230 BOOKS FOR BURNING
edition of Proletarians and the State (pp. 119-21 above), Negri ridicules their defen
sive critiques of the excessive “aspirations to consume” of the Italian workers’
‘movement of the seventies]
Vv
Domination and Sabotage:
On the Marxist Method of Social
Transformation
(1977)
Translation by Ed Emery revised by Timothy S. Murphy
PART ONE: CAPITAL’S DOMINATION
1. LENIN IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE SAID ..
Lenin is supposed to have said (according to a claim made by Keynes) that
inflation is the weapon best guaranteed to bring about a crisis of the capi~
talist regimes. The attribution of this statement—a statement so much
eloved by bourgeois economic culture and not just by Keynes, as evidenced
by their continual repetition of it—to Lenin is undoubtedly apocryphal
The offending phrase is nowhere to be found in Lenin’s works. Infact, insofar
as Lenin expressly deals with the problem of inflation, his emphasis is along
the lines of a moralistic demunciation of its effects on the poorer classesa
denunciation well within the socialist tradition. This does not mean, however,
that other Bolsheviks did not, at various points, stress the destabilizing
function of inflation in relation to capitalist power. Preobrazhensky speaks
for them all with his description of “paper money as a machine gun for the
Finance Commissariat to fire at the bourgeoisie, enabling the monetary laws
of that regime to be used in order to destroy it.” However, | am not implying
that such @ statement would have been uncharacteristic of Lenin; he was,
afterall, ntent on grasping the conjuncture between the revolutionary insur-
gence of the proletariat and the crisis of imperialism,
However, I am convinced that the sense of any such assertion by Lenin
been a complex thi Lenin’s teaching, any action
copitalist regime is immediately accompanied by action that
wes capital’s system.
Insurrectionary action against t
of destroying the state. I sm not giving an anarchist interpre
thought. I am simply insisting upon the “destabilization—destructuring”232 BOOKS FOR BURNING
nexus which is present in a precise and cont
thinking, a in all revolutionary Marxist thin
istically speaking, of anarchist immedia
is right when he says that the assertion regarding the positive effect of infla-
tion for the revolutionary process cannot be unreservedly atribuced co Le
the destabilization effect cannot be an exclusive one, Capita
have a direction [senso] which is imposed and dominated by proletarian
power, Destabilization of the regime cannot be seen as distinct fom the
project of destructuring the system. Insurrection cannot be separated from.
the project of extinguishing the state.
With this we arrive at the heart of today’s political debate. Two different
positions are present within workers’ and proletarian autonomy.
Destabilization of the regime and destructuring of the system sometimes
appear as divergent objectives, and as such they are invested in differing tactical
and strategic projects Is there a reason that this divergence should exist?
Let us start by considering the problem from the viewpoint of ca
practice. For capital there is no problem: restructuring ofthe system is a condi-
tion forthe stabilization of the regime, and vice-versa. The tactical problems arise
within the relative rigidity of this relationship, and not outside it—at least,
‘eversince capitalist development has rendered undesirable the option of using
jous manner in Lenin's
th the exception, real
crisis has to
force (in the sense of mere physical force) against the working class and the
proletariat.
restructuring of the
system that will combat and reint tic components of the
proletariat within the project of p m, In this sense, capital is
well aware of the importance of proletarian antagonism, and is also—often,
in fact—aware of the unique quality of that antagonism. Capital has often
accepted that the workers’ struggle isthe motive force of development—and
has even accepted that proletarian self-valorization should dictate the ration
ale for development: what it needs to eliminate is not the realty, but the
antagonistic direction [senso] of the workers’ movement. At the li
paradoxically, we could say that for capital there is no possibility of effective
political stabilization (that is, no possibility of command and exploitation
within a dimension of an enlarged reproduction of profit) except t0 the
‘extent that it proves possible to take the proletarian movement asthe starting
point for restructuring.
‘The interests of the proletariat, however, are quite the opposite. The pro-
the interest of the working clas, in general terms,
DOMINATION AND SABOTAGE 233,
Now, to be particular: the antagonistic divergence in the direction of the
movement of the two opposing fronts—that of capital and thst of the pro-
letariat—is absolutely clear. This is due to the singularity of the relation of
force between the two classes in struggle. Both classes have the ability to take
action both on the level of the system and on the level of the regime; the
actions of both are capable of directly investing the nexus of the overall
telationship. Thus, if we do not focus our discussion on this nexus, on the
‘way in which itis invested in an antagonistic manner by the two clases in
struggle, we risk dangerously oversimplifying the debate,
problem exists only in relative form. We
‘ould cite one or two examples. During the past ten years, we have wit-
iminate all “catastrophist” conceptions, whatever their motivations.
State has not for one moment ceased to be a Planner-State a5,
the clements of destabilization that the workers’ and proletarian
struggle have brought into action against the state have, one by one, been
taken up by capital and transformed into weapons of restructuring, Inflation
in particular, far from being a moment of destabilization, has been trans-
formed into its opposite—into a decisive weapon of restructuring, At a very
high cost, admittedly: albeit in a situation defined by an increasing tendency
of the rate of profit to fall, capital has been constrained to take planned action
which included the maintenance of (high) levels of worker valorization—
and thus the unsuccessful devaluation of (overall) labor-power. This
notwithstanding, the “catastrophe” has been avoided! Obviot
the continuing work of weinforing the
the law of value (albeit in continuously modified form) as a measure and a
synthesis of stabilization and restructuring—has never faltered, When we
speak of a crisis of the law of value, we must be careful: the crisis of this law
does nota all mean that the law does not operat; rather, cs orm is modified, crans~
forming it from a law of political economy into a form of state command.
But for capital there is no such thing as command without a content, and a
quite specific content at that—a content of exploitation. Thus the thythm
according to which exploitation must dance, according to which the social
mechanism of the reproduction of exploitation must be stabilized, must be
dictated by the law of value. When the proletariat respectfully declines this
invitation to dinner, when all che economic parameters of the relationship
explode, then it is enterprise-command [commando d'impres
ical transformation of enterprise-command into the form of
takes the upper hand in order to again determine the functional relationship
‘of value, che law of exploitation. Recent studies? have largely confirmed and234 BOOKS FOR BURNING
documented this rend, with particular regard to monetary questions—ques-
tions which today are undeniably findam: consideration of the
transformation of the law of value. This has led to a justified insistence on
the theory of the capitalist state (and its development) as the authoritative
form of the capital relation.* Thus, in the critique of political economy, the
structural relation of capitalist development (and capitalise crisis) has become
clear, in opposition to existing, purely objectivst conceptions.
But all this is not enough. The workers’ consciousness of the critique of
Political economy must transform itself into a consciousness of the revolu-
tionary project. The proletatian opposition has no choice but to consolidate
4selFin practical overturning, in subvecsion, But itis the whole relationship,
‘in both its political aspects and its structural foundations, that is to be sub.
verted. Iv is not posible simply to eliminate the complexity of the relation
imposed by the state form of the organization of exploitation; we cannot
escape—either via subjectivist voluntarism or via collective sponteneism—
the difficulties, the problems, the determinations that arise from this form,
We have come perilously close to this during the last phase of the struggle
The divergence has, 2s {stated earlier, invested strategic and tactical projects
that tend to diverge. Is there a reason that this divergence should exist?
In my opinion, it risks proving fatal for the entire movernent. And in this
situation, I am really not sure which is preferable—a rapid demise brought
about by the plague of subjectivity or the long, slow agony and delirium of
the syphilis of spontaneism. However, counter-poisons do exist; a constre-
tive project is possible. Its to be found and is being developed through the
articulations of the mass line, inthe dialectic that the proletariat continually
sets in motion, the dialectic between its activity of structural cons
(the strengthening of that mass counterpower which, as such, tends to dis-
orient and throw out of balance capital’s activity of restruccuring) and its
action of destabilizing political attack (which shatters the nexuses of the
enemy's power, which heightens and empties out its spectacular character
and exhausts its force). This dialectic is internal to the mass movement, and
wwe need to deepen it farther. The project of destracturing capital’ system
‘cannot be separated ffom the project of destabilising capital’s regime, The
Necessity of this interrelationship is revealed at the level of the relation of
force berween the two clases today, inasmuch as the mass line has been
pletely developed into a project of poet
‘the concept "proletarian self-valori the opposite of the
that power assumes within 2 developed
‘workers’ standpoint. Proletarian self-valorization is immediately the destrue-
turing ofthe enemy power; iis the process through which workers’ struggle
today directly invests the system of exploitation and its politcal regime. The
DOMINATION AND SABOTAGE 235
socialization of capitalist development has permitted the working class to
transform the diverse moments of communist strategy (insurrection and the
extinction of the state) into a process and unify them into a project.
Proletarian self-valorization is the comprehensive, mass, productive figure of
this projec. Its dialectic is powerful insofar as it is comprehensive, and com-
prehensive insofar as it is powerful. Elsewhere, I have teied to demonstrate
the formal conditions whereby the Marxist critique of political economy reveals
the independence of the working class asa project of sel-valorization.’ Now
wwe are forced by the constructive polemic that is going on in the movement
to think out the real and immediate politica conditions of this proletarian inde-
pendence. And within the movement vee shall have a battle, on two fonts:
sm and subjectivism on the one hand, and
sportantly-—against the opportunism, streaked with
| which mythologizes the gentle growth of an impotent
wvement” of desires
is clear that the polemic within the movement can only develop if it
takes as its practical and theoretical starting point the intensifation of both the
concept and the experiences of proletarian sel-valorizaton. This is something I shall
attempt to do in the course of this work, But it may be usefi
ular polemical point of departure, in relation to two recent
against the plagues of
It is @ mystification that arises from
4 radicalization of the polemic against “power,” in which the specificity and
determinacy of power is denied. in fact, for these comrades power can be—
in the words of the old philosophers—predicated only univocally, that is,
defined and qualified solely as an attribute of capital or as its reflection. This
assertion is false, even if it does correctly pose the problem of the impossi-
of establishing a homology in the concept of power berween its
¢ usage and its proletarian usage (that is, the untranslataility of the
capi
term). But this is precisely 2 problem of method that cannot be answered
a reply that is radically negative in substance. From this paint of view,
you end up playing into
of cap-
chich, apart from anything else, contradicts the sprit
and che fundamental axis of the analysis of self-valorization within women’s
autonomy and youth autonomy, which preoccupies these two essay
And tis false, Power, party: Panzieri used to say th:
conditions the party will become something wholly new,andit even becomes
dificult to use that term."* Very true, But elsewhere, and in the same sense,
he adds: “No revolution without 2 party.” And we might farther add:
ynly meaningfil li