Leggiamo Tronti

Alex:

Back at it….I read this article mainly with a focus on Tronti’s views on organization.

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In light of the upcoming discussion of the Strategy of the Refusal - which I hope will provoke more reading and discussion of Tronti generally - I translated this little bit. (more…)

Class and Party
By Mario Tronti

Translated (rough draft) March 2006 by Alex Diceanu, from the French translation by Yann Moulier (with the assistance of G. Bezza) published in 1977. The original Italian article was written in 1964. It was included in Workers and Capital (1st ed. 1966) under the title “A new kind of political experiment.”
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Ciao compagni,
Forse questo e’ something you’ll be interested in - a proposal to read some Tronti colletivamente. Che bell’idea!
un abraccio,
Nate

Alex:

I really enjoyed this article particularly Tronti’s critique of representation. Very busy so some of these notes are sloppy and I mostly paraphrase rather than quote. This admittedly is not ideal so please, without fear for hurt feelings, do not hesitate to point out if something I’ve written is out of wack or needs clarification. I will try to go back an add some direct quotes if I get a chance.

Beginning with the end: Tronti is calling for an Italian 1905, meaning like the Russian 1905 when workers’ struggles at production prevented a political stabilization and led to innovation of organization (the soviets) thus, according to Tronti, paving the way for October 1917, which as Nate wrote, is Tronti’s symbol for revolution.

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Alex:

A brief summary of the argument:

The new strategy: a total refusal of capitalist society

The old tactics - the union struggle: in the factory, against the boss, blocking of production, the general strike. Block any attempts at stabilizing the contemporary crisis of Italian capitalism (itself brought about by the wage demands of workers, breaking the wages-productivity deal, one of the foundations of Fordism) since currently the working class is too weak at the political level.

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Alex:

In the interests of getting back to the readings I have decided for now to put aside “Social Capital” which I have read several times but need to go over it again since I’m finding it a very tough read. I am paying for not having read more Marx. This chapter was a nice way to get back at it though. (more…)

ERIC:

Before reading these Tronti chapters, I’d assumed that he was a curio, a once-important figure who had been left behind by history and his successors. I imagined his relationship to autonomism/poststructuralism as similar to Lukacs’s relationship to the Frankfurters: interesting for the directions he hinted at, but completely surpassed by his heirs. I was wrong. (more…)

Notes: Factory and Society

I think Tronti’s main argument in this article is that the revolution begins in the factory given by the formula: factory => society => State.

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Nate:
Ch7. “Class and party”
This chapter was originally published as an article in Classe Operaia vol1, December 1964. What was Tronti doing, what was he involved in during the time he was writing and publishing these articles? (more…)