Re: [OPE-L] Bloody Capital and Dead Labour Cultural Studies

From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Tue May 02 2006 - 20:09:46 EDT


>  > So because of this implication he should not have implied
>  > that capital is vampirically undead as it appropriates
>  > the sensuous life of the living? What is your point?
>
>Capital as undead not only implies, but _requires_ (if we
>are to seriously use the vampire metaphor)

So Neocleous' use is not serious because he throws light
only on the nature of capital? This is silly. well it's
worse than that...flat footed, literal minded and
weirdly argumentative.

I don't think I am the only one who has suggested this much to you.



>a particular
>relation to labour.  I.e. IF capital  is vampiric and undead
>THEN the labor employed by capital MUST be undead.
>TINA.

Neocleous is only using the metaphor to throw light on the nature
of capital. It works as such, as Chris Arthur and Andrew Brown and I
have been saying. You seem to have taken Neocleous idea over only to
launch irrelevant criticisms against it.

So the analogy is only partial. Who cares? And if not, why
not open up to fictional examination a world in which the enslaved
have lost the capacity to resist? It's a horror movie.

There is something wrong here, and you know what my
suspicions are.




>
>  > And what is wrong with the depiction of horror as that
>  > fictional situation in which the enslaved have
>  > lost the capacity for resistance? Why shouldn't
>  > such a situation be depicted?
>
>There is nothing wrong with it in vampire stories.
>
>  > And there is resistance to vampires in vampire movies!
>
>BUT NOT BY THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY UNDEAD!

So why not imagine a situation in which the victims don't have
all the blood sucked out of them due to their own heroic resistance which
leaves them just strong enough and the vampires weak just enought that
one day the liminally alive/undead labor will kill off the undead
capitalist vampires..
.of course when they are objectively shaken for one reason or another--say
inordinately long daily periods of sunlight.

And why just not focus on the nature of capital in the use of the vampire
metaphor?

It's a metaphor, not a deductive proof about the nature of the
capitalist system.
Do you see this?

>
>ONLY those who have not been bitten by vampires can resist.
>
>  > So I really have no idea what you are talking about.
>
>Of course not: you did say: "I know nothing about vampires."

You didn't comment on the Blade Trilogy which I imagine you have
seen in your time left after googling Marx and vampires or the OPE-L
word of the week.

Rakesh





>
>In solidarity, Jerry


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