From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Mon Apr 24 2006 - 23:20:20 EDT
Re: [OPE-L] Bloody Capital and Dead Labour Cultural Studie> I think this is making too much of the metaphor which
> is not meant to throw light on the nature of workers but
> the nature of capital!
Rakesh,
My point simply was that if capital is undead then so is labor.
Anyone who has a little knowledge about vampire lore knows
that those who are bitten by the undead vampires become
undead themselves.
> But I am wondering when you began to describe not labor
> but capital as undead.
I don't recall when I first did so, but it is _clearly_ suggested by the
very post from 1996 which you asked about since I was pursuing the
vampire metaphor then and _labor could not be conceived as undead
unless capital also was undead_. The two points, from my perspective,
are simply flip sides of the same metaphorical coin.
> And he did publish that idea in 2003.
Yes.
> It seems to have been circulated in an academic conference, a major
> journal and on the web before it was discussed on OPE-L
1996 came before 2003.
> It is surprising that no reference was made to it in the course of a
> lengthy discussion. No one did a google search on marx and
> vampires?
I don't know. I can't recall doing it, but I might have. (All I really recall
doing was an MIA search.) *If you do such a search now you will find
843,000 references!* I can't imagine any listmember having the patience
to look through all of them!
> Did people really not know about his work on Marx and vampires?
I can't answer for others. But, I had no knowledge of any of his writings
before I received a post sent to the 'mps' (marx and philosophy society) list
by Andrew Chitty about MN's book in November which I posted on
OPE-L that same day.
It's hardly surprising that OPE-L members wouldn't be familiar with an
article published in the _History of Political Thought_ journal, is it?
> If so, I wish someone would have cited it.
You can't cite what you don't know about it.
You wrote on in the vampire thread, didn't you? (If I recall correctly,
you lead it in the direction of a discussion of Derrida's specters.)
You didn't cite Neocleous's article at the time. I think it's reasonable
to assume simply that you didn't know about it at the time. Indeed,
that's what _must_ be assumed about anyone in the absence of proof
to the contrary.
Had I known about his working paper ("Bloody Capital and Dead
Labour") in October then I would have lost no time letting the
list know about it. Of that you can be sure. (I love a scoop!) Just as
the very day in November I heard about his book I let OPE-L know
about it.
In solidarity, Jerry
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