Swyngedouw’s puzzle: Surplus-value production in socionature

2021 ◽  
pp. 194277862110126
Author(s):  
Bosman Batubara
Keyword(s):  
Surplus Value ◽  
Wage Labour ◽  
Value Production ◽  
Production Of Nature ◽  
Value Relations

This article engages with Swyngedouw’s puzzle, that is, how is surplus-value production under capitalism conceptualised given the entanglement of humans and non-human entities. It identifies how Swyngedouw’s socionature – a concept/way to express the oneness of human and non-human under capitalism – posed a critique to the tendency of labour-centred analysis in Marxist thought such as Neil Smith’s concept of ‘production of nature’ but did not engage with how surplus-value is produced. This article makes visible the role of non-wage-labour in surplus-value production through reference to Moore’s concept of value-relations and oikeios.

Babylonia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
High Price ◽  
Wage Labour ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities

This chapter investigates the role of slavery in the Babylonian economy during the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods. As in Assyria, the relatively high price of slaves in Babylonia restricted slave ownership to the elite, though it should be noted that some wealthy Babylonian families owned enormous numbers of slaves, in some cases as many as several hundred. The chapter then turns to the various methods by which the propertied classes of Babylonian cities made their money, providing three thumbnail sketches as examples. It shows how slave labour had a limited contribution to elite fortunes due to the existence of cheaper labour alternatives, namely sharecropping tenancy and free wage labour. Slavery did, however, play an important role in the management of entrepreneurial activities.

New York, Capital of World Literature? On Holocaust Memory and World Literary Value

2017 ◽  
Vol 135 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Vermeulen
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Value Production ◽  
Roberto Bolano

AbstractThe question of how world literary value is produced has been central to recent debates. While Pascale Casanova’s influential account of a relatively autonomous ‘world literary space’ follows the work of Pierre Bourdieu in applying economic metaphors to processes of world literary value production, this essay argues that Casanova’s 1999 account needs to be updated in light of recent economic and cultural developments: the economic and the literary sphere are no longer separate but fundamentally entwined, which means that processes of world literary value creation cannot be modeled as a pseudo-market. The essay traces ongoing debates on the transcultural circulation of Holocaust memory to put forward a more flexible and multifaceted model for the production of world literary value. To demonstrate the claim that world literary value is today articulated with other forms of value, the essay investigates the role of Holocaust memory in the recent world literary consecration of Roberto Bolaño, Karl-Ove Knausgaard, and Elena Ferrante. Concentrated around New York-based publishers and media, these three cases not only demonstrate the crucial role of Holocaust memory in articulating literary value, they also show the recent shift from Paris to New York as a primary center of world literary value production.

scholarly journals Capital as a social process: A Marxian perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-71
Author(s):  
Miguel D. Ramirez
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
Fictitious Capital ◽  
Important Notion

This paper analyzes the very important notion of capital from a Marxian perspective as opposed to a neoclassical one. It is argued that when capital is viewed as a historically determined social process (relation), rather than as a thing or a col-lection of things, it tends to assume certain specific forms more often than others depending on the particular stage of economic history. Capital thus refers simulta-neously to social relations and to things. Given this frame of reference, notions such as money and property capital are more easily accommodated and conse-quently are not written off as financial or fictitious capital - not real capital because they produce nothing. The paper also focuses on Marx's important analy-sis of the time of production and the turnover of capital in terms of the production of surplus-value (profit). It then examines Marx's equally important and prescient analysis of how the turnover speed of capital is affected by the time of circulation of commodities (the realization of surplus-value) and the growing use of credit (in its various forms) in the capitalist system. Finally, the paper turns its attention to the economic role of time as it relates to interest - bearing capital - one whose clear comprehension rests on viewing capital as a social construct.

Animal Labour in a Post-Work Society

Animal Labour ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 207-228
Author(s):  
Sue Donaldson ◽  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
Technological Development ◽  
Development Status ◽  
Wage Labour ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
Self Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Work World ◽  
Standard Models ◽  
Individual Security

Labour has been associated historically with a cluster of values, including individual security, self-development and freedom, social standing and recognition, and meaning. Insofar as these values are also relevant to animals, this suggests that we should seek to include animals into the world of labour. We should recognize that animals, as well as humans, are workers, and deserve access to the security, self-development, status, community, and purpose wrapped up in the role of being a worker. The reality, however, is that work life fails to deliver many of these goods, much of the time, for many people. Moreover, given technological development, there is no necessity for everyone to be a producer, and indeed the cultural expectation that everyone should be ‘productive’ is culturally pernicious and environmentally unsustainable. As a result, we see increasing discussion of a ‘post-work’ society. This chapter explores how animals fit into the emerging debate about the post-work society. It argues that animals can in fact be major beneficiaries of, and indeed exemplars of, this shift, engaging in socially beneficial activities that do not fit standard models of wage labour and economic production. Instead of bringing animals into our current work society, this chapter explores the possibility that animals could exemplify the ethics of a post-work world—one in which the values traditionally tied to ‘productive’ work are instead realized through new conceptions of community—being, doing, and taking care together.

Value-Relations and General Theory: Parsons’ Critique of Weber

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lassman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Value Relevance ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
The Social ◽  
Value Neutrality ◽  
Value Relations

AbstractTalcott Parsons and Max Weber, despite the complexities and uncertainties of the latter’s work, represent two competing approaches to the nature of sociological theory. Despite his reliance upon many aspects of the work of Weber, Parsons’ critical remarks on the problems of value-relevance and value-neutrality can be interpreted in this light. The methodological views of both theorists are tied to differing views of the development of western society and of the role of the Social Sciences. Both are haunted by the spectre of relativism.

scholarly journals A new theoretical analysis of deindustrialisation

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 1373-1390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Tregenna
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Sectoral Structure ◽  
The Future ◽  
Sectoral Shift

Abstract The analysis of deindustrialisation has been led by heterodox economists, especially those in the structuralist and Kaldorian traditions, based on a conception of sectoral specificity and the role of manufacturing in growth. Sectors are not the units of Marxian economic analysis, but thinking through the meaning of sectors in Marxian terms allows for an analysis of the meaning and implications of a change in sectoral structure. Deindustrialisation is the sectoral shift that has been most prominent in recent decades and which is likely to have significant implications for the future of capitalism. This article develops an original Marxian theorisation of deindustrialisation. This conceptualisation includes a distinction between two forms of deindustrialisation. As well as taking into account changes in sectoral structure, the proposed typology considers whether such changes are associated with a shift between those activities that produce surplus value and those that do not or only a shift in the composition of surplus-value-producing activities. The distinction between different forms of deindustrialisation allows for an arguably richer analysis of this phenomenon than in more narrowly sector-based approaches.

scholarly journals Merchant Capital, the State, and Labour in a British Colony: Servant-Master Relations and Capital Accumulation in Newfoundland’s Northeast-Coast Fishery, 1775-1799

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean T. Cadigan
Keyword(s):  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Wage Labour ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
British Colony ◽  
Merchant Capital

Abstract This paper uses a case study of class struggle in the late-eighteenth-century Newfoundland fishery to examine the relationship between merchant capital and the employment of wage labour in staple production in early colonial development. Using a modified version of the staple model which emphasises the role of the class relations and institutional structures of staple industries on long-term development, it finds that British regulation of wages to protect the migratory fishery stymied the extensive employment of wage labour by resident planters. Evidence drawn from court records suggests that fishing servants used the law to prevent erosion of wages due from planters at the end of a fishing season by ignoring mandatory preseason contracts or account overcharges. Servants enjoyed less, but still formidable, success in winning suits brought about by masters for neglect. By using wage law beyond the intentions of its British makers, servants forced planters increasingly to rely on family labour rather than wage labour. The struggles of wage labourers with their employers, rather than merchant conservatism as such, contributed to Newfoundland's long-term domination by merchant truck with fishing families.

scholarly journals Global Fertility Chains: An Integrative Political Economy Approach to Understanding the Reproductive Bioeconomy

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392199646
Author(s):  
Sigrid Vertommen ◽  
Vincenzo Pavone ◽  
Michal Nahman
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Commodity Chains ◽  
Unified Approach ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Reproductive Labor ◽  
Reproductive Services ◽  
Political Economy Approach

Over the last two decades, social scientists across disciplines have been researching how value is extracted and governed in the reproductive bioeconomy, which broadly refers to the various ways reproductive tissues, bodies, services, customers, workers, and data are inserted into capitalist modes of accumulation. While many of these studies are empirically grounded in single country–based analyses, this paper proposes an integrative political economy framework, structured around the concept of “global fertility chains.” The latter articulates the reproductive bioeconomy as a nexus of intraconnected practices, operations, and transactions between enterprises, states, and households across the globe, through which reproductive services and commodities are produced, distributed, and consumed. Employing a diffractive reading of the literature on commodity chains and care chains, this unified approach scrutinizes the coproduction of value, biology, and technoscience and their governance mechanisms in the accumulation of capital by taking into account (1) the unevenly developed geographies of global fertility chains, (2) their reliance on women’s waged and unwaged reproductive labor, and (3) the networked role of multiple actors at multiple scales without losing sight of the (4) constitutive role of (supra)national states in creating demand, organizing supply, and accommodating the distribution of surplus value. We empirically ground this integrative political economy approach of the reproductive bioeconomy through collaborative, multisited fieldwork on transnational reproduction networks in Israel/Palestine, Romania, Georgia, and Spain.

scholarly journals Institution-monopoly rent and competition amongst China's local governments: a Marxist analytical framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-351
Author(s):  
Jie Meng ◽  
Fenghua Wu
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
Strategic Investment ◽  
Socialist Market Economy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
High Investment ◽  
Value Production

PurposeAs a crucial institutional form established since the Chinese economic reform, the system of competitive local governments has been shaping the characteristics of China's socialist market economy to a considerable degree.Design/methodology/approachThis study not only adopts the view of existing studies that attribute the economic motive of local governments to rent and consider land public finance as a means through which local governments carry out strategic investment but also attempts to further develop the view within a Marxist analytical framework.FindingsAs a result, the local governments have helped to maintain an incredibly high investment rate over a considerable period of time, facilitating the continuous, rapid growth of the Chinese economy.Originality/valueThis study concludes that China's local governments function as the productive allocator and user of rent in the strategic investment based on land public finance and thereby embed themselves in the relative surplus-value production initially arising from competition amongst enterprises, forming the dual structure of relative surplus-value production unique to China's economy.

A Combined Argument: Beyond Wallerstein?

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mladen Medved
Keyword(s):  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Nation State ◽  
World Systems ◽  
The West ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Wage Labour ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
World Systems Analysis

AbstractInHow the West Came to Rule, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu offer an alternative to both Political Marxism and world-systems analysis (WSA) by going beyond the nation-state as the unit of analysis in the former and the marginalisation of articulation and combination between modes of production in the latter. Their account also gives more room to non-European actors neglected in other interpretations of the rise of the West. However, I argue that their argument is much closer toWSAand that their critique of Wallerstein regarding Eurocentrism, the origins of capitalism and the role of wage labour in the capitalist world-system is problematic. Furthermore, Anievas and Nişancıoğlu do not offer a sufficiently rigorous definition of combination, leading to an overextension of the concept.

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