Marshall Thomas

Thesis Summary This thesis explores the claims of autonomist Marxist theory that contemporary struggles against capitalism are about rejecting capitalism through producing commons. The autonomist approach to commons is significant for social movement theory because, unlike existing Marxist approaches such as neo-Gramscian social movement theory, it places political action in a relation with capital. As a result, autonomist theory establishes a framework for understanding social movements as ‘commons movements’, rooted in claims about the nature of commons; the structure of capitalism; and the significance of political action. The thesis explores this framework by applying it to two contemporary social movements: the Bene Comune movement in Rome, Italy, and the Occupy movement in Oakland, U.S.A. These movements are significant because commons, and practices of ‘commoning’ are both explicit and implicit within the movement practice. It establishes the successes of the autonomist method in offering a thick description of the social movements, their participants, and the local issues that animate them, but less successful at theorising the relationship between social movement practice and capitalism. The final chapters explore the reasons for this, and explore alternative ways of understanding these movements in the context of capital. In the first instance, it looks to other resources that can be found within the intellectual milieu of post-2008 social movements, particularly so-called ‘communisation’ theory, which proposes a structural explanation of commons, rooted in a theory of secular crisis. Finally, the thesis concludes by suggesting that the primary problem facing autonomist theory as a basis for understanding social movements is its conflation of the logic of the political with the logic of the structural conditions of capital, a conflation which is sclerotic of its attempt to explain the dynamics that underlie the turn towards commons, and limiting of its capacity to explore political strategies at the level of totality 1 Acknowledgements As with any intellectual endeavour, this thesis is the result of productive engagements with the scholars I have encountered in the years I have spent writing it. While many of these encounters have taken place outside of Aberystwyth, this thesis bears the marks of this small Welsh town more than it does any other place. In some ways, it is as much a product of the friendly, convivial, and yet intellectually challenging research culture of Aberystwyth’s Department of International Politics as it is my own endeavour. Among those in Aberystwyth, I am particularly indebted to the thorough engagement and sympathetic criticisms of my supervisors Milja Kurki and Berit Bliesmann De Guevara. Without them, this thesis would not have reached completion at all. I hope that in reading my work so many times, they did not too often lose the will to live! In addition to their diligent work, I am grateful for the efforts of my earlier supervision team: Andrew Linklater and Simona Rentea, whose joint supervision helped me through the intellectual confusion of the first year of PhD study. Despite the significance of the academic support I have received from my supervisory teams, any remaining infelicities within the thesis are, of course, my own. The strength of Aberystwyth’s graduate school lies, first and foremost, it its graduate students and the community they create. I am immensely proud to call its PhD cohort my colleagues, and immeasurably more proud to call many of them my friends. I am grateful for the camaraderie and rigorous intellectual engagement of my peers, most notably Mat Rees, Adhemar Mercado, Kat Hone, Dyfan Powel, Katja Daniels, Bleddyn Bowen, Sarah Jamal, Florian Edelmann, Alex Hoseason, and Catherine Charrett. I am thankful also to Aberystwyth’s Politics, Philosophy and International Thought research group and its convenors Reetta Vaahtoranta and Carolin Kaltofen, who gave me welcome respite from the travails of Marxist thought, and a valuable broader perspective on the state of the discipline of International Politics. I am also indebted to my friends beyond Aberystwyth for putting the project, and life in academia, in perspective. In particular, I am beholden to the friendship of (among others) Stu M. Ashton, Matt Rummery, Daniel Mahony, Mark Downes, Matt Hawes, and Huw Diprose, and their persistence with me even when I was absorbed with my academic work. In addition, I owe an immeasurable debt to Jess Raw, without whose love and encouragement this thesis would never have been conceived. Tragically, the process of its composition outlived her, but its final form remains deeply shaped by the anarchist and autonomist politics we participated in together in Aberystwyth, London and Madrid, as well as her rigorous criticism of my ideas and unceasing capacity to grasp the human dimension of anti-capitalist politics. She would undoubtedly disagree with many of the conclusions I have drawn here, but I hope that she would recognise the role she played in the development of these ideas. The world needs more, not fewer, people like her. I must also thank my family for their unwavering tolerance throughout this long and tedious process. In particular, I owe much to my parents Jim and Lesley, who instilled within me a love of learning, and bear a lot of responsibility for sparking the academic process that has culminated in this thesis. I will always be grateful for this 2 upbringing, even if I betray the scientific mindset they instilled in me with an apparently incurable obsession with 19th Century political philosophers! Finally, but in no sense least importantly, I owe an unimaginable debt to Justa Hopma, without whose love, patience and understanding over the last year this thesis would not have reached completion. I hope that now it is complete, I can repay her support with the time and attention she has given to me. 3 Dedicated to the memory of Jessica Helen Raw (1987-2015) 4 Table of Contents THESIS SUMMARY 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2 INTRODUCTION 7 CHAPTER ONE: THE COMMONS, POLITICAL ACTION, AND THE AUTONOMIST TRADITION 21 THE COMMONS AND THE TRADITION OF POLITICAL RESISTANCE 22 THE AUTONOMIST TRADITION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 24 HARDT & NEGRI’S COMMONWEALTH AND THE AUTONOMIST TURN TO THE COMMONS 36 COMMONING AND THE OUTSIDE OF CAPITALISM IN MASSIMO DE ANGELIS’ THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY 46 THE PROBLEMATIQUE OF THE THESIS & THE AUTONOMIST METHOD 62 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 70 CHAPTER TWO: BENE COMUNE, THE COMMONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN AUSTERITY ITALY 71 ROME AND THE WATER REFERENDUM 72 WHAT DOES AUTONOMIST POLITICAL PRACTICE SIGNIFY? 78 “CON LA CULTURA, NON SI MANGIA”?, TEATRO VALLE AS FACTORY OF SUBJECTIVITY 84 FASCISM, SOCIAL CENTRES AND THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM IN THE CASE OF CASA POUND 89 COMMONS IN ITALIAN SOCIAL CENTRES 91 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 102 CHAPTER THREE: COMMONS BEYOND THE DISCOURSE OF COMMONING, THE CASE OF OCCUPY OAKLAND 106 THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT AS CONSTITUENT POWER 106 OAKLAND AS ANOMALY? THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT ON THE U.S. WEST COAST 114 WORK AND THE WAGE IN CONTEMPORARY OAKLAND 118 DEBT AND THE PROPERTY CRISIS IN CONTEMPORARY OAKLAND 120 OCCUPY OAKLAND AND ITS ORIGINS IN CALIFORNIA STUDENT OCCUPATIONS 125 THE OCCUPATION OF OAKLAND 127 THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT AND THE OAKLAND PORT STRIKE 136 FORECLOSURE DEFENCE 140 ‘OCCUPY THE FARM’, BERKELEY 141 KNOWLEDGE PRACTICES AND THE OCCUPATION OF OAKLAND 143 ‘FIGHT FOR FIFTEEN’ IN OAKLAND 146 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 147 CHAPTER FOUR: AUTONOMIST THEORY AND CAPITALIST SOCIAL FORM 152 POLITICAL RECOMPOSITION IN THE ITALIAN COMMONS 155 POLITICAL RECOMPOSITION AND THE OAKLAND COMMUNE 157 FROM COMMONS TO COMMUNIZATION IN OAKLAND AND ROME 162 COMMUNISATION, AUTONOMY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIATIONS 176 COMMUNISATION, RECOMPOSITION AND THE READING OF CAPITAL 182 COMMONS BEYOND THE COPERNICAN TURN 188 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 195 5 CHAPTER FIVE: CAPITAL, SOCIAL-METABOLIC REPRODUCTION AND THE HEGEMONY OF THE COMMONS 199 ISTVÁN MÉSZÁROS COMMONS, CRISES OF CAPITALISM & THE QUESTION OF TRANSITION 203 STRUCTURE IN DOMINANCE AND REPURPOSING CAPITALIST TOTALITY 217 STRUCTURE AND CONJUNCTURE: ALTHUSSER & THE POLITICAL 231 ALTHUSSER, THE CONJUNCTURE AND POLITICAL INTERVENTIONS 233 POLITICISING COMMONING, ALTHUSSER’S MODERNISM AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF POLITICAL REASON 240 SO, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? 247 CRITIQUE, STRUCTURE AND POLITICS 249 CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSES OF COMMONS, AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE POLITICAL 256 WHITHER COMMONS? 267 PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION, THE COMMONS AND THE QUESTION OF POLITICS: 273 THE PROBLEM OF CAPITALISM IN I.R. AND BEYOND 275 RESISTANCE STUDIES 277 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 283 CONCLUSION 286 THE QUESTION OF THE POLITICAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY 294 THEORY, INTELLECTUALS, AND COMMONS STRUGGLES 299 BIBLIOGRAPHY 303 BOOKS AND JOURNAL ARTICLES 303 ONLINE RESOURCES 326 6 Introduction In his talk at the Idea of Communism conference held at London’s Birkbeck College in 2008, American academic Michael Hardt suggested that ‘the common’ is the beating heart of radical politics in the 21st Century.1 Historically, commons are the property form proper to communism, reflecting neither the private property of capitalism, nor the state property of actually existing socialism, but Hardt was keen to suggest that these ideas hold a particular contemporary valence.2 Indeed, he suggested that commons are key to reclaiming an idea of communism as a systematic alternative to liberal capitalism. 3 The notion of the commons, Hardt suggests, allows the articulation of an emancipatory

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