From Hip Hop to Auto plant

[Giles Peaker]

Dennis Redmond wrote:

>Ah, but it is indeed only occasional. Global capitalism contains within
>itself national monopoly capitalism (the auto industries), regional
>capitalism (the New York banks), urban and local capitalism, etc. -- to
>say nothing of the 3 billion human beings on this planet who labor under
>a kind of raw materials/petty agrarian capitalism. Every mode of
>capitalist production reproduces all these other contradictions with it:
>in fact, that's how the total system works -- the hegemonic mode, whatever
>it is, exploits all the other modes, totally. But this totality is a
>totality of antagonisms and conflicts, not of consensus. Das Ganze ist
>falsch.

A tad parochial perhaps. Auto industries are hardly national - take the 
UK as an example. There is Nissan and Toyota plant, Ford and GM 
production (often assembling elements made in Germany, Portugal, Belgium 
etc. - In response to a recent UK Ford workers strike, Ford threatened to 
move production to Spain). Rover is owned by BMW, but before that 
co-produced with Honda. Audi,Volkswagen and Saab are linked and VW has a 
large part of Lada (Czech) and Spanish companies. I'll leave it at that 
for car companies - there are many other examples. New York banks were 
historically on the internationalist wing of US capital and US politics 
(FDR anyone?) and are also currently involved (and have been for some 
time) in europe and elsewhere (including holding significant amounts of 
third world debt). Hell, I got a credit card junk mail from a Cincinnati 
bank this morning (not NY, I now but the difference goes to my point), to 
add to my collection of Citibank trash post. (Incidentally, Citibank were 
hacked by Russia mafia to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars). 
As to raw materials/petty agrian production. Yes, this is so, but then 
one has to ask what crops and materials are produced. Large parts of the 
world are incapable of producing sufficient food for themselves because 
output is entirely directed to the demands of first world capital; from 
coffee to uranium. The world is not the same, but it is certainly not 
discontinuous. There is little 'purely' local capital left, and that 
which there still is, has its shots called elsewhere. Marx on the city 
and the country springs to mind - only global.

A totality of contradictions?  yes indeed, no argument there.

'The whole is false' is too easy to turn into an excuse for not even 
having totality as a possibility. Indeed, wasn't Adorno's point that the 
'false' whole was real (if not seamless)? Negation without the concept of 
totality is no negation - even if the promise can only be in the negation.

Yours

Giles

Giles Peaker
Historical and Theoretical Studies
School of Art and Design, University of Derby, Britannia Mill, 
Mackworth Road, Derby. DE22 3BL (U.K.)
+44 (0)1332 622222 ext. 4063    G.Peaker@derby.ac.uk
Editorial Collective:Detours and Delays. 
An occasional journal of aesthetics and politics