(Im)possibilities of Autonomy: Social Movements In and Beyond Capital, the State and Development

Recently, we have witnessed the emergence of what appears to be a new set of claims in contemporary social movements based around the idea of autonomy. In this paper we interrogate this demand for autonomy. In order to do this, we first engage with existing literatures, identifying three main conceptions of autonomy: 1) autonomous practices vis-à-vis capital, or, what Negri calls, the ‘self-valorization’ of labour; 2) self-determination and independence from the state; and 3) alternatives to hegemonic discourses of development. We will then problematize and point out the central potentials, weaknesses and antagonisms at the heart of the concept of autonomy. We argue that social movements’ demands for autonomy point to, what Laclau and Mouffe call, the impossibility of society, the idea that society can never be complete. That is, there will always be resistances, such as those expressed by autonomous social movements. However, this also lets us understand the conception of autonomy to be incomplete. Autonomy itself is hence an impossibility. To point to these limits of the discourses of autonomy, we discuss how demands for autonomy are tied up with contemporary re-organizations of: 1) the capitalist workplace, characterized by discourses of autonomy, creativity and self-management; 2) the state, which increasingly outsources public services to independent, autonomous providers, which often have a more radical, social movement history; and 3) regimes of development, which today often emphasize local practices, participation and self-determination. Behind these critical reflections on the conception and practice of autonomy is the idea that autonomy should always be seen as something relational. That is, autonomy can never be fixed; there is no definite ground for demands for autonomy to stand on. Instead, social movements’ demands for autonomy are embedded in specific social, economic, political and cultural contexts, giving rise to possibilities as well as impossibilities of autonomous practices

Introduction to the Special Section:Social Movements and Social Emancipation in Latin America

‘Emancipation’ remains marginal as a theme within Latin American studies (LAS) with the focus on questions of institutional politics, democracy, democratization, citizenship and development. Yet for the past two decades social movements have been articulating new imaginaries, ideas and practices beyond traditionally conceived frameworks of social change. They are anticipating alternative arrangements towards a dignified collective life. In these alternative possibilities, emancipation does not allude to a revolutionary process to take the power of the state, but denotes other horizons that in principle transcend the state as the main locus of struggle. These movements pose methodological, theoretical and epistemological challenges to the study of Latin America

Corbynism’s conveyor belt of ideas:Postcapitalism and the politics of social reproduction

In this reflection, we assess the theoretical faultline running through the contested current of Corbynist thought and politics at present. On one hand, we find a techno-utopian strand preoccupied with automation and the end of work. On the other hand, a nascent politics of social reproduction with a foreshortened potential to realise the promise of a continental-style solidarity economics in the United Kingdom. Both represent the latest in a series of left attempts to confront the crisis of social democracy that rages across Europe, a crisis to which the British Labour Party has not been alone in succumbing despite recent appearances otherwise. Deindustrialisation collapsed labour’s role in everyday life, and a crisis in the society of work eventually passed over into its representative party’s electoral decline. Subsequent financial crisis and subsequent austerity have only made things worse. A poverty of ideas prevails that all sides of social democracy’s unsteady compromise seek desperately to solve. However, the recent UK General Election shows evidence that Corbynism has renewed Labour’s fortunes to some extent. Surveying the competing intellectual currents behind its rise, we suggest that the politics of social reproduction offer a better route forward for the Labour Party than the popular siren call of postcapitalism, and reflect on what the recent general election result suggests for their future development. </jats:p

(Im)possibilities of Autonomy:? Social Movements In and Beyond Capital, the State and Development

In this paper we interrogate the demand and practice of autonomy in social movements. We begin by identifying three main conceptions of autonomy: (1) autonomous practices vis-à-vis capital; (2) self-determination and independence from the state; and (3) alternatives to hegemonic discourses of development. We then point to limits associated with autonomy and discuss how demands for autonomy are tied up with contemporary re-organizations of: (1) the capitalist workplace, characterized by discourses of autonomy, creativity and self-management; (2) the state, which increasingly outsources public services to independent, autonomous providers, which often have a more radical, social movement history; and (3) regimes of development, which today often emphasize local practices, participation and self-determination. This capturing of autonomy reminds us that autonomy can never be fixed. Instead, social movements' demands for autonomy are embedded in specific social, economic, political and cultural contexts, giving rise to possibilities as well as impossibilities of autonomous practices

The violence of stability : an investigation of the subjectivity of labour in Argentina

This thesis offers an investigation of the transformation of the subjectivity of labour in Argentina. The global capitalist crisis of the 1970s produced a unique recomposition of capitalist social relations worldwide. For the first time capital asserted itself as a global social imagery in which it was seen as free and detached from labour. This 'disconnection' between capital and labour is deeply disempowering, for it denies the source of social transformation (labour) in favour of the reification of an abstraction (capital). In Argentina this was manifested during the 1990s through the exaltation of 'Stability' as the solution to Argentine's chronic political and economic crisis, as well as the belief in the defeat of labour altogether. Although stability was considered the main achievement of President Menem's period in power (1989-1999), persistent social and labour conflict evoked a re-examination of widely shared assumptions regarding both the crisis of labour and the triumph of neoliberalism in Argentina. Analyses of what Menemism meant in political, economic, social and legal terms are abundant. Yet, missing has been an adequate interrogation and questioning of the theoretical categories and methods used to grasp the new reality of labour. The thesis aims to contribute to an understanding of the current forms of resistance in Argentina by means of a theoretical proposal and an historical and empirical analysis. The thesis is divided into three parts and a theoretical introduction. Chapter one considers Marx's writing and recent developments in Marxist theory of the state, value, money and subjectivity. The chapter discusses the significance of Marx's method of determinate abstraction for an understanding of the subjectivity of labour in capitalist social relations. Going beyond the formulation that the state, money and the law are real illusions which mediate the capital relation (Clarke, 1991, Holloway and Picciotto 1977), I offer the notion of subjectivity of labour as a determinate abstraction, i. e. as a transient and contradictory form of being which emerges vis-ä-vis a particular- and contradictory-articulation of the subjective aspects (identity, organisations and resistance) and the social forms (political, economic and social) which mediate labour as a social activity. Subjectivity is a 'site of conjunction' which articulates the concrete and abstract aspects of labour within the subject. This theoretical framework constitutes the analytical and methodological bases for my research. Part I explores five historical forms of subjectivity which emerged as dramatic expressions of the social relation of capital: the Anarchist (1920s), the Peronist (1940s), the Anti-imperialist (1960s), the Revolutionary (1970s) and the Democratic (1980s). The historical journey aims to show how labour made history by taking dramatic forms which encapsulated crisis, deconstruction and renewed integration into another form. The three chapters which comprise Part II offer a detailed analysis of the transformation of the subjectivity of labour in the 1990s, by looking at the recomposition of the state, labour reform and stabilisation policies, and employment and social policy. Although stabilisation policies led to the halt of hyperinflation, they became the lynchpin for the deep social, economic and political recomposition of social relations, leading to the decentralisation of labour, the reorganisation of trade union activity into business and opposition unionism, the expansion of social conflict, the casualisation and flexibilisation of labour, social insecurity, unemployment and poverty. The notion of subjectivity as determinate abstraction allows us to understand the paradoxical disjunction between the policies presented as the source of stability and the unstable, insecure and unhappy forms of private and social life. Moving beyond the debate of 'stability vs. instability', this paradox is explored through a detailed study of one of the main forms of social protest in 1990s Argentina: the roadblocks organised by casual and state workers, the unemployed and the socalled marginal social layers. As a determinate abstraction, the roadblock appears as an embodiment of the subjective, political, economic and social transformation within stability. Thus, roadblocks do not destabilise stability, as some scholars suggest, but rather stability destabilises human lives, since, as a form of class antagonism, it legalises, legitimises and celebrates uncertainty - the end of labour as the source of power in society and the end of politics. The roadblock stands against the violence of stability which causes labour to virtually disappear through poverty and unemployment