As Featured in Belonging Again (Part II)
Considering The Structure of World History by Kojin Karatani
VIII
‘The commodity linen manifests its quality of having a value by the fact that the coat, without having assumed a value form different from its bodily form, is equated to the linen.’⁴⁹ Value-form can manifest concretely or abstractly, based on the physical use-value of a coat or based on “an abstract notion of labor” — it doesn’t matter, for the presence of a “value-form,” however it might arise, is all that is needed so that ‘a commodity is in the equivalent form,’ and thus ‘directly exchangeable with other commodities.’⁵⁰‘Since no commodity can stand in the relation of equivalent to itself […] every commodity is compelled to choose some other commodity for its equivalent, and to accept the use-value, that is to say, the bodily shape of that other commodity, as the form of its own value.’⁵¹ Nothing can exchange with itself or anything identical with it, and so the value of things can only rise “in comparison” to other things (hence, “situated”). Value arises in “comparison,” and that “comparison” is fundamentally one of exchangeability (value does not arise with and between mere proximity). The whole environment or economy of “commodities relating to other commodities” is required, which means there must also be a system of production and labor to make that network of relations possible. “The means of production” must hence spread with “the means of exchange,” indivisible, for otherwise things like ‘iron’ and a ‘sugar-loaf’ cannot readily be exchanged, for that would require ‘a non-natural property of both, something purely social, namely, their value.’⁵² ‘Since the relative form of value of a commodity […] expresses the value of that commodity, as being something wholly different from its substance and properties […] we see that this expression itself indicates that some social relation lies at the bottom of it.’⁵³ There must be a “situation.”
For “labor” to be a quantifier and “depositor” of value, ‘the labour of tailoring [for example] must reflect nothing besides its own abstract quality of being human labour generally.’⁵⁴ Capital works because everything is made an abstraction of itself, which applies to “things” just as much as it does labor itself. Labor in particular is not the basis of exchange, but labor in the abstract; likewise, it is not linen in its particularity that I can exchange for a sugar-labor, but rather linen in the abstract sense of value. ‘The brilliancy of Aristotle,’ Marx notes, was his realization that ‘the expression of the value of commodities [entailed] a relation of equality,’ but Marx also realized that Aristotle couldn’t realize how labor functioned as a means of quantifying that equality due to Aristotle’s social reliance on slavery.⁵⁵ Still, Aristotle helps us understand that value places an equality at the heart of all things which makes ‘[e]very other commodity […] a mirror of the linen’s value’ (and every other relating value, for that matter): every labor ‘ranks equally with every other sort of human labor, no matter […] whether tailoring, ploughing, mining, etc., and no matter […] whether it is realized in coats, corn, iron, or gold’ (‘it is a matter of indifference under what particular form, or kind, of use-value it appears’).⁵⁶
To quote Marx:
‘The general value form, which represents all products of labour as mere congelations of undifferentiated human labour, shows by its very structure that it is the social resume of the world of commodities. That form consequently makes it indisputably evident that in the world of commodities the character possessed by all labour of being human labour constitutes its specific social character.’⁵⁷
Terms like “world,” “social resume,” and “human” stand out as terms which suggest that commodities only exist sociologically (not individually), and furthermore “human labor” suggests a societal designation, for humans are “social animals.” Capitalism is never isolationist, even if it causes individual isolation, for then Capitalism wouldn’t function: it works by changing our “towardness,” not just a given individual’s “towardness” (so that the “=” is intelligible and ‘[t]he antagonism between the relative form of value and the equivalent form […] is developed concurrently with [the value-form] itself’).⁵⁸ Thanks to this, “Global Relationality” is possible (no small accomplishment), but this relationship risks “compressing” us into abstractions, which then makes us “flat” once the ‘fetishism of commodities’ arises, as possible thanks to ‘the peculiar social character of the labour.’⁵⁹ To “de-compress” back into our fullness, we would have to face anxiety and “The Real,” which Capital moves us out of the habit of so doing.
Without exchange, there wouldn’t be a (“practically meaningful”) idea or “abstract form of labor” by which “value” could be quantified with and in light of, which is to say that if there was no possibility of exchanging things we would not search for a way to quantify (through labor) an abstract notion (like “value”) by which exchange could be possible between radically different phenomena. In other words, if exchange didn’t exist, I wouldn’t think of a sugar-loaf as being worth $10; I would think of a sugar-loaf as a sugar-loaf. The sugar-loaf takes on ‘an abstract norm,’ as is necessary ‘in a society in which numerous households take up fixed residence collectively,’ especially when those households are profoundly diverse — or so Kojin Karatani claims in The Structure of World History.⁶⁰ Why exactly an “abstract norm” is necessary, and what quality that “abstract norm” takes on, I think will point us to the work of Mary Douglas on How Institutions Thinks (later on in Belonging Again (Part II)), begging also the question of “What should be the quality of that ‘abstract norm?’ ’ — but for now we will focus on Karatani, who Fredric Jameson (on the back of my 2014 paperback edition) praised while also noting that ‘[h]is rereading of Marxian modes of production […] in terms of modes of exchange is heretical and revisionist, but also profoundly critical […]’
Indeed, after centuries of focusing on “the modes of production,” it seems “revisionist” and absurd to focus on “modes of exchange,” but that is exactly what Karatani does and that this paper has hoped to argue “there is room for” in Marx. I do think the case can be made that there is justification in Marx to focus on “modes of exchange” (as we have attempted to show through arguing for something like “The Situational Theory of Value”), a move which would then have us focus on something more like “Value-Form Theory,” but at the same time I acknowledge that there is something “revisionist” about this, insomuch as it has us think of Marx outside of Capitalism, which is clearly in what Marx situates his analysis. In this way, I don’t see a focus on “exchange” as “revisionist,” so much as I think it is “expansion” or “elaborating.” ‘The world Marx himself tried to explicated was formed by the mode of commodity exchange,’ Karatani tells us, which ‘is the world we find in his Capital. But this bracketed off the worlds formed by the other modes of exchange, namely the state and nation.’⁶¹ To elaborate:
‘Marx regarded the capitalist economy as constituting the base structure, while he took nation and state to be part of the ideological superstructure. Because of this, he was never able to grasp the complex social formation that is Capital-Nation-State. This led him to the view that state and nation would naturally wither away once the capitalist system was abolished. As a result, Marxist movements have always stumbled badly in the face of the problems of the state and nation.’⁶²
We cannot think of Capital, Nation, and State as “algebraic” points that can be divided; they all come “knotted together,” as a “The Situation of the Capital-Nation-State,” a failure to recognize of which is at least partially why ‘[c]ountermovements against capital and the state inevitably splinter once they reach a certain level,’ which is around the point where they assume “the superstructure” will dissolve.⁶³ It does not, for all parts of Capital, State, and Nature function ‘as active agents on their own,’ all part of the same “situation” of The Capital-State-Nation.⁶⁴ In arguing that Capital itself is fundamentally “situational,” my hope has been to help justify the transition from Marx into Karatani, to help us understand that Karatani and “Value-Form” are not so “heretical” as it might seem (a “Situational Marx” can be justified and prove relevant today). In fact, a focus on “exchange” is critical for us to see why we are so profoundly structured by either Discourse or Rhetoric (both are “modes of exchange and exchanging”), which by extension means for us to grasp the centrality of Rhetoric and Childhood.
Karatani tries to show ‘Marx’s failure to see the state and nation, like capital, [as having] their own real bases and hence [couldn’t] be dissolved simply through acts of enlightenment’; furthermore, Marx did not see how ‘they [all] exist in a structure of interrelationship.’⁶⁵ Again, what this suggests is that Karatani is going to argue that we must move Marx into being thought more situationally, which Karatani will refer to as “The Capital-Nation-State,” which he also notes is ‘an ingenious system,’ even though he ultimately hopes ‘to transcend it.’⁶⁶ Karatani hopes ‘to try to think about the worlds formed by the different modes of exchange, to examine the historical vicissitudes of the social formations that arose as complex combinations of these, and finally to ascertain the possibilities that exist for sublating those formations.’⁶⁷ He sees “The Capital-Nation-State” as what Fukuyama called ‘the end of history,’ which means that its emergence renders any further ‘fundamental revolution […] impossible (Land waits).⁶⁸ Karatani notes that many ‘ridiculed Fukuyama’s views,’ but Karatani acknowledges that ‘in a sense he was correct.’⁶⁹ After all, ‘[t]he Capital-Nation-State circuit is perfectly stable,’ which means that, at this point, it is not necessarily the case that history progresses any further: this really could be “the end of history,” for this could really be “The End of (True) History” (as we discussed in II.1 regarding Nick Land) if we fail to make an Absolute Choice into “Absolute History” (which ultimately requires “a new mode of exchange,” mainly Rhetoric and Childhood).⁷⁰ As Nick Land might have understood, ‘[b]ecause people are not even aware that they are trapped within [the] circuit [of the Capital-Nation-State], they mistakenly believe that they are making historical progress when in fact they are simply spinning around in circles within it’ (exactly as perhaps Capital and Artificial Intelligence might have us think, to its ostensible benefit).⁷¹ Karatani notes that, based on some historic examples, that ‘communism depends less on shared ownership of the means of production than on the return of nomadism,’ but does this mean that a “commons” and “space outside the market” in which Childhood might develop and spread must entail some Delezuian “exodus” and “frontier” (like we discuss with Tocqueville)?⁷² Perhaps, but if we understand the role of “nonrationality” to avoid Nash Equilibria, perhaps a “New Address” might prove possible in a world where people are more sedentary and where there seems to be nowhere we can go that Capital and Discourse haven’t reached (without being more Isolationist, like the Amish) — but this is what we will ultimately have to consider.
What we find in Karatani is an effort ‘to rethink the history of social formations from the perspective of modes of exchange. Until now, in Marxism this has been taken up from the perspective of modes of production […] Modes of production have been regarded as the ‘economic base,’ while the political, religious, and cultural have been considered the ideological superstructure.’⁷³ As I believe thinkers like Philip Rieff and Peter Berger would agree, this is a mistake: liberate people from the market, and they will still easily live according to Discourse and “the logic of Capital” (A/A). Furthermore, I myself would say that if you removed (versus negated/sublated) the whole Capital-Nation-State, there would be no guarantee that this wouldn’t prove a disaster if people proved incapable of the Childhood necessary for handling the resulting anxiety (we might want to bring “The Capital-Nation-State” right back, “The Big Other”). This is because “The Capital-Nation-State” is ultimately a result of humans wanting to escape the incredible anxiety we suffer when people interact unmediated, as we will discuss when we explore Tocqueville and Louis Dumont, and furthermore the risk for Discourse necessarily arises the moment humans gather around a fire at a campsite (E.O. Wilson) and need “authoritative categories” (Mary Douglas) — but now we are ahead of ourselves and must focus more on Karatani.
‘Marxists believed that ideological superstructures such as the state or nation would naturally wither away when the capitalist economy was abolished, but reality betrayed their expectation, and they were tripped up in their attempts to deal with the state and nation.’⁷⁴ There are many reasons for this, but we have tried to describe part of the problem in terms of Kafka and Discourse, which is to say we organically and emergently, under certain conditions, organize ourselves in “low order”-ways which lead to “capture” (Deleuze) and the like. Discourse is a kind of “exchange,” as is Rhetoric, and in this way I think we can consider Karatani alongside Deirdre McCloskey (all of which is then framed and organized by “energy-use,” following Vaclav Smil, which is perhaps the most fundamental “social use-value”). The “demand” of Keynes and “values” of Nietzsche are also “modes of exchange,” and if much rides on the move from Discourse to Rhetoric, then much rides on a change in our “mode of exchange” (which is indivisible from our material and “medium” condition — but again more later).
‘In this book,’ Karatani writes, ‘I turn anew to the dimension of the economic. But I define the economic not in terms of modes of production but rather in terms of modes of exchange’ (which, again, is a move I think McCloskey would appreciate, even if (strong) disagreement).⁷⁵ ‘Historically, all social formations exist as combinations of multiple modes of exchange [(a reality which is overlooked if we focus too much on ‘modes of production’)]. Social formations differ only in the question of which mode of exchange is dominate.’⁷⁶ Under Capitalism, we find ‘commodity exchange [as] the dominate mode,’ for which ‘Marx provided a brilliant explication,’ but did so through by ‘bracket[ing] off the questions of nation and state.’⁷⁷ This lead to Marx missing “The Capital-Nation-State,” and Marxists deemphasizing the essentialness of the State, and Karatani hopes to correct that mistake, telling us that ‘if we wish to transcend Capital-Nation-State, we must first be able to see it’ — thus he sets about his work.⁷⁸ Ultimately, how we “see” the world is greatly situated and organized by the Capital-Nation-State, and just because we change “the means of production” doesn’t guarantee that we will also change how we “see” the world. We might still think and interpret life according to Capital, and if so a change in production might just be a moving around of chairs on the Titanic. To change ships, our change must be deep (a change like a shift into Childhood, which is a change in how we see, experience, and value).
The rise of the Capital-Nation-State, which Karatani defines as “Exchange C” (‘commodity exchange,’ which is ‘neither constrained by the obligations inherent in gift giving, as in mode exchange A, nor imposed through violence, as in the pillaging of mode of exchange B’) is not all bad, for C ‘tends to free individuals from the primary communal constraints that arise from the principle of gift exchange.’⁷⁹ Furthermore, it would seem that ‘people tend to prefer to sell their labor power rather than accept subordination to community or family,’ which is to say people would prefer to be “released from givens” versus “thoughtlessly follow them” (to allude to Belonging Again (Part I)).⁸⁰ Of course, there are ‘new constraints’ to which people are then submitted, but we must be careful to speak of Capitalism as if no freedoms are gained at all or as if people don’t often prefer the state of Capitalism to something more communal (at least until they try it, at which point though it might be too late to go back).⁸¹ Unfortunately, the movement toward Capitalism seems to entail as well a movement from Rhetoric to Discourse, which causes Capitalism to stagnate and enter autocannibalism. This case has to be made throughout Belonging Again, but the point is that Capitalism is not always a product of oppression and force: people choose it, and that should be taken seriously.
A lack of seeing Capitalism clearly by Marxist-leaning people could be worsened by the tendency to speak of “a proletariat,” to which ‘an image of poverty clings.’⁸² ‘Today’s white-collar workers are undoubtedly wage laborers, but they never think of themselves as the proletariat […] [And yet] [t]he important thing is that they sell their labor power to capital, that they engage in wage labor, regardless if their standard of living is high or low.’⁸³ Where the emphasis is on the “proletariat” though (Karatani prefers speaking of ‘wage laborers’), we might expect to find poverty in Capitalism if Marx had something to offer, and when we see poverty-rates declining, we easily take this as proof that Marx should be ejected from the conversation.⁸⁴ This is a mistake, and even if Capitalism increases our standard of living, it might worsen our mental health, “flatten” relationships, and ultimately prove unsustainable (due to Discourse eclipsing Rhetoric) — but these risks will easily be overlooked if we think the only problems with Capitalism involve oppression and impoverishing some proletariat (which is easily argued not to be the case).
IX
After noting that ‘Marx began his inquiry not from the mode of production but rather from the dimension of commodity exchange,’ Karatani describes his effort as follows:⁸⁵
‘The capitalist mode of production […] is organized through the relations between money and commodity (mode of exchange). But Marxists who advocated historical materialism failed to read Capital with sufficient care and ended up trumpeting only the concept of mode of production time and time again.’⁸⁶
I agree, though I also now realize that some takes on “The Labor Theory of Value” far more align with a notion of “Situational Value” than I originally thought, and for that I appreciate Sahil’s scholarship at Theory Underground. Karatani claims that ‘we should abandon the belief that mode of production equals economic base,’ and instead realize the whole Capital-Nation-State constitutes it, which means in my view that “the base is a situation” (geometrical more than algebraic).⁸⁷ That said:
‘This does not in anyway mean, however, that we should abandon the concept of economic base in general. We simply need to launch our investigation from the mode of exchange rather than from the mode of production. If exchange is an economic concept, then all modes of exchange must be economic in nature.’⁸⁸
Alright, but why exactly is it so critical to focus again on “the means of exchange?” Well, for Karatani, we won’t understand “The Capital-Nation-State” if we don’t, but also those who would focus on “the means and production” and “labor” in a way can’t even focus on labor without a deep focus on exchange, because labor requires exchange to be itself (we only labor for what we can exchange, for otherwise we’d only work for ourselves — Ivan Illich’s “subsistent”). Furthermore, ‘if we take the term economic in a broad sense, then nothing prevents us from saying that the social formation is determined by its economic base,’ and furthermore our economic base and the ways it’s intelligible to us is influenced by our society (all together in a “situation”).⁸⁹ This in mind, if we change the means of production but still only prove capable of thinking according to “the logic of Capital” or Discourse, then we will not live in a fundamentally different society (and “the means of production” will likely return hardly different). “The means of exchange” could remain the same, and ‘[t]he inability to dissolve state and nation through enlightenment [would be] due to their being rooted in specific modes of exchange.’⁹⁰ It is wrong to believe ‘the nation is merely an ideology produced by the modern capitalist economic structure,’ and Marxists who did so have ‘found themselves unable to resist fascism, which [tends to rise] under the banner of nationalism’ (the State is not so easily overturned), and ‘even socialist states resorted to nationalism, to the point that armed conflicts broke out among them’ (why exactly is hopefully clear in Belonging Again (Part I) through our examinations of say Philip Rieff).⁹¹
Sure, to change our material condition can be to change our minds, but this is where we need to understand history, psychoanalysis, and anthropology to see what humans tend to do when faced with an “open space of possibility” that is unmediated, that space of “The Real” (to allude to Lacan). Unfortunately, studying Louis Dumont, Tocqueville, Girard, and the like, history shows that we tend to seek meditation and ways of making one another “intelligible to us,” which isn’t all bad — but it does suggest a natural tendency of ourselves to put ourselves at risk of “capture” (Deleuze), as we’ll elaborate later on.
To return to Marx and to further emphasize why “the modes of exchange” must be central in our thinking — we labor on that which has (more) use-value as “a means of exchange,” while we work on that which has more use-value to us in itself. We labor for exchange (“social use-value”), while we work for ourselves (“use-value”). A commodity is exchangeable and hence a product of labor, which means it was likely worked and brought into existence precisely because it could be exchanged.
‘His commodity possess for himself no immediate use-value. Otherwise, he would not bring it to the market. It has use-value for others; but for himself its only direct use-value is that of being a depository of exchange value, and, consequently, a means of exchange […] All commodities are non-use-values for their owners, and use-values for their non-owners. Consequently, they must all change hands.’⁹²
Again, we work on that which has use to us, and labor on that which has use as exchange. Furthermore, we wouldn’t labor on x if there wasn’t a market for x; in other words, there must be a market for labor to take place, which means labor occurs precisely because there is a prospect of exchangeability. Yes, we might quantity the value of a diamond based on the idea of the labor that it took to dig-up the diamond, but the only reason the diamond is dug-up in the first place is because there is a market for diamonds. There’d be no labor if there was no market, yet there’d also be no market if there was no possibility of labor or sociological condition which made “the equal sign” intelligible to us (it can seem like the question between labor and exchange is a “chicken and egg”-problem, as might be all emergences of sociological conditions). Where a good is labored on, it has “value” because it has “use-value,” precisely because its value is its “exchangeability,” which we might say is an “exchange-use-value” (‘commodities must be realized as values because they can be realized as use-values’).⁹³ Doesn’t this suggest labor “puts” value in goods because they are exchanged? In a way, but that value is exchangeability — that’s the trick. A good that is “labored on” has value because it can be exchanged and then used (by another), while a good that is “worked on” can be put straight into use (by ourselves).⁹⁴
‘On the other hand, [commodities] must show that they are use-values before they can be realized as values,’ which is to say that though a commodity must be exchanged before it is used, the whole reason there is hope that it might have exchange-use-value is because the commodity is thought to be useful (there is “an idea of usability” based on “the social situation”).⁹⁵ In a way, we could say that we work on a commodity because we think it has use-value, but that work doesn’t “turn out to be” labor (a “flip moment”) until that commodity is exchanged (in light of supposedly having use-value for another), for ‘[w]hether […] labour is useful for others, and its product consequently capable of satisfying the wants of others, can be proved only by the act of exchange.’⁹⁶ We never see the labor which doesn’t occur because there isn’t any hope of a market, and this can create the impression that all possible value is a product of labor, for the only labor that occurs is that for which there is a market. But value can exist outside the market, say in “the gift,” unless that is we favor a very narrow definition of value, which I do not support (though perhaps Marx did, leaving room for debate). And I do not support this because I can imagine myself valuing a work of art my child paints even though this particular instance of value is not based on any thought of marketability, exchangeability, utility, or “labor time” (see “The Value Isn’t the Utility” by O.G. Rose). It is the raw thing in its particularity “shinning” with beauty and my child’s imagination. Yes, it took her work to draw the painting (there was an act of “sensualization,” as I call it in (Re)constructing “A Is A”), but it did not take her labor (for there is no market ready-at-hand for her paintings), and yet there is value (to me) all the same. Might we want to call what I see in my child’s painting something other than “value,” say “beauty?” Maybe, but I believe the phenomenology and experience are basically the same, and drawing such distinctions could lead to confusions and inefficiencies in our efforts to realize “a new address.” Perhaps Marx did draw these distinctions somewhere in his work, but I’m not sure. Yes, under Capitalism, the value-form is manifest into and measured by “labor,” which is definable from work relative to “exchangeability” (which suggests “value is labor/exchange,” emergent), and, yes, Capitalism naturally works to spread and make this value-formation (“practically”) the only value-form, but that does not mean (“technically”) that value exists only in Capitalism. There can be value in virtue, character, and art even if Capitalism doesn’t value them; in fact, that is precisely why there is hope that we might become Children (lead and motivated by “our values” beyond “values-of-Capital”).
“Labor” occurs (distinct from “work”) because there is a market, and it is difficult to imagine labor which occurs without any hope or prospect of a market (which is to say without any hope of demand). I would not even think to engage in work that didn’t have “use-value to me” unless there was a market and prospect for exchange: I might paint because I enjoy painting, but I would only load trucks if I hated loading trucks if it paid well, I was a slave, and/or I might get something I wanted out of it. Labor distinct from work requires incentives, and such incentives seem only imaginable where there is a market (of and for exchange). That all said, to be clear, it is indeed the case that “The Labor Theory of Value” is “practically true” under Capitalism even if not “technically true” nonconditionally, and again even though I prefer saying “labor quantifies value” versus “labor is value,” I also understand that language often fails and that Marx also says things like the following which seem to make it undeniable that “labor is value”: ‘This value is determined by the labour time required for its production, and is expressed by the quantity of any other commodity that costs the same amount of labour time.’⁹⁷ However, we should note that ‘[m]oney, like every other commodity, cannot express the magnitude of its value except relatively in other commodities,’ suggesting a “network and situation of goods is required” so that money might be intelligible and so that “labor as value” would prove an intelligible means of quantifying value between and across a society. Labor quantifies money, and that quantification is possible thanks to labor is what money requires, but the authority and intelligibility of that quantification requires an entire social order and system of exchange so that it might work.⁹⁸ And thanks to that social order, a remarkable “sleight of hand” (we might say) proves possible and intelligible, which is to say that money comes to have value thanks to the quantification of labor, and then labor comes to be justified and rewarded in terms of money (a reward for value-quantification). Marx writes:
‘What appears to happen is not that gold becomes money, in consequence of all other commodities expressing their values in it, but, on the contrary, that all other commodities universally express their values in gold, because it is money […] These objects, gold and silver, just as they come out of the bowels of the earth, are forthwith the direction of all human labour. Hence the magic of money.’⁹⁹
A remarkable move: money gains value because of “labor-quantification” (as I’ll say for short to mean “labor as quantifying value”), and then labor comes to be seen socially as valuable to do because we are paid money and wages for laboring. Labor makes possible money, and for making money possible, labor is rewarded with money. ‘The intermediate steps of the process vanish in the result and leave no trace behind. Commodities find their own value already completely represented, without any initiative on their part, in another commodity [(money, gold, silver…)] existing in company with them.’¹⁰⁰ To list out the process:
A1: Labor (as distinct from work) is possible because of the system of exchange.
A2: Labor makes possible the quantification of value, which the system of exchange requires.
A3: Exchange makes possible the labor which makes possible the exchange.
.
B1: Labor as value-quantifier makes possible money.
B2: Money through wages rewards labor.
B3: Labor is priced in money which labor (as value-quantifier) makes possible.
.
C1: Money comes to be the main means of exchange.
C2: Because of money, A3 becomes “invisible” and hidden (like Heidegger’s “working doorknob”).
C3: Money comes to define the social system, which “conceals” the social situation that results from A3 manifesting as B3.
C4: Hence, “The Situational Theory of Value,” as “hidden” and made efficient and sustainable by money.
A leading to B which leads to C only works because there is an entire sociological system and “horizon” in which all three of these are “always already” in operation (just like “The Capital-Nation-State”). All this is hidden though because ‘the behaviour of men in the social process of production is purely atomic. Hence, their relations to each other in production assume a material character independent of their control and conscious individual action.’¹⁰¹ In other words, people come to treat “the equal sign” as “objective” and actual, independent of human existence (which is impossible), and furthermore everyone comes to do that which they can do to be depended on while also depending on others. The only way we could convince the majority of people to engage in labor (distinct from work) to gain money that labor makes possible is via “a division of labor” where everyone does different kinds of labor (hence, “disablement” is a feature of the system, not a mistake). Once all this occurs, ‘all commodities, as values, are realized human labour, and therefore commensurable, that their values can be measured by one and the same special commodity, and the later be converted into the communal measure of their values, i.e., into money’ (‘a universal measure of value’).¹⁰²
Money hence becomes ‘the socially recognized incarnation of human labor,’ which is to say it becomes useful in the system for exchanging the value made intelligible thanks to labor-quantificaiton.¹⁰³ The system needs labor for quantification, but directly “exchanging labor” sets limits on Capitalism, which are basically the limits of “a barter system”; hence, money comes to play a useful role in helping extend and increase the efficiency of “exchange use-value.” As possible thanks to money, ‘[p]rice is the money name of the labour realized in a commodity,’ even though we must not assume that price equals ‘the magnitude of the commodity’s value.’¹⁰⁴ ¹⁰⁵ There are differences which Marx will expounded on that have ramifications for the system, but to be very general we could say that divisions between “value” and “price” allow speculation and the treatment of things “as if” they were commodities that actually are not (yet, at least) (which is further evidence that labor is not directly value but the means of its quantification). Marx writes:
‘Objects that in themselves are not commodities, such as conscience, honor, etc., are capable of being offered for sale by their holders, and of thus acquiring, through their price, the form of commodities’ (emphasis added).¹⁰⁶
Please note the term “form” in “the form of commodities,” for I believe Marx is suggesting that honor and conscious aren’t actually commodities (“technically”), only “practically commodities,” as is possible thanks to pricing and money. Because of the idea of commodity, which is possible because of the abstract idea of labor, it becomes possible for me to then treat everything “as if” it was a commodity, for that is the function of price. It doesn’t matter then if things actually are commodities, for the system makes it “as if” such is the case (“the practical” thus replaces “the technical” because “the technical” becomes unthinkable). If value was actually bound to actual labor, this would not be possible, but because “(actual) labor” primarily becomes an “abstract idea (of labor)” (for quantification), it then becomes possible to use money and price to expand “labor-as-value-quantification” to everything and everyone. It becomes possible for me to use ‘the imaginary price form’ to consider ‘indirect real value relation’ (for example), such as ‘the price of uncultivated land, which is without value, because no human labour has been incorporated into it.’¹⁰⁷ And yet money and price are only possible because of the idea of labor (as stocks can be valued based on prospects of “future growth” or “future productivity” — stocks are imaginable thanks to ideas of possible labor), and so even if there is no actual labor/value in uncultivated land, the idea of value (possible because of labor) makes it possible for me to price land-without-value, because I can imagine the land generating value in making possible certain labors. This all in mind, we could say that “the idea of labor (as value)” comes to take on a life of its own, which then turns and gives labor life. Self-feeding. (Self-eating?)
I can price uncultivated land based on an idea of possible labor that could be done on the land, or a quality of labor, but no actual labor has occurred. Hence, labor as an abstract idea is being used to make possible exchange, as facilitated and enabled by price, which is possible thanks to money. A whole sociological situation is required for this to be possible and plausible and for “an idea of labor” to have causal impact on society even though there is yet to be any “actual labor,” for that to occur there must be exchange. How this all occurs is remarkable, and we might say that ‘the riddle presented by money is but the riddle presented by commodities; only it now strikes us in its most glaring form.’¹⁰⁸ Ideas are not bound by facticity, and so it would seem that only “ideas” or “an idea” can unify the world, bringing great diversity and Pluralism into relation (perhaps even harmony), and yet ideas are “just ideas’ and so lack authority to compel action, meaning that the world can only be “brought together” thanks to something weak — unless that is a social order might come about that might prove able to make the “weak” strong and plausible (alluding to Peter Berger and Mary Dougals again). This is the power of Capitalism, which uses physical, actual “labor” as the object-ive basis for the idea of labor (which gains legitimacy and authority precisely thanks to that “actual” act), of which is even done and possible thanks to “the system of exchange.” Furthermore, Capitalism is able to convince us that an “abstract idea” has “object-ive basis” in everything and everyone in reality, which on the face of it is completely absurd, and yet Capitalism manages to make it work. As Marx writes:
‘When I state the coats or boots stand in a relation to linen, because it is the universal incarnation of abstract human labour, the absurdity of the statement is self-evident. Nevertheless, when the producers of coats and boots compare those articles with linens, or, what is the same thing, with gold or silver, as the universal equivalent, they express the relation between their own private labour and the collective labour of society in the same absurd form.’¹⁰⁹
“An absurd form” is according to which the world runs, and it is also what made possible “The Great Enrichment” of Deirdre McCloskey (suggesting why we should not just discuss “Historic Materialism” but also “Historic Idealism,” as Michel Bauwens noted). To make the absurd so plausible to average people that there is global causal influence on the world is the miracle of Capitalism. This is the great accomplishment of “global social imagination” that Capitalism has brought about, and for it we should, in my view, praise Capitalism, for at the very least it proves the possibility of “global social imagination,” which gives me hope for the possibility of a new “global social imagination” based on “lack” versus Capital or “=” (“exchangeability”). Such a “global social imagination” could be the result of “spreading Childhood,” as is the main thrust of our current inquiry in Belonging Again (Part II).
Without an object-ive basis, “exchange rates” and prices would fluctuate too much to be useful or intelligible (Marx wrote that ‘in the midst of all the accidental and ever fluctuating exchange relations between the products, the labour time socially necessary for their production forcibly asserts itself like an overriding law of nature’).¹¹⁰ And yet at the same time there is great incentive for people to increase prices and “exchange rates” as much as they can to maximize profit. How can this incentive be “bound” and “anchored?” That’s a role of object-ive and actual labor, which keeps the “abstract idea” exchange requires to manifest value (and to make it intelligible) from getting out of control and proving useless. Without such an anchor, everyone would set prices as high as possible, or suddenly lower them into oblivion — there would be no “basis” by which prices and “exchange values” could be set (not that these are necessarily the same thing, please note). And yet if there was such a “basis,” how could it not limit Capitalism and markets to “the limits of the facticity” of that very “basis?” What was required was a “real fiction,” a paradox that is also called a “fetish,” which could provide both the noncontingency of an idea while also the “limiting principles” of a materiality. Such a thing can’t exist in nature, and it also can’t exist in an individual brain, and yet Capitalism needs such to exist all the same. Thus, “the real fiction of the labor-value-form” is located in “the social imagination,” which is then supported and given “plausibility” by various institutions, which is most crystalized, powerful, and seemingly indestructible as “The Capital-Nation-State.” And so turns our world.
As will expound on, we learn in Mary Douglas that humans need categories for intelligence to be possible, and humans need to share categories if “collective intelligence” is to prove possible, but which categories should humans use, which is to ask, “Which categories will have authority?” This requires institutions, which is to say they make possible “the real fictions” of categories, without which society would be impossible. Money in Marx can do with value what institutions do with categories, for good and for bad, and money in turn requires institutions to gain plausibility and legitimacy. It is absurd to exchange things according to “an abstract idea of human labor,” which is then manifest through money to make possible prices which laborers are given money to afford, and yet the world is easily better thanks to this absurdity, and critically this absurdity requires “a social order” and “social imagination” to be possible. There are many experiments in psychology like the Milgram Experiment or Asch-Conformity Experiment which show how individuals seem naturally primed to be controlled by authorities and “the group,” and often these experiments are used to suggests something horrible about humanity and why we are susceptible to movements like Nazism. But these experiments also suggest why Capitalism works, why it is possible for individuals to live according to “real fictions” that are obviously absurd when looked at carefully and directly (like the lines in the Asch-Conformity Experiment) — we do it all the time. Furthermore, if it is the case that Capitalism has indeed made us richer and more technologically advanced, then it is arguably a good thing that we are so manipulatable by the collective and system, as so often suggested by psychology-experiments; otherwise, Capitalism would have never come about and proven impossible. It is precisely because it is so hard for us to “think against the social imagination” that something like Capital is possible, and if that Capital has made us richer, this “deficiency” of humanity is easily a blessing. Unless, that is, Capital proves to be what makes us unable to avoid “The End of (True) History,” for then “the miracle of Capitalism” might prove to be a trap. Pigs enriched to the slaughter. Land waits.
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Notes
⁴⁹Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 23.
⁵⁰Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 23.
⁵¹Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 23.
⁵²Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 24.
⁵³Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 24.
⁵⁴Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 24.
⁵⁵Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 25.
⁵⁶Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 27.
⁵⁷Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 29.
⁵⁸Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 29.
⁵⁹Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 31.
⁶⁰Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 44.
⁶¹Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 10–11.
⁶²Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xvi.
⁶³Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xv.
⁶⁴Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xv.
⁶⁵Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xvi.
⁶⁶Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xv.
⁶⁷Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 11.
⁶⁸Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xiv.
⁶⁹Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xiii.
⁷⁰Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xiv.
⁷¹Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xiv.
⁷²Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xii.
⁷³Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: x.
⁷⁴Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: ix.
⁷⁵Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: x.
⁷⁶Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xvii.
⁷⁷Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: xvii.
⁷⁸Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 1.
⁷⁹Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 6.
⁸⁰Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 189.
⁸¹Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 189.
⁸²Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 189.
⁸³Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 189.
⁸⁴Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 189.
⁸⁵Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 4.
⁸⁶Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 4.
⁸⁷Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 4.
⁸⁸Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 4.
⁸⁹Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 4.
⁹⁰Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 4.
⁹¹Karatani, Kojin. The Structure of World History. Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Durham and London. Duke University Press, 2014: 213.
⁹²Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 38.
⁹³Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 38.
⁹⁴The “other” we “labor for” tends to be outside our immediate facticity and/or someone who lacks the skills for labor we possess, while we mainly “work for” ourselves, those we might also work for our family and those part of our immediate facticity, community, or the like.
⁹⁵Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 38.
⁹⁶Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 38.
⁹⁷Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 41.
⁹⁸Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 41.
⁹⁹Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 42.
¹⁰⁰Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 42.
¹⁰¹Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 42.
¹⁰²Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 42.
¹⁰³Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 44.
¹⁰⁴Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 45.
¹⁰⁵Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 46.
¹⁰⁶Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 46.
¹⁰⁷Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 46.
¹⁰⁸Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 42.
¹⁰⁹Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 33.
¹¹⁰Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago (Great Books Series, Vol 50), 1952: 33.
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