A good brief discussion of the concept in the Marxian tradition is in Tom Bottomore(ed), A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. I think maybe Laurence Harris wrote it.
I think by fictitious capital Marx himself means all financial claims to part of the surplus product (surplus value) which take the form of financial assets unrelated to investment in real production, and which therefore do not reflect real value relations. So therefore whenever "something out of nothing" is produced, through trading in some exchange-values, we are dealing with fictitious capital. This capital is fictitious because it is produced outside the capital-relation, it has no immediate connection or origin in the exploitation of labour-power, it is generated in exchange processes, in circulation.
Marx's analysis had a corollary, because his value theory says that, at some point, fictitious capital "collapses" and the real value relations assert themselves again. In other words, fictitious capital distorts the real economic relations and at some point it is not sustainable, investor confidence suddenly falls and financial markets cave in, it was a castle built on sand, a house of cards. For example, the USA has the largest foreign debt in the world, and ultimately what sustains that, is confidence in the American army, but, around that confidence, a lot of fictitious capital develops. If it turns out, that the American army cannot sustain social stability and a stable investment climate, as will happen, then a lot of capital staked on this confidence alone will disappear.
2. Forms
One of the first forms of fictitious capital would be types of bank credit, where a bank creates additional purchasing power which comes out of nowhere, and is not normally associated with any increase in circulated money tokens or production of goods and services. The next may be putting a private property fence around unimproved land.
The next may be stocks, shares and bonds which are overvalued, and no longer bear any realistic relationship to the value of any assets to which they refer. Then you have various kinds of currency speculation and futures markets. Another example might be seigniorage. And so on.v
I read somewhere a while ago that once again the value of world trade, and the value of international capital flows, exceeds the value of real production by many, many times, giving rise to the expression casino capitalism. The idea here is, that a lot of gambling goes on, which is purely based on PERCEPTIONS of anticipated profits. It is not that the law of value is cancelled out, it is just that there is a whole circuit of capital which as it were sits on top of that.
In the language of finance, they refer in this sense for example to "financial derivatives". To generate a financial claim, there must first of all be some production generating new income. But the next thing is that once the financial claim exists, you can trade in the financial claim itself, and so on.
3. Culture of use-values
However there is another level to the analysis, namely, at a point where the speculative game intensifies, then the game becomes so highly abstract, that it is no longer clear what the dealer/trader/investor really knows, and what his real capacity is, and what he is really worth. There is a sense in which the dealer can trade purely on the confidence that people have in him as a successful risk-taker.
This is to say, the perceptions of the personal value of a person may themselves go up and down like a yo-yo, as if the person HIMSELF was but a share or obligation in the stock market. What we are gambling on now, is not the anticipated profits of owning a financial asset, but we are gambling about the potential earning power of real people.
The next stage is, that we try to manipulate the lives of real people, so that they make the maximum profits in a secure way and realise their potential, and this in turn relates to a sexual culture, where forinstance beautiful women trade for big money. It provides a climate conducive to confidence tricks and frauds, because everything hinges on how you are perceived, your observable behaviour, and simply by acting in a certain way, you may be able to swindle a lot of funds.
But of course most people neither have the financial knowledge nor the capital to participate in casino capitalism. All they can do is imitate the "risk culture" through some kind of mimicking act, without having the big money. So for example you have the yuppie phenomenon, the yuppie does not have much cash, but he uses his personal and sexual skills to make social contacts, win confidence, and gradually ingratiate himself with sufficient people, so that at a certain point, when an opportunity knocks, he can seize on it and make a mint.
In sexual culture, the emphasis then shifts to your ability to hustle, "turn tricks" or alternatively, your ability to get sexual attention when and where you need it, your ability to be sexually popular. Thus, as soon as you have had sex or social contact with somebody, your value goes up, if you do not have it, your value goes down, although of course you must have the correct sort of contact.
4. Interiorisation of the market
But what this really means is that there is now a very direct connection between the social networks and interpersonal relations there are, and the movement of capital.
The point is now that in the end, what defines the value of a person, what personal worth means, is only his observable behaviour and what can be inferred from that. We begin to look at people only in terms of their potential, their exploitability, their earning power, just as we might evaluate the ability of a cow to produce milk.
The new forms of parasitism and swindling relates therefore to the theft of, and restriction of access to INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL, the theft and monopolisation of ideas, the application of private property and commoditisation to the ideas a person generates.
What is the psychological effect of this ? Well, people often no longer want to communicate, because they are afraid to draw attention to themselves, and thus attract exploiters and parasites. You have to hide what you contain without appearing to be hiding anything. The person himself is just a piece of capital which may be utilised or stored awaysomewhere meantime.
5. Parasitism and fraud
The movement against fictitious capital is thus basically a movement against people whose perceived abilities are a fake and people who make money parasitically, i.e. not through their own creative activity but through stealing ideas from others, through parasitism.
I have been plundered completely at least two times in that sense, once in Wellington, and once in Amsterdam. Already as Phd students we were being scavenged. Your life gets ransacked for ideas, plundered, even although nothing may in fact physically disappear. On the other side, you get tested out sexually and in other ways to see what you know and what you are able to do, and you have no more privacy of any sort.
In my case, I had not only ideas stolen, but also real stuff of mine, money and goods; I had tresspass, theft and burglary, media parasitism and so forth. This is not really even casino capitalism anymore but scavenger capitalism.
The idea is, that you use all the extra attention that you are getting, to show how loving you are, how great you are, prove your capability and so forth, but meanwhile you are being ripped off as well.
A related meaning of fictitious capital is therefore that somebody pretends to have an idea or knowledge or creative ability, but he really has not got it.
6. Faustian themes
The trouble however is that a perpetual psychological dillemma is now created, between what you want to show, and what you do not want to show, and whether in fact you can establish what you think you are worth in the way that you want to establish it. Because it is not possible to establish your own worth in your own way, you end up thinking "suck my dick".
In other words, does your own perception, of your own worth, have any exchange value ?
The ultimate conclusion of generalised commodity production is therefore that people begin to hustle for your soul, you have to see every facet of your own personality as a tradeable asset, and relate socially in such a way that you get value for money.
This creates a whole culture around the epistemic problem of; "what is somebody worth ?". In other words, is this person "fictitious" or is there "real value" ?
A lot of what the autonomists are talking about is this kind of reified way of behaving.
The middle class academics make huge money out of exploiting the counter culture in this sense, as well. The complaint then is that these academics are themselves "fictititous", because they had no real involvement in struggle, all they have done is extracted a few ideas from ongoing struggles in order to produce an intellectual commodity from which they earn money.
Regards
Jurriaan
