Re: [OPE-L] Bloody Capital and Dead Labour Cultural Studies or the Critique of Political Economy? By Mark Neocleous

From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Mon Apr 24 2006 - 20:06:15 EDT


Jerry,
While Neocleous argued in the History of Political Thought (2003--I sent
you the cite offlist) that capital is vampiric because though dead it
comes to life exactly through the appropriation of the sensuous life
of labor--capital
thus be-com-ing the undead--you said that the vampire metaphor suggests
that labor itself should be referred to as undead labor.  I don't
quite follow your
reasoning.

It seems that you are both handling the metaphor quite differently.

At any rate, has anyone read Neocleous' book on the monstrous in Marx and
Burke?


Rakesh


glevy@acnet.pratt.edu (glevy@acnet.pratt.edu)
Sat, 4 May 1996 04:56:48 -0700


Massimo asked in [OPE-L:2072]:
>  "A great deal of capital, which appears today in the United States
>  without any birth-certificate, was yesterday, in England,
>  the capitalised blood of children." (V.I. p. 921)

>  I guess also the quote could be dismissed on the ground that
>  it represents a simple metaphor, in which case I would like
>  ask: a metaphor for what? May I have your distinguished
>  views on the matter
It's a vampire metaphor, of course. Taking the metaphor literally, one
could refer to labor as "undead labor" -- neither completely living or
truly dead.
In OPE-L Solidarity,
Jerry


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Apr 30 2006 - 00:00:07 EDT