Dear Jerry and all,
I quite agree with Harry on this. Capital is boring, not just in the
sense that it reproduces boring lives, but because capital is a process of
separation. Capital separates us from sociality (the social flow of doing)
and therefore from each other, from the sense of our own activity, from
ourselves, etc.
If capital is a process of separation, then it generates an externality
in all our social relations. What we find boring is surely boring because we
see it as being outside us, external to us. In that sense capital is
inherently boring.
To say that "Capital is above all objectionable because it is boring"
is surely right if we understand capital in this sense, as separation.
John
----------
>From: gerald_a_levy <gerald_a_levy@msn.com>
>To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
>Subject: [OPE-L:7002] a boring question (for John H and others)
>Date: Wed, Apr 17, 2002, 5:22 AM
>
>Re John H's [6877]:
>
>> I think my answer would be that it is impossible to take "love" into
>> economic discourse, precisely because, as Jerry points out, the categories
>> of economics ("Marxist" or otherwise) - value, capital, money etc - are
>> constructed on the negation of love.
>
>I cam across the following (odd) quote that I think connects with what
>you've written about recently but am not clear whether you (or others)
>would agree with:
>
>Harry Cleever wrote that:
>
>"Capital is above all objectionable because it is boring".
>
>Even if we grant the idea that "capital is boring" (in the sense that
>capital seeks to reproduce boring lives, i.e. that it posits the production
>and actualization of surplus value, the accumulation of capital, and the
>reproduction of capitalist relations as the sole purpose of life), is _this_
>the reason why "capital is above all objectionable"?
>
>It seems to me that as a *political slogan* (which, evidently, at least
>one other person -- not Harry -- has turned it into), it misses the mark
>and runs the risk of trivializing struggles against capital as struggles
>against boredom. As a *conclusion* of a *critique* of capital, is it valid
>or is it misleading? What do others think?
>
>In solidarity, Jerry
>
>
>
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