Re: Re: Re: The Subject is Capital
Being tone deaf, I'd like to stand with the choir and lip-synch. Gene Coyle Rob Schaap wrote: > A quick rant, Reverend Tom ... by way of testimony from the congregation. > > As Charlie Andrews so pungently summarises the whole sad business, "By > living his life the worker produces his capacity to work." > > The raison d'etre of the dispossessed is to produce commodities - 'his' > being is not an end in itself (which means the order's apologists do not > have Kant's categorical imperative available to them when they spout that > freedom-lovin' moralism in their defence) but a means to the end of > accumulation. The one thing - the ONE thing - that accumulation cannot > proffer the worker is the only thing a life needs to be itself: the > possession of time. > > John Stuart Mill had an inkling of this when he wrote that line Marx liked > enough to use: "It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made > have lightened the day's toil of any human being." It ain't the time you > take to make something; it's the socially necessary time - the time a > competing owner of plant would need to pay for to have the thing made. As > Marx avers here (chapter 15), technology cannot give us time because, under > capitalism, its raison d'etre is to produce surplus value. So technology > appears on the scene as a thing made of death, purchased with death to bring > death. > > And if ever the 'behind-our-backness' of that which drives us needs > verification, it's in the dominant discourse of our time. As we all > demonstrably have ever less of the very thing that defines life itself, we > have convinced ourselves we are wealthier than any generation in human > history. So whatever 'wealth' is, it is not life. The dead things which > comprise 'wealth' are, each and every one, physical manifestations of living > denied. > > Ergo, the opportunity cost of capitalism is life. > > Ergo, capitalism is murder. > > >The traditional left has sought to affirm labour. The point is to abolish > it. > > Neat thesis, Reverend Tom!'The standpoint of the old leftism is the > distribution of death and dead things; the standpoint of the new is the > freedom to live human lives', eh? > > Signing up for a spot on the choir, > Rob.
Re: Re: The Subject is Capital
A quick rant, Reverend Tom ... by way of testimony from the congregation. As Charlie Andrews so pungently summarises the whole sad business, "By living his life the worker produces his capacity to work." The raison d'etre of the dispossessed is to produce commodities - 'his' being is not an end in itself (which means the order's apologists do not have Kant's categorical imperative available to them when they spout that freedom-lovin' moralism in their defence) but a means to the end of accumulation. The one thing - the ONE thing - that accumulation cannot proffer the worker is the only thing a life needs to be itself: the possession of time. John Stuart Mill had an inkling of this when he wrote that line Marx liked enough to use: "It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being." It ain't the time you take to make something; it's the socially necessary time - the time a competing owner of plant would need to pay for to have the thing made. As Marx avers here (chapter 15), technology cannot give us time because, under capitalism, its raison d'etre is to produce surplus value. So technology appears on the scene as a thing made of death, purchased with death to bring death. And if ever the 'behind-our-backness' of that which drives us needs verification, it's in the dominant discourse of our time. As we all demonstrably have ever less of the very thing that defines life itself, we have convinced ourselves we are wealthier than any generation in human history. So whatever 'wealth' is, it is not life. The dead things which comprise 'wealth' are, each and every one, physical manifestations of living denied. Ergo, the opportunity cost of capitalism is life. Ergo, capitalism is murder. >The traditional left has sought to affirm labour. The point is to abolish it. Neat thesis, Reverend Tom!'The standpoint of the old leftism is the distribution of death and dead things; the standpoint of the new is the freedom to live human lives', eh? Signing up for a spot on the choir, Rob.
Re: Re: The Subject is Capital
At 06:21 06-11-00, you wrote: I've been floundering around for twenty years or so trying to work out a program -- not a vision, not a theoretical critique but a program. Of course a program needs to be grounded theoretically (here) and it needs to project a vision of where its going (there). One of the things that has encouraged me in this undertaking is that I often encounter expressions of sheer incomprehension (from knowledgeable people) just at the moments when I feel I have achieved greatest lucidity. That suggests to me that the behind our backedness of it all is itself systemic, not arbitrary. Tom, I'd like to hear just how you consider systemic in this case to be non-arbitrary. Since it ain't necessarily so. cheers, Joanna
