Corpse-fuckers of the world unite!
Essence and appearance - still a problem for marxian theory today?
Sean68 wrote:
So sang the 'orrible Millwall. For our part, we prefer Paulus FC who ban all national flags in their stadium! In 2008, to be an anarchist means you must stop being an anarchist...For more on this, and for anyone interested in why traditional marxism always leads to firing squads (hence the lack of cleavage towards the class war monkey business these days) come and visit the recent principia dialectica bulletin 'Moishe Postone is not my mom.' Also, we are pleased to offer up a link to an amazing last article penned by Andre Gorz before he passed away; on alienation, valorisation and immaterial labour:
www.principiadialectica.co.uk
one of your links is doing is selling insurance:
(i always look at a sites links to get an idea of it, like seeing who its mates are)
Weeler wrote:
PD are quite good, if unintelligible. I emailed them a few times and they were sound.
Word. PD are on the right track, I just think that their affinity with Wertkritik shouldn't seduce them into adopting willy nilly the rather crude Zusammenbruchstheorie promoted by Kurz et al.
Value-form analysis, but without "final crisis" bullshit should be the order of the day.
catch wrote:
Tacks:
That may be what they meant to link to but in fact they linked to the .com
revol68 wrote:
lol PD are fucking clowns, still battling a ghost of 'ortho marxism' and one dimensional strawmen class anyalsis's. Arthouse poseurs still fucking the corpse of the Frankfurt school.
I said this in the very first reply, just better. Cockpuppet? At first I was like 
then I lolled 
Weeler wrote:
revol68 wrote:
lol PD are fucking clowns, still battling a ghost of 'ortho marxism' and one dimensional strawmen class anyalsis's. Arthouse poseurs still fucking the corpse of the Frankfurt school.I said this in the very first reply, just better. Cockpuppet? At first I was like
no weeler you just bust out something situesque shit.
you do know it's the situ's fault there are so many ballbags like PD going around spouting shit about spectacles and misunderstanding commodity fetishism.
Angelus Novus wrote:
revol68 wrote:
lol PD are fucking clowns, still battling a ghost of 'ortho marxism' and one dimensional strawmen class anyalsis's. Arthouse poseurs still fucking the corpse of the Frankfurt school.Postone and Krisis/Exit aren't Frankfurt School, you ass-hat.
Fucking PD are though, spouting their castrated situationist shit and their poorly understood notion of commodity fetishism.
Postone is fucking full of shit, oh this autonomous movement of value of which classes and concrete categories are but shadow puppets, idealist wank.
revol68 wrote:
Postone is fucking full of shit, oh this autonomous movement of value of which classes and concrete categories are but shadow puppets, idealist wank.
"To prevent possible misunderstanding, a word. I paint the capitalist and the landlord in no sense couleur de rose [i.e., seen through rose-tinted glasses]. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class-interests. My standpoint, from which the evolution of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them." - Karl Marx, Capital, Preface to the First German Edition
mikus wrote:
Essence and appearance was never a problem.Weeler wrote:
PD are quite good, if unintelligible. I emailed them a few times and they were sound.Interesting you think something is "quite good" even though it's unintelligible.
What wit, the magazine is beautiful, their emails are astute, they are amicable people at the bookfair and some of the things they write make sense. It is still unintelligible in the sense that it lacks 'the capability of being understood - the quality of language that is comprehensible' in comparison with any of the anarchist magazines, say.
I wasnt saying, I dont understand it so I like it. Smart-arse.
Angelus Novus wrote:
revol68 wrote:
Postone is fucking full of shit, oh this autonomous movement of value of which classes and concrete categories are but shadow puppets, idealist wank."To prevent possible misunderstanding, a word. I paint the capitalist and the landlord in no sense couleur de rose [i.e., seen through rose-tinted glasses]. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class-interests. My standpoint, from which the evolution of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them." - Karl Marx, Capital, Preface to the First German Edition
Eh yes, there is a tension within marx's work between subject and object, objectivist shit either in the outdated second international forces of production form or a hipper Value form get up is hardly anything groundbreaking. This quote however is hardly problematic though, since he is talking on a level of individuals who personify class relations and class interests not an abstract overarching Value form, he hasn't reduced social classes and relations to puppets in Value's Punch and Judy show.
Weeler wrote:
mikus wrote:
Essence and appearance was never a problem.Weeler wrote:
PD are quite good, if unintelligible. I emailed them a few times and they were sound.Interesting you think something is "quite good" even though it's unintelligible.
What wit, the magazine is beautiful, their emails are astute, they are amicable people at the bookfair and some of the things they write make sense. It is still unintelligible in the sense that it lacks 'the capability of being understood - the quality of language that is comprehensible' in comparison with any of the anarchist magazines, say.
I wasnt saying, I dont understand it so I like it. Smart-arse.
yeah and some of the things Social WorkersParty write make sense, they're still full of shit.
and their magazine is a lot more intelligible than alot of the situationist shit you roll with.
revol68 wrote:
Value form, he hasn't reduced social classes and relations to puppets in Value's Punch and Judy show.
Ok, then try this (and sorry to post it in German, but the Aveling translation available online doesn't convey the meaning of this passage adequately, since it does not translate the key term, "automatic subject"):
Die selbständigen Formen, die Geldformen, welche der Wert der Waren in der einfachen Zirkulation annimmt, vermitteln nur den Warenaustausch und verschwinden im Endresultat der Bewegung. In der Zirkulation G - W - G funktionieren dagegen beide, Ware und Geld, nur als verschiedne Existenzweisen des Werts selbst, das Geld seine allgemeine, die Ware seine besondre, sozusagen nur verkleidete Existenzweise. Er geht beständig aus der einen Form in die andre über, ohne sich in dieser Bewegung zu verlieren, und verwandelt sich so in ein automatisches Subjekt. Fixiert man die besondren Erscheinungsformen, welche der sich verwertenden Wert im Kreislauf seines Lebens abwechselnd annimmt, so erhält man die Erklärungen: Kapital ist Geld, Kapital ist Ware. In der Tat aber wird der Wert hier das Subjekt eines Prozesses, worin er unter dem beständigen Wechsel der Formen von Geld und Ware seine Größe selbst verändert, sich als Mehrwert von sich selbst als ursprünglichem Wert abstößt, sich selbst verwertet. Denn die Bewegung, worin er Mehrwert zusetzt, ist seine eigne Bewegung, seine Verwertung also Selbstverwertung. Er hat die okkulte Qualität erhalten, Wert zu setzen, weil er Wert ist. Er wirft lebendige Junge oder legt wenigstens goldne Eier.
BTW, you might want to try actually reading Postone's book, rather than just Aufheben's *cough* "critique". It might shock you that Postone does not spend the entire 424 pages dumping on your beloved working-class. Indeed, the majority of the book is concerned with a reconstruction of Marx's value theory.
well what the fuck have you been doing? you're missing out... i know my website sucks and all my songs are shit and everything, but at least i'm fuckin trying. there's a lot of people out there that this is all they do is type shit and do fuck all in real life... i'm out there in the street every day meeting people and finding myself in weird situations. what's the proper way for "doing it", o fearless leader?
This is how I roll - www.wsm.ie
Angelus Novus wrote:
revol68 wrote:
Value form, he hasn't reduced social classes and relations to puppets in Value's Punch and Judy show.Ok, then try this (and sorry to post it in German, but the Aveling translation available online doesn't convey the meaning of this passage adequately, since it does not translate the key term, "automatic subject"):
Die selbständigen Formen, die Geldformen, welche der Wert der Waren in der einfachen Zirkulation annimmt, vermitteln nur den Warenaustausch und verschwinden im Endresultat der Bewegung. In der Zirkulation G - W - G funktionieren dagegen beide, Ware und Geld, nur als verschiedne Existenzweisen des Werts selbst, das Geld seine allgemeine, die Ware seine besondre, sozusagen nur verkleidete Existenzweise. Er geht beständig aus der einen Form in die andre über, ohne sich in dieser Bewegung zu verlieren, und verwandelt sich so in ein automatisches Subjekt. Fixiert man die besondren Erscheinungsformen, welche der sich verwertenden Wert im Kreislauf seines Lebens abwechselnd annimmt, so erhält man die Erklärungen: Kapital ist Geld, Kapital ist Ware. In der Tat aber wird der Wert hier das Subjekt eines Prozesses, worin er unter dem beständigen Wechsel der Formen von Geld und Ware seine Größe selbst verändert, sich als Mehrwert von sich selbst als ursprünglichem Wert abstößt, sich selbst verwertet. Denn die Bewegung, worin er Mehrwert zusetzt, ist seine eigne Bewegung, seine Verwertung also Selbstverwertung. Er hat die okkulte Qualität erhalten, Wert zu setzen, weil er Wert ist. Er wirft lebendige Junge oder legt wenigstens goldne Eier.
BTW, you might want to try actually reading Postone's book, rather than just Aufheben's *cough* "critique". It might shock you that Postone does not spend the entire 424 pages dumping on your beloved working-class. Indeed, the majority of the book is concerned with a reconstruction of Marx's value theory.
Don't be a ballbag I don't speak german, if you could be as kind to translate it yourself with a qualification of the 'automatic subject' i'd not look so much like you didn't have a point. I'm also not sure how a reconstruction of Marx's value theory necessarily means he still holds a place for a revolutionary proletariat, indeed an overstatement of the laws of value can quite easily lead to the tail wagging the dog with social classes becoming a simple reflection of it rather than value ultimately being an expression of class struggle.
This is the extract from Marx's Capital, Volume 1 Angelus Novus posted up, but in English:
"The independent forms, the money forms, which the value of commodities assumes in simple circulation, do nothing but mediate the exchange of commodities, and they vanish in the final result of the movement. On the other hand, in the circulation M - C - M both the commodity and money function only as different modes of existence of value itself, the money as its general mode of existence, the commodity as its particular or, so to speak, disguised mode. It is constantly changing from one form into the other, without becoming lost in this movement; it thus becomes transforned into an automatic subject. If we pin dawn the specific forms of appearance assumed in turn by self-valorizing value in the course of its life, we reach the following elucidation: capital is money, capital is commodity. In fact, however, here value becomes the subject of a process in which, while constantly assuming the forms in turn of money and commodity, it changes its own magnitude, and as surplus-value, unloads from itself as original value, valorizes itself. For the movement in the course of which it adds surplus-value is its own movement, its valorization, therefore its self-valorization. By the virtue of being value, it has acquired the occult ability to posit value. It brings forth living offspring, or at least lays golden eggs."
The categories 'essence and appearance' are in fact a huge problem for defenders of orthodox Marxism. Moishe Postone's book 'Time, Labor and Social Domination' is a difficult text to understand, but G M Tamas outlines Postone's ideas somewhat more concrete in the essay 'Telling the Truth about Class' which is available as a download easily enough. Anyone thinking about moving outside the comfort zone of ortho-marxism should read it alongside Benjamin's 'Theses on History.' We also prescribe a stiff whisky or two drunk in rapid succession in order to get over the shock of the new.
For anyone interested in why traditional marxisms always leads to firing squads (hence the lack of cleavage towards the class war monkey business these days) come and visit the recent principia dialectica bulletin 'Moishe Postone is not my mom.' Also, we are pleased to offer up a link to an amazing last article penned by Andre Gorz before he passed away; on alienation, valorisation and immaterial labour:
www.principiadialectica.co.uk