Скачать или смотреть Roberto Nigro — What is Constituent in the Constituent Power? Limits and Strength of a Concept

Roberto Nigro (Leuphana University Lüneburg)

In the tradition of Italian Operaism, there are two crucial theses that have overturned the history of Marxism. The first refers to the idea that capitalist development is subordinated to the working-class struggle. This approach overturns a view that had dominated the entire socialist and communist
tradition, where the working class was always presented as a victim, a passive subject reduced to an exploited labor force, upon which the development of capital imposes its own laws. The second important thesis concerns the discovery of living labor as subjectivity, which implies an intransitive definition of subjectivity. The constituent aspect of constituent power is precisely rooted in this dimension. But why is the power of living labor irreducible? Does a form of anthropologism resonate in such a thesis? What are the consequences of that? By focusing on the different pathways at the core of the Operaist tradition, this paper will explore how some of them have become dominant in current debates.