Dear Simon (and all),
Your reply is lovely, thanks very much. I agree that we're perhaps not
so far apart, but still:
Simon says:
>I think John is identifying Marxist economics with bourgeois economics.
One of the strengths of the
>former is precisely that it does identify how and why social relations are
>fetishized. But I don't think that that is the end of the matter. It is
>then necessary to use that understanding of fetishism as part of the study
>of quite concrete issues.
I think the crucial issue for me is how one understands fetishism. If
you say that social relations are fetishised and understand that fetishism
as a state of being, something fixed, then yes, you can see value, money and
so on as closed categories and move on to the "quite concrete issues". In
that case there is of course a background understanding of the categories as
being the fetishised forms of social relations, but since the fetishism is
assumed to be complete, then it can be taken for granted in trying to
understand the "concrete issues" of how capitalism works.
What troubles me about this understanding of fetishism is that
non-fetishism (or anti-fetishism) is seen as external to fetishism itself,
in other words that it either comes from an elite (intellectuals or vanguard
party) or is relevant only to a post-revolutionary society. In other words,
the understanding of fetishism in terms of closed categories gives support
to a Leninist concept of revolution.
In this understanding, the critique of economics is of course relevant
because you are saying that value, money etc are fetishised forms of social
relations, but since these forms are seen as forms of domination, that can
be left on one side. As long as the forms of social relations are understood
as forms of domination rather than struggle, then, firstly, the
understanding of the categories as forms of social relations can be left on
one side in the discussion of concrete issues (this is generally what
happens in OPE-L), and, secondly, implicit (very rarely explicit) support is
given to a Leninist concept of revolution. In other words, capitalism is
understood as a closed system of domination until - until the Great Day
comes.
The alternative is to say that the social relations that are negated by
the category of value are not just relations of domination but antagonistic
relations of struggle (like all social relations in capitalism). In that
case, struggle is inscribed in the category of value: it is not something
separate, as Marxist economics tends to assume. In other words, value itself
is struggle, therefore not something established but a process that is
constantly open, constantly at issue. To see money as struggle is not a
profound abstraction but is something that is an acute element of our
experience every time we go to a shop with a three-year old or see the
guards with their machine guns outside banks (not, I know the everyday
experience in London or Edinburgh but certainly in most of the world where
the intensity of money-as-struggle is never in doubt).
If we see fetishism as process-of-fetishising, as struggle, then the
notion of critique becomes much more present, much more explosive. The
understanding that value is the negation of human doing is not something
that can be put to one side while we get on with the concrete analysis, but
is something that is central to any discussion of value. To talk about value
without stressing that value is struggle is of course to take part in the
process of fetishisation which we are all involved in fighting against.
If we open the category of fetishism in the way I suggest, we also see
that anti-fetishism is not external to fetishism but is simply the other
side of the same struggle: that fetishisation-as-process means that there is
also a constant struggle of anti-fetishism. Value implies its antithesis,
the struggle (now) against value. Again, that is not an abstraction. I do
not see how one can understand what is happening in Argentina, for example,
except in these terms. In other words, by opening the understanding of
fetishism, we can begin to talk in meaningful ways about the presence of
that which is not-yet in present-day capitalism, we can begin to talk of the
force of the negated as struggle against its own negation. We have some sort
of way of going beyond the Leninist stranglehold.
The great danger of Marxist economics is that it separates the question
of "how capitalism works" from the question of class struggle. But
capitalism works (to the extent that it works) through class struggle.
Capital, money, value are forms of class struggle, and that cannot be taken
for granted in the study of concrete issues. The concrete issues are also
class struggle.
I have, of course, the feeling of coming-from-outside when I argue these
points and if it were not for the presence of friends whom I know and trust,
I probably wouldn't bother.
Love and kisses to all,
John
----------
>From: Simon Mohun <s.mohun@qmul.ac.uk>
>To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
>Subject: [OPE-L:7060] Re: Re: Re: Marxist economics?
>Date: Wed, Apr 24, 2002, 5:03 PM
>
>John Holloway (hi John) writes:
>>Simon says:
>>
>> >It seems to me that what we call it doesn't much matter. But there are
>>a
>> >whole host of unresolved issues about how contemporary capitalism works.
>>
>> This for me is just the problem. "Marxist economics" studies how
>>capitalism works. But the problem is not how capitalism works but how to
>>destroy capitalism.
>>
>> This is not just a question of words. Economics as a discipline tries to
>>understand how capitalism works, but it does it in a way that systematically
>>excludes us, in a way that accepts the appearance of social relations as
>>relations between things. The critique of economics is a critique ad
>>hominem, a critique that aims to recuperate theoretically the power of human
>>doing which is negated by the economic categories. As such, critique is
>>directly part of the struggle to open up the possibility of creating a
>>different sort of society, part of the struggle to recover theoretically and
>>practically the power of people to determine socially how society should
>>develop. Critique points to the antagonistic presence of that which is
>>denied by the economic categories, social human doing {snip}
>> The problem with "Marxist economics" (and this is very clearly
>>illustrated by Simon's list) is that it tries to answer the questions of
>>bourgeois economics. It tries to understand "how capitalism works" in a way
>>that does nothing to bring to light the exclusive constitutive power of
>>human doing. Class struggle appears as something exogenous to the working of
>>capitalism (and to capital) and, by implication, revolution can be conceived
>>only as the intervention of an exogenous force.
>
>This seems to me to be a very one-sided view. I think John is identifying
>Marxist economics with bourgeois economics. One of the strengths of the
>former is precisely that it does identify how and why social relations are
>fetishized. But I don't think that that is the end of the matter. It is
>then necessary to use that understanding of fetishism as part of the study
>of quite concrete issues.
>
>For example, suppose one thinks that money is an abstract universal which
>presents itself as a concrete particular, a hypostatization in which the
>subject-predicate inversion of the Hegelian dialectic is concretely
>manifested in money. It doesn't follow from that general understanding that
>it is wrong to inquire into the value of money, and its rate of change, and
>(perhaps) to understand exchange rates as the ratio of different national
>values of money. But equally to abandon concrete study and remain with a
>generalised critique of fetishism seems to get one precisely nowhere.
>
>John remarks that you cannot understand 'how capitalism works' unless you
>'bring to light the exclusive constitutive power of human doing'. I agree,
>but that is surely just the labour theory of value. That theory has to be
>concretized by addressing practical issues, and that in turn might require
>some technical analysis (whether mathematical or statistical). Otherwise we
>only have flowery general phrases coupled with a generalised obscuranticism
>concerning the scientific study of capitalism. On a practical and mundane
>level, if you don't know how something works and you want to replace it,
>you just cannot know whether you are replacing it with anything different.
>
>Hope this isn't too provocative.
>
>Simon
>
>Department of Economics,
>Queen Mary, University of London,
>Mile End Road,
>London E1 4NS,
>UK
>
>Tel: +44-(0)20-7882-5089 (direct)
>+44-(0)20-7882-5095/6 (Dept. Office)
>Fax: +44-(0)20-8983-3580
>
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