The Analytic of Separation: History and Concept in Marx

2021 ◽  
pp. 228-248
Author(s):  
Nathan Brown
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Conceptual Category ◽  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
System P ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Conceptual Relationships

Chapter 10 develops an approach to the relation between historical and conceptual registers of Marx’s Capital by foregrounding the importance of “separation” (Scheidung) in Volume One. I argue that “separation” is the key to understanding how Marx’s theory is both empiricist and rationalist: derived from the history of capital and structured by conceptual relationships. I theorize the implicit centrality of separation to every major conceptual category developed in Volume One of Capital, showing that it traverses the theory of value, the history of the division of labor, and Marx’s account of primitive accumulation. The chapter concludes by assessing the consequences of this reading of Marx for theorizing the category of the proletariat beyond the limitations of Marx’s own system.

The Colonialism of Value

2020 ◽  
pp. 178-197
Author(s):  
Thomas Nail
Keyword(s):  
Kinetic Theory ◽  
Robinson Crusoe ◽  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
Commodity Fetishism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Two Sides

This chapter posits that the secret of commodity fetishism is nothing other than “The Secret of Primitive Accumulation” of chapter twenty-six of Capital. It is no coincidence that the titles of chapter one, section four and chapter twenty-six are the only two in all of Capital to reference “the secret.” They are two sides of the same twofold kinetic theory of value laid out in this book. Fetishism and primitive accumulation are entangled with each other in a way rendered explicit in the history of colonialism and in the founding mythology of capitalism itself: the story of Robinson Crusoe.

Conclusion: What is Speculative Empiricism?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didier Debaise
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Speculative Philosophy ◽  
System P ◽  
History Of ◽  
Selection Of

Process and Reality ends with a warning: ‘[t]he chief danger to philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence’ (PR, 337). Although this danger of narrowness might emerge from the ‘idiosyncrasies and timidities of particular authors, of particular social groups, of particular schools of thought, of particular epochs in the history of civilization’ (PR, 337), we should not be mistaken: it occurs within philosophy, in its activity, its method. And the fact that this issue arises at the end of Process and Reality reveals the ambition that has accompanied its composition: Whitehead has resisted this danger through the form and ambition of his speculative construction. The temptation of a narrowness in selection attempts to expel speculative philosophy at the same time as it haunts each part of its system.

Drifting Through a Planetary System

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karel Schrijver
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Solar System ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Planetary System ◽  
System P ◽  
History Of ◽  
Or Team ◽  
Water Contents

This chapter describes how the first found exoplanets presented puzzles: they orbited where they should not have formed or where they could not have survived the death of their stars. The Solar System had its own puzzles to add: Mars is smaller than expected, while Venus, Earth, and Mars had more water—at least at one time—than could be understood. This chapter shows how astronomers worked through the combination of these puzzles: now we appreciate that planets can change their orbits, scatter water-bearing asteroids about, steal material from growing planets, or team up with other planets to stabilize their future. The special history of Jupiter and Saturn as a pair bringing both destruction and water to Earth emerged from the study of seventeenth-century resonant clocks, from the water contents of asteroids, and from experiments with supercomputers imposing the laws of physics on virtual worlds.

Digitally Mediated Identity in the Cases of Two Sámi Artists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Werner
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
Industry Studies ◽  
Media System ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
System P ◽  
Music Consumption ◽  
History Of ◽  
Streaming Services

This chapter explores identity issues in commercial streaming services, which have grown steadily in the 2010s to become the dominant form of music consumption in the Nordic countries, with about 60% of all Internet users in 2015. The chapter offers an alternative to the dominant trend in music industry studies by focusing not on the industry’s interests but instead on broader cultural issues. The chapter presents case studies of two female Sámi artists and their representations on Spotify, YouTube, MySpace, and artists’ websites, taking various aspects of the services into account, including the interface and the algorithm-based recommendations. Informed by feminist cultural studies, the argument is that the industry continues a history of reinforcing stereotypes of ethnicity, indigeneity, and femininity. Thus, commercial streaming is not only making music available to global audiences, it is also selling images of Otherness within an unequal capitalist global media system.

The System is the Solution: Marx's Analysis of Capitalism

1986 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 13-13
Author(s):  
George Galster
Keyword(s):  
Production Process ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Economic Base ◽  
Radical Theory ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Pedagogic Device

The following note describes a skit designed primarily as a pedagogic device to illustrate in a meaningful (and, hopefully, provocative and humorous) way Marx's analysis of capitalism. Numerous concepts and phenomena are “brought to life” in the skit: exploitation, immiseration and alienation of workers, maintenance wage, labor theory of value, mechanization and the division of labor, systemic tendencies toward economic crises, relationship of various superstructural components (welfare, religion, etc.) to the economic base, and the radical theory of the state. More specifically, the economic base of a hypothetical capitalist society consists of a stylized production process involving “resources” (Oreo cookies), “labor” (students selected from the class) and eventually “capital” (table knives). The ability of the monopoly capitalist to accumulate surplus by exploiting workers becomes manifest. Other elements of the social superstructure (unions, government, religion, etc.)

Economic thought in the 17th and 18th centuries: a linguistic approach

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-270
Author(s):  
Iara Vigo de Lima
Keyword(s):  
Economic Thought ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Front Position ◽  
History Of ◽  
Epistemological Model ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Linguistic Approach ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse Michel Foucault’s new epistemological model regarding an analogy between the theory of language and economic thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Design/methodology/approach – Through the scrutiny of language, Foucault intended to demonstrate that some analogies, among different branches of knowledge (interdiscursive practice), allow us to apprehend the underlying configuration of thought regarding ontological and epistemological conditions that have historically determined knowledge. He draws a parallel between four theoretical segments borrowed from general grammar (Attribution, Articulation, Designation and Derivation) and economic thought on wealth. Findings – One of the most remarkable propositions of this approach is that the theory of language and economic thought were epistemologically isomorphic in that context. What the theory of language stated in relation to “attribution” and “articulation” corresponded to the “theory of value” in economic thought. What grammar investigated regarding “designation” and “derivation” was analogous to the “theory of money and trade” in economic thought. The relationships that were – directly and diagonally – identified between and among them led to the conclusion that there was ‘a circular and surface causality’ in economic thought insofar as “circulation” preceded “production”. It was “superficial” because it could not find an explanation for the cause of “wealth”, which was only possible when “production” was placed in the front position of theories. Practical implications – Such an epistemological point of view can inspire other studies in the history of economic thought. Originality/value – This paper offers a perspective on how to think about the history of ontological and epistemological conditions of economic thought.

Burney's The Wanderer and Early-Nineteenth-Century Commodity Fetishism

2002 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Commodity Fetishism ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
The Wanderer

This essay explores a particular moment in the history of commodity fetishism by means of an examination of Frances Burney's The Wanderer (1814). The novel, which is explicitly concerned with the social changes facing early-nineteenth-century England, reveals that at this historical moment the commodity inspired emotions of a particular kind: it was idealized and perceived as attractively individualized, aloof, exotic, and changeable, and it elicited a passionate and sometimes even painful form of desire. In The Wanderer Burney explores the human repercussions of this new way of engaging with objects in the marketplace. She reveals, moreover, the extent to which the fetishism of the commodity reflected not just developments within the economy but also political change: under the influence of the French Revolution the charisma once generated by social status was transferred to the economic realm, where, embodied in the commodity, it gave rise to a pleasurable but masochistic reverence. Burney'sargument for the usefulness of economic independence necessarily leads her to appreciate the commodity fetishism she describes: even while she develops a labor theory of value, Burney promotes a mystification of the commodity by insisting on the aloof independence of both labor and its products. Thus, Burney uses the apparent autonomy of things——which Marx decries——as a means to argue for the autonomy of the makers of those things.

The Next Space Patrons

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Political History ◽  
Space Exploration ◽  
Development Program ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early American ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Space Race ◽  
System P ◽  
History Of

Mankind will not remain forever confined to the Earth. In pursuit of light and space it will, timidly at first, probe the limits of the atmosphere and later extend its control to the entire solar system. —Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Letter to B. N. Vorobyev, 1911 What do we learn from this long-run perspective on American space exploration? How does it change our understanding of the history of spaceflight? How does it change our understanding of the present? This book has provided an economic perspective on two centuries of history, with examinations of early American observatories, the rocket development program of Robert Goddard, and the political history of the space race. Although the subjects covered have been wide-ranging, together they present a new view of American space history, one that challenges the dominant narrative of space exploration as an inherently governmental activity. From them a new narrative emerges, that of the Long Space Age, a narrative that in the ...

scholarly journals The order of trait emergence in the evolution of cyanobacterial multicellularity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Hammerschmidt ◽  
Giddy Landan ◽  
Fernando Domingues Kümmel Tria ◽  
Jaime Alcorta ◽  
Tal Dagan
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Phenotypic Trait ◽  
Evolutionary Transition ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Differentiated Cells ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
Significant Events ◽  
Reproductive Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multicellular Organisms

AbstractThe transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms is one of the most significant events in the history of life. Key to this process is the emergence of Darwinian individuality at the higher level: groups must become single entities capable of reproduction for selection to shape their evolution. Evolutionary transitions in individuality are characterized by cooperation between the lower level entities and by division of labor. Theory suggests that division of labor may drive the transition to multicellularity by eliminating the trade-off between two incompatible processes that cannot be performed simultaneously in one cell. Here we examine the evolution of the most ancient multicellular transition known today, that of cyanobacteria, where we reconstruct the sequence of ecological and phenotypic trait evolution. Our results show that the prime driver of multicellularity in cyanobacteria was the expansion in metabolic capacity offered by nitrogen fixation, which was accompanied by the emergence of the filamentous morphology and succeeded by a reproductive life cycle. This was followed by the progression of multicellularity into higher complexity in the form of differentiated cells and patterned multicellularity.Significance StatementThe emergence of multicellularity is a major evolutionary transition. The oldest transition, that of cyanobacteria, happened more than 3 to 3.5 billion years ago. We find N2 fixation to be the prime driver of multicellularity in cyanobacteria. This innovation faced the challenge of incompatible metabolic processes since the N2 fixing enzyme (nitrogenase) is sensitive to oxygen, which is abundantly found in cyanobacteria cells performing photosynthesis. At the same time, N2-fixation conferred an adaptive benefit to the filamentous morphology as cells could divide their labour into performing either N2-fixation or photosynthesis. This was followed by the culmination of complex multicellularity in the form of differentiated cells and patterned multicellularity.

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