into two ‘hostile camps’. There has always been a continuous conflict between the different classes; the end result of these conflicts is always, either the total suppression of the oppressed classes, or a revolution, which leads to an overhaul of society. He blames the cause for the separation of modern society into only two groups, on the fall of feudalism. These new class antagonisms are between the proletariat, and the bourgeoisie.

    Read More

More about Defining “Autonomism”: Theoretical Explorations, Practical Applications, & Escaping from Capitalism

Open Document