Excerpt from Chapter One of Frank Engster’s Book: Das Geld als Maß, Mittel und Methode Das Rechnen mit der Identität der Zeit (Berlin: Neofelis Verlag UG, 2014)

The question of the book is how a radical critique of capitalism is possible when critique in the tradition of Kant and Hegel means that the criticized subject itself has to “give” the measure of its critique. The thesis is that, while in Kant this reflexivity is achieved by transcendental subjectivity and reason and in Hegel by self-consciousness, self-relation of the concept and the absolute reason of spirit, in Marx we find a materialist turn. The turn shows that capitalist society became reflexive by a kind of self-measurement, done by the functions of money, on the one hand, and the valorization of labour power and capital, on the other. Money, by its function as the measure of value and the means of its realization and mediation, measures in the commodities the productive relations of their production, thus determining from the past valorization of labour and capital the magnitudes necessary for their further productive valorization — and hence for a productive use of money itself. That is howl, in money’s capital form, the measured magnitudes become reflexive, while money itself becomes in its capitalist self-relation the form to measures the same valorization process which by this form becomes possible in the first place

Marriage

Marriage can be viewed in economic terms as an investment, an outlay of capital by the man’s family before and at the time of the wedding which yields returns over the subsequent period. Returns take a variety of forms, depending on the rights and obligations associated with marriage in a given society. Bambara society in Kala is patriarchal, and lineage-based, in which bride-wealth is paid by the man’s family to that of the woman’s family. Control over childbearing is one of several rights which pass on marriage, along with a woman’s labour power, in the millet-field and in domestic arenas. A woman’s income and resources, and the links of support between her and her natal households, are also valuable elements which come with marriage. Being married is seen as a fundamental and necessary state, very few women remain unmarried for long, polygamy and widow inheritance are practiced, and rates of remarriage are very high. The chapter compares the costs of and returns from marriage. These costs and returns have been changing over time and do patterns of marriage. Marriage also faces certain risks, from mortality, illness, sterility, and marital breakdown.

Labour power, materiality and protests in Ghana’s petroleum and gold mines

We examine the role of resource materiality in extractive labour protests in Ghana. Focusing on petroleum and gold mining, we centre contestations as part of the resources’ socio-natural constituents. Research data was obtained from social conflict databases, newspapers and field interviews. The analysis focused on themes and discourses on protest emergence, mobilisation, negotiation and impacts. Findings show how petroleum labour protesters use passivity and chokepoints to impede gas supply to households. Ghana petroleum workers attempt to garner structural power through workplace power, albeit unsuccessfully. Conversely, gold mineworkers protest by actively reappropriating machinery and extraction spaces. They centre protests in mining towns to emphasise their work as lifeblood. The ‘landedness’ of gold and the introduction of surface mining reshaped such protest tactics. Thus, materiality can help excavate the relational and comparative logic, tactics and potentialities of labour power in resource extracting countries. We suggest extractive labour to forge stronger cross-class coalitions to align workplace exploitation with broader issues of accumulation by dispossession.

Employee participation, job quality, and inequality

PurposeThe purpose is to review the effects of employee participation (EP) in decision-making, ownership and profit on job quality, worker well-being and productivity, and derive policy recommendations from the findings.Design/methodology/approachThe authors summarise results of “declining labour power”, plus theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for the benefits of EP for job quality, satisfaction and productivity.FindingsWorker well-being and job satisfaction are ignored unless they contribute directly to profitability. EP is needed to remedy this situation when employers have market power and unions are weak. The result can be a rise in both productivity and well-being.Research limitations/implicationsThe chief issue here is that there are data limitations, particularly on the well-being effects of participation.Practical implicationsLots of encouraging examples in many countries need legislative help to multiply.Social implicationsIt is quite possible that there could be major implications for welfare and employment.Originality/valueThe authors make the case for public sector subsidies for employee buyouts and new cooperative start-ups, as well as legislation for works councils and profit sharing.

Migración Circular, Gestión y Rentabilidad de la Fuerza de Trabajo: El Caso de la Comunidad Agrícola de José Narciso Rovirosa, Quintana Roo

El propósito de este artículo es presentar las dinámicas de las nuevas formas de gestión y de apropiación de la fuerza de trabajo en el capitalismo global, tomando en cuenta la migración circular de los jornaleros agrícolas temporales de la comunidad de José Narciso Rovirosa, del Estado de Quintana Roo, que migran cíclicamente, mediante el programa de empleo temporal PTAT, a trabajar en las granjas de Canadá. Se parte de una presentación general sobre el concepto de migración circular entendida, en este trabajo, como el patrón de desplazamiento característico del capitalismo global para la maximización y rentabilidad de la fuerza de trabajo proveniente de países en desarrollo. Se afirma que los migrantes circulares encuentran en las comunidades de origen entramados económicos, sociales y políticos, que no permiten que las remesas obtenidas mediante condiciones de sobreexplotación en las granjas canadienses, se conviertan en fuente de desarrollo para la comunidad; pone en discusión la justificación para la gestión de la migración como factor de desarrollo en las comunidades de origen, se reafirma en cambio la migración como dinámica causal acumulativa que obliga a los trabajadores a buscar en la migración el único horizonte de sobrevivencia. This paper focuses on presenting the dynamics of the new forms of management and appropriation of labour power in global capitalism. It takes into account the circular migration of temporary agricultural labourers from the community of José Narciso Rovirosa, in the state of Quintana Roo, who migrate cyclically, through the temporary employment programme PTAT to work on farms in Canada. The paper begins with a general presentation of the concept of circular migration. This study is considered as the pattern of displacement characteristic of global capitalism for the maximization and profitability of the labour force from developing countries. It is affirmed that circular migrants find in their communities of origin economic, social, and political frameworks. These frameworks do not allow remittances obtained through conditions of overexploitation in Canadian farms to become a source of development for the community. It questions the justification for the management of migration as a factor of development in the communities of origin. It also reaffirms migration as an accumulative causal dynamic that forces workers to seek migration as the only horizon of survival.

Reactionary radicalism and the analysis of worker subjectivity in Marx’s critique of political economy

This analysis starts off from the contemporary relevance of the theory of ‘the radicalism of tradition’, arguing that it presents a challenge to Marxism because Marxist work has not sufficiently attended to elements of a theory of worker subjectivity scattered in the critique of political economy. This theory is located on a lower level of abstraction than is commonly assumed and can be applied to subjective dynamics in labour militancy. However, this requires that some basic categories in Marx’s critique are reconsidered, especially those that do not seem immanent to the capitalist social formation, categories that appear, and have mostly been read, as the ahistorical ground on which properly social forms arise. Therefore, apparently ahistorical categories pertaining to use value and concrete labour’s use value for capital are explored to reconstruct a theory relating capital’s positing of labour to contemporary militancies that appropriate tradition. In contrast to the view of tradition as external to capital, the view advanced is that ‘reactionary radicalism’ relates to how capital, as totalizing social form, abstracts tradition. Furthermore, tradition is radicalized through a negative subjectivity inherent to the commodification of labour power and the real subsumption of labour; proletarian experience is a precondition of radicalized tradition.

How To Refuse Research from The Ruins of Its Own Production

Writing in 1965, Mario Tronti’s claim was that the greatest power of the working class is refusal: the refusal of work, the refusal of capitalist development, and the refusal to bargain within a capitalist framework. One can see how this "strategy of refusal" has been utilised in all sorts of instances by social movements, but how does this play out now in the context of wider struggles over autonomy today – not just in terms of labour power and class struggles; but also intersectional feminism and queer politics; race and decolonialism, geopolitics, populism, environmental concerns; and the current pandemic? In what ways does a refusal of production manifest itself in contemporary artistic, political, social, cultural, or other movements? And, how might a refusal of certain forms of production come together with a politics of care and "social closeness" – also when thinking of how research itself might be refused?

Categories of philosophy in researching social relationships of forms of ownership

The essence and development of forms of ownership is an insufficiently researched problem. As its analysis, we used the general methodological position of K. Marx on the nature and method of combining labour power with the means of production, namely, the interaction of its two sides, that is, the features of direct production. In this process, the essence of human activity is revealed, on the one hand, he changes the content of the means of production, and on the other hand, he develops his abilities and thereby changes the content of labour, that is, connections and relations, forms of movement of labour power and means of production are revealed in it, expressed by categories and laws. As a result of the study of the interaction of labour power with the means of production, the nature and method of combining labour power with the means of production was substantiated as a category and laws of property development. The purpose of the article is to reveal the meaning of the nature and method of combining labour power with the means of production in the development of property. The methodological basis of the research was the materialist dialectic. This article is a summary of a new system of views on the explanation of the genesis and development of ownership of the means of production.

Mapping The Biopolitical Mind: The Rhetorics Of Neoliberal University Networks

This thesis will begin by sketching a brief history of neoliberal governmentality in relation to the contemporary university before showing how this interconnectivity legitimizes itself inside an institutional framework where the university's role shifts away from the guardianship of national culture to the production of biopolitically charged bodies enmeshed in the rhetoric of excellence. I argue for a rereading of the development of urbanization that is contemporaneous with the increased practice of a long-term neoliberal university planning for potential growth whose stakeholders would include the university, the city and the corporation. The imminantization of capital in the "digital economy" collapses traditional notions of space-time and in the shift from national culture to biopolitically charged studentship there is a shift away from a labour power that produces capital to a new type of human capital; I argue against sociologists of education and in favour of the concept of thought as alienation.