From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Fri Oct 28 2005 - 01:50:08 EDT
MoP used up as use value, destroyed physically through their consumption. Nothing mysterious here. Yet their value lives after their material death; we don't usually recognize how mysterious this is unless the usual background conditions break down--labor turns up short, prices drop sharply. When value thus fails to transmigrate and live outside its original physical form, its ghostly presence becomes a haunting presence in idle, though still useful, means of production. Means of production are not implements for workers to use but bodies through which value is to pass. We live in a thoroughly haunted world. If there is no other body (i.e. output commodity) in which value can again live and augment itself, then the means of production are not to be activated. We are then haunted by the possibility that value will no longer enjoy a ghostly after-life! So in the grip of superstition are modern subjects: We are not haunted by but rather accustomed to ghostly presences. No one has yet spoken of Derrida. rb On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 21:05:07 -0400 glevy@PRATT.EDU wrote: > The following excerpt from Engels' _Anti-Duhring_ is noteworthy > in relation to our discussion of "ghostly" substance in -capital_ > > "For in capitalist society the MEANS OF PRODUCTION can only function > when they have undergone a preliminary TRANSFORMATION INTO CAPITAL, > into the means of exploiting human labour-power. The necessity of > this transformation into capital of the means of production and > subsistence stands LIKE A GHOST BETWEEN THESE AND THE WORKERS. It > alone prevents the coming together of the material and personal levers > of production; it alone forbids the means of production to function, > the workers to work and live. On the one hand, therefore, the > capitalistic mode of production stands convicted of its own incapacity > to further direct these productive forces. On the other, these > productive forces themselves, with increasing energy, press forward > to the removal of the existing contradiction, to the abolition of their > quality as capital, *to the practical recognition of their character > as social productive forces*." (Part III Socialism, Ch. 2 Theoretical, > CAPITALIZATION added, other emphasis in original, JL) > > This is part of the section that was later also published as the > pamphlet "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific". > > Is he basically saying the same thing re 'ghosts' as Marx? > > In solidarity, Jerry
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