2026-02-01_operaismo - the master fragment

“Put simply: in a process in which the relations of force favor capital, the subject will be primarily shaped by it; in a process with different relations of force, a different subject will be formed. To say that the subject is shaped by capital, as happens at present, doesn’t at all mean there are no possibilities for conflict and autonomy. Alquati talked about an “unresolved residue,” unresolvable, that is, for capital, which he attributed to the active human capacity on which capital must continuously feed to make its system work. We could even say that there is a potential structural asymmetry between the two classes: while capital needs the proletariat, the proletariat doesn’t need capital, and in the end neither does it need itself as a product of that social relationship. This is the irresolvable contradiction for capital from which the permanent possibility of antagonism derives, which assumes forms that are expressed differently at different times, and in some periods remain implicit.”

• Gigi Roggero, Italian Operaismo