Arruzza, Fraser Marx’s Grundrisse S’19

1/22/19

Arruzza
- unpublished manuscript intended for publication
- Marx only published three “books” on political economy: Wage Labor and Capital (1848), A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Capital Vol. I (1867)
- so most of Marx’s work was unpublished BECAUSE… a) he wrote under economic hardship,
had to work as a journalist, b) personal drama c) perfection and obsessive intellectual
propensities SO…
- the temptation to present Marx’s work as a system may be wrongheaded—it was more “a
construction site”
- this explains why if we take the Marxist tradition as a whole, we have completely divergent
readings and why there are divergent themes in tension in Marx (historical determinism vs.
human freedom/agency)
- the Grundrisse is a transitional text in that Marx affirms himself as an original theorist of
political economy—written after 13-14 years of studying political economy, which was not his
first intellectual love—which was philosophy, after which he turns to philosophy of the state
So why this change in his interests?
- Marx moves to Paris in 1844, where he reads Engle’s “Outlines of Critique of Political
Economy” and has political contacts with the workers’ movement in Paris
- his political studies are intermittently interrupted by political activism (e.g. Revolutions of
1848/9)
- after the failure of these revolutions Marx moves to London because he loses German
citizenship—where he continues his study of political economy (PE)
- begins writing for the New York Tribune—for money
- so his critique of PE is delayed until 1857 when there is a world economic crisis (which begins
in the U.S.) – both Marx and Engels conclude that this was a necessary outcome of the
contradictions of capitalism, wagered the crisis would be intractable—which proved wrong,
thought their theory of capital would TF open the door to social revolution
- SO, his objective is to present the fundamental laws of capital to demonstrate how this crisis is
indebted to the contradictions in the capitalist system itself—for political reasons i.e. to prepare
the ground for communism (which capitalism itself precipitates through e.g. world market,
universal man)
- his writing is interrupted again with illness and economic hardship but he finishes within seven
months, producing 7 notebooks: 1 on money, 6 on capital—not discovered until 1923 (save the
intro and some other pages), not published till 1939, not widely read till 1956 (because of the
Hungarian revolution), became connected to the New Left in 1968 (as a source of subjectivist,
humanist Marxist inspiration in opposition to the Stalinist emphasis on Capital—the objectivist,
scientific paradigm

Fraser
- we’re in the aftermath of a world financial crisis, in the midst of massive political defection
from capitalism, with an environmental cataclysm in the offing—so the contemporary moment is
one of urgency as it was for Marx at the time of writing

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Arruzza, Fraser Marx’s Grundrisse S’19

- SO the objective is develop a Marx for our time, one that will help us understand the present
form of capitalist society—not only its weaknesses but its strengths and its ongoing capacity to
seduce and attract
- we’re looking for a critical theorist of capitalist society—what it is, and how it works—esp.
since critical theory has largely avoided capitalist society in the last several decades
- arguably we get a broader (albeit patchwork) vision of capitalist society in the Grundrisse than
we do in Capital, which is focused on political economy esp.—and this helps us understand the
relation between PE and ecology for instance
- we want to transition from the supposed post-Marxism of critical theory to a return to a neo-
Marxism that take the great works of PE and situates them in this broader vision of capitalist
society (that includes the relation to e.g. unwaged work, nature) and thereby among other things
broadening our sense of an anti-capitalist struggle
- indeed, the Grundrisse may have insights into neo-Marxism as a critique of capitalist society
more broadly that is in its sinew feminist, anti-racist, anti-imperialism, AND anti-exploitation of
wage labor
- what makes Capital Vol. 1 a work of genius is precisely the focus on reading all the bourgeoise
economists and revealing what is visible to Marx but invisible to them BUT at the same time this
focus precludes a sustained focus on how the system—capitalist society—all fits together
capital= a node that has the capacity to coordinate social relations

1/29/19

Introduction to the Grundrisse

Part I
Four Categories…
1. Production= predominant category in every formal society for Marx
- then analyzes relation of production to…
2. Distribution
3. Consumption
4. Exchange (Circulation)
- conclusion is that we must see how these things fit together
Part II
Method of Political Economy…
- critique of 18th, 17th century predecessors
- there is no one to one correspondence between things and thoughts so there is no possibility of
an immediate reflection of reality in thought
- so, then what is the correct thought process for reconstructing capitalism by means of thought?
- although the goal of Marx’s method is not for it to be implemented in every field i.e. dialectical
materialism cannot be applied to every sphere of reality
Overview: Important Points of this Introduction
- adoption of Hegel’s logic for understanding the categories of political economy—and thereby
invokes a unique notion totality
- distinctions between diff. forms of abstraction
- historicization of social categories—the idea that some categories and abstractions can only
emerge under certain historical condition (e.g. labor can only emerge under capitalism)
- discussion of abstract  concrete in his discussion of method

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- notion of unequal development among various moments of social formation, e.g., there is no
easy correspondence between the level of development of productive forces and their relations
and the development of art (contra deterministic readings of Marx)
- view of human being as essentially productive i.e. as creative beings capable of transforming
their environment and themselves
What does Marx reject from prior political economists?
- they don’t historicize their categories sufficiently and TF tend to project capitalist realities on
the past and present them as transhistorical truths
- logic of relations between categories is muddled
- rejects their anthropology as hypostasizing the bourgeois individual…
Marx on bourgeois individual
Pg. 17= insofar as PEs take the productive individual as the starting point of their analysis (and
project him onto the remote past) what they do is project the bourgeois individual onto the past
bourgeois individual= separated from means of production, dissolution of feudal relation,
dissolution of patriarchal family, dissolution of political system etc. the sum of these creates the
modern individual—he is not the truth of human being
- for Marx productive ind. are only productive in virtue of their social relation—any modification
of nature is mediated by social relations
- there is no transhistorical truth of the human being SAVE FOR people’s ability to change
themselves in their productive interaction with nature—NOT consciousness or knowledge, BUT
productive activity accompanying consciousness
- Marx equates production with any kind of creative activity (i.e. human action)—which can
result in material wealth but also socio-political relations and culture
Marx on Production
Production in general= the abstraction that is the sum of all the necessary conditions for
production
- BUT, Marx thinks this abstraction is too general to tell us anything about the capitalist mode of
production
- it can only help us identify what is distinctive about capitalist production against the
background of production in general
- SO, e.g., capital cannot (per PEs) be defined as accumulated labor—this would be de-
historicizing capital and finding it in all forms of society i.e. if any product of human labor can
be understood as capital we must understand what is specific to capitalism i.e. accumulated wage
labor, abstract
- in sum, insofar as PEs don’t distinguish between different levels of abstraction PEs de-
historicizing capitalism and when we do this we mistake capitalism for an immutable truth of
human history
- so Marx’s insistence on historically determinate abstraction has a political motivation—
demonstrates that capitalism is not the destiny of humanity
Relation of Other Categories to Production
- wants to show that these categories cannot ultimately be separated
Mill on production= while production is bound by iron laws of history distribution is more
arbitrary and has a history
- Marx thinks these two categories don’t sufficiently (internally) determine each other + makes
us assume we can only have an effect on distribution + makes us think we need only
revolutionize distribution

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Production vs. Consumption

- production requires a subject with needs
- BUT production creates consumption i.e. not just the material of consumption but also the way
things are consumed, indeed, it creates our need e.g. no one needs an iphone before it was
manufactured—a continuous production of new needs which is an expansion of human
possibilities
Pg. 32= the main way of distribution is wages because we have distinct relations of production
based on wage labor—so the 2 aspects—production and distribution—cannot be separated i.e.
the mode of production presupposes a mass of workers who work for a wage who are associated
with each other only through the site of production—production and distribution codetermine
each other
Pg. 36= we must understand the 4 categories as reciprocally determining moments within a
unity, BUT production is the dominant category

Part II: On Method

- Marx targets “the myth of the given” i.e. that there is an immediate form of understanding
reality that is self-evident and that can serve as the foundation for knowledge—for Marx, our
apprehension of reality is always mediate precluding an immediate cognitive act that can ground
our knowledge (the influence of Hegel’s Science of Logic)
Pg. 37= we need to start from a universal, population, BUT as an immediate universal it is empty
i.e. in a population with have classes which mediate the productive relations between people—so
by speaking about population we are speaking of a very confused idea as if it was self-evident
and immediate—rather than empty
- so, let’s start with classes and see population as the unity of these—wants us to go, like Hegel,
from the abstract to concrete (Although in Capital Marx begins with the commodity i.e. the
concrete and then further complicates this. Some would say however that Vol. 1 is the abstract
filled out by the concreteness of the other 2 volumes.)
Marx’s Critique of Hegel
- despite passages that suggest that Marx has a teleological/logical view of history, his notes on
method militate against this reading—we cannot conflate the historical order (as Marx
emphasizes) with the order of ideas
Pg. 42= critique of capital is the key to understanding our past i.e. we can only understand the
past in relation to our critique of the present

Fraser’s Response
- the introduction is exploratory and is aimed at Marx’s own self-clarification—so this is not a
definitive text, so be warned against assuming the ideas persists in Capital
Production as the master category and Why?
- because it was the category that PEs used so Marx begins with this
- or, because humans are essentially productive who modify themselves and nature through their
practical activity
- production, for Marx, is the dominant moment of a mediated totality (of the 4 categories) but is
also the totality
- production is the common denominator filled out through historically specific modes of
production
Population as a Failed Starting Point

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Arruzza, Fraser Marx’s Grundrisse S’19

- Fraser wants to say she could tell a compelling story about population as a category of
biopolitics and thereby say something equally profound about capitalist society (versus
production)
What indeed does production mean in this text?
- Marx moves from talking about interaction with nature to practical activity that satisfied a need
Production vs. Means/Conditions of Production
- Fraser would want to count the distribution of productive power as the primordial category—
this would be Fraser’s primary moment
- indeed, even the political point that poohs poohs people too concerned about redistribution
rather than structural transformation—Fraser would counter that there are transformative ways of
redistribution
What is the force of the word material?
- if the law of property is constitutive then is the law material?

2/5/19

Old Guard
Roman Rosdolsky
- calls Grundrisse a rough draft (i.e. of Capital)
- the dialectical method (abstract to concrete) does not change from one to the other
- capitalist economy is an organic whole – unity of whole to parts
- the starting category is capital which is the all-prevailing power in capitalism
Background: Marx wants to rebut the Ricardian idea that the industrial capitalist, the worker,
and the landowner are remunerated for their various inputs—all surplus comes from exploitation
of wage labor and the question is only how it’s divided up
- Here Rosdolsky asks why landed capital before wage labor (property-less people)? Because
you need privatization of capital in order for wage laborers to have been dispossessed
- does not equate accumulated wage labor with capital and instead thinks value is necessary for
capital i.e. capital is exchange value in circulation that breeds surplus labor from wage laborers
Roberto Fineschi
- Capital is an improvement over Grundrisse with better developed dialectical transitions BUT
there is not a major break in the progression
- the triad of universal, particular and individual are changed in Capital due to the inner dialectic
of the material so that in aligning things differently in Capital he has refined his ordering in
accord with the genuine dialectical nature of his material
- capital appears first as a medium of accumulation  particularized in competition as a plurality
of distinct capitals  reappears as individual in a specific form of capital i.e. capital for itself i.e.
interest capital esp. in the form of (stock) share capital
Fetishism of finance capital= in commodity fetishism the social relations of human beings
appear as the relations among exchanged commodities BUT in the fetishism of capital it’s the
idea that capital appears to generate interest from itself without going through any real process of
production, circulation, and realization i.e. capital as if it was independent from real capital i.e.
industrial capital that is productive (M-C-M’)—as if it could be free from the exploitation of
labor
New Left Marxism
Stuart Hall

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Arruzza, Fraser Marx’s Grundrisse S’19

- engaged in a “reading” i.e. reflection on Grundrisse – for the present

- wants to recuperate Hegel and historicity in a late reconstruction of Marxism
- when Marx deciphers the mistaking of the result for the starting point (the “starting point” of
the capitalist individual which is the basis for political economy)—a mistake which is motivated
or necessitated because disconnection is the form in which social connection appears in
capitalism, this non-accidental displacement of real relations by ideological ones
- privileges mode of production as master-concept, rather than production simpliciter
- capitalism appears to reemerge in expanded form as self-balancing and self-sustaining—but it
is also the underlying disruption that will eventually emerge as crisis
Antonio Negri
- Grundrisse is a synthesis of theory and practice i.e. crisis as objective occurrence and the
appearance of the revolutionary subject
- thinks treatment of wage in Grundrisse is advance over Capital—bc treated a seat of
revolutionary subjectivity—capital has been privileged because people took an objectified story
as the whole story of capitalist society BUT there is a subjectifying side i.e. the agency of the
revolutionary subject (i.e. wage labor)—to which the Grundrisse is dedicated—esp. since it was
written in the wake of crisis with the hope lodged in the appearance of revolutionary subjectivity,
this is the Marx beyond the one inherited from the Soviet Union, the Grundrisse is the key to a
Marx beyond Marx
- determinate abstraction (putatively translates into the struggle), the tendency (openness to
future/struggle), the true in practice esp.
Moishe Postone
- also searches for another Marxism in response to the challenges of post-Marxism i.e.
inadequate orthodox Marxism—because failed to analyze communist regime etc.
- traditional Marxism failed because it mistook labor as the standpoint of critique—Marxism is
not about taking the side of labor against capital it’s about exploding the labor-capital couplet—
one which is co-defined in a structured totality
- SO, labor is not necessarily the revolutionary subject
- capitalism is a form of social life which is how it appears in the Grundrisse—more broadly
than in Capital where it is just an economic system
- value is his key category – which is what mediates and structures social relations AND a
historically determinate form of wealth – it’s not the labor theory of value but the value theory of
labor – value itself is the historical form in capitalist production, one generated in capitalism by
appropriating surplus value from wage labor
- but capitalism develops such that now value can no longer encapsulate it – now wealth appears
through science, technology – value is now anachronistic as a result of industrial production, and
so is labor time as the measure of wealth
- what we have now is an impersonal form of domination through time
Concluding Remarks
- perhaps political economy focused on production as the master category as a motivated mistake
—because capitalism had—historically—differentiated production as a sphere of activity

2/12/19

The dominant line of argument re relationship between labor and capital

- the relation appears to be a simple exchange BUT it is NOT

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- normally an exchange value is exchanged for a use value but once the exchange is completed
it’s over, THEN, the person with the consumption item leaves the economic sphere and
consumes it in some other space of social life
- HERE, though, the exchange has 2 moments i.e. 1) an agreement to provide living labor
(“vitality,” capacity to work) in the future in return for a fixed sum of value 2) the commodity
doesn’t leave the economic sphere but is rather now mobilized within production
- so, there is a moment of circulation (1) AND production (2)  there is the something special
about the exchange between labor and capital
- indeed, labor power has a double face: the worker sells his capacity to work in the future for a
fixed sum of money with which to buy his means of subsistence (his ability to work in the future)
—Marx regards this as exchange value…
Labor theory of value= the exchange value of a commodity is the amount of labor that went
into producing it, measured in hours of time on average
- so, the worker sells his labor power in this sense and receives in return what he has expended in
work—the wage covers the cost of the worker’s reproduction, what it did it to make him and that
can now also sustain him
- the capitalist is interested in the vital force with which he can valorize his capital, SO, for him
the worker is not a fixed exchange value—the worker is living labor the source of valorization
i.e. use value
- so, one side is just sustaining himself while the capitalist is getting a future source of value—
the use value of labor as motive force of creativity
- moreover, the consumption of labor power occurs within the economic space and within the
capitalists’ project of augmenting his capital
Perversity argument= the person living the life is treating it as an exchange value bound to a
repetitive cycle of renewal whereas the person appropriating it is using it for loftier purposes i.e.
value creation (use value)
- for this exchange to be possible it must be the case that the worker has been separated from the
means of subsistence and the means of production: the proletarian who has nothing but his labor
power on which to live
- there is no capital without labor posited as capital’s use value in that second moment of
exchange i.e. no capital without wage labor
Pg. 222= see notes
Abstract labor= labor being ripped from a concrete totality and posited as separate and YET
still the source of everything—this is the general condition of wage labor in capitalist society
Wealth= contrast term to value i.e. riches beyond anything measurable through labor time
Capital as matter (material production process) vs. capital as form (self-valorization process)
- we get idea that form is imposed on matter in a way that is perverse
How is the self-valorization of capital possible in production through its use of labor
power?
- in Capital this is the central mystery
Pg. 246= see notes
- doesn’t come from the machinery or raw material which are simply replaced in the course of
production, it comes from the living labor of the worker when brought into contact with the
instruments and raw material of production i.e. ratio of total working hours/cost of reproducing
the worker OR the value the worker adds is more than it costs to reproduce his life

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- SO, in the 10 hour workday the first 5 hours reproduce the worker and the next five are all
surplus which accrues to the capitalist—the worker who sold his 10 hours for a fixed sum is
simply ripped off by 5 hours work
Pg. 250= if you stick to the standpoint of circulation where equivalent is exchanged for
equivalent you’ll never find surplus—it only happens in production
- Marx credits capital and capitalism with releasing the inherent potential in humans to do more
than reproduce their life conditions
- capital has an inherent drive to transcend its own limits, it is, after all in principle, limitless self-
valorization, BUT, on the other hand, in this limitless self-multiplication capital is always trying
to increase the rate of surplus value extraction (i.e. exploitation) i.e. adjust in its favor the ratio
between necessary labor time and surplus labor time…
1) production of absolute surplus value= lengthening the workday and thereby getting more
surplus hours
2) increasing relative surplus value= cheapening the cost of the worker’s reproduction so that
in the same span of time fewer hours are necessary for reproduction and more can be allocated to
surplus (—this is what increased productivity is all about)
- that is, if you can cheapen the cost of food, clothing etc. by the rising productivity of labor than,
in general, labor costs fall
- HOWEVER, surplus will only ever rise at a diminishing rate because the more productivity
increases the lower the return (marginal utility/cost)
Surplus value ≠ profit= because profit depends on realizing the surplus value (embodied in the
commodity) through exchange
Instrument & raw material
- must get replaced just like living labor, and like the worker are also the products of previous
labor
- living labor preserves the use value in the material and the instrument i.e. without the yeast or
animating power of living labor the yarn and looms would either literally decay or collapse back
into inert objects rather than value creating forces
- capital buys 3 things for the price of 1: 1) labor’s capacity to replace of the value of its labor
cost 2) labor’s capacity for surplus value 3) labor’s capacity to preserve the value of surplus
labor
Pg. 285-6= this preservative power of living labor (which belongs to labor überhaupt) is
connected to time
Pg. 289=
3 moments of temporality
1) living labor produces itself in the present—a sustaining equivalent of the wage, a
condemnation to the present and no share for the worker in the future
2) labor and surplus value—the relation of present labor to new value, connected to rising
productivity, accumulation, but also marvels of wealth in which the worker has no share, the
future is that of capital
3) the preservative power of labor—relation of present labor to past i.e. reanimating dead,
objectified labor congealed in machinery, instruments etc.—stresses continuity
- all social life and production is based on past labor and so living always relates to the past i.e.
you either let it decay or you establish your contact and continuity with it
Why does the preservative power of labor—that capital appropriates but does not
compensate—why does this drop out of Capital?

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- labor has all these marvelous capacities e.g. raises dead, communes with the past, assures the
future—yet all these are appropriated by capital and it is posited as mere exchange value
(perversity argument)
- in the Grundrisse there is no dramatic mystery as in Capital about the origin of surplus value
and descent from free exchange to unfree production
- Grundrisse discloses and provincializes the specificity of the capitalist mode of production by
also discussing production and labor in general

2/21/19

Missed class.

2/26/19

Value-form vs. value as political command

Antonio Negri, “Lesson Four: Surplus Value and Exploitation”

Antonio Negri, “Lesson Five: Profit, Crisis, Catastrophe”
Antonio Negri, “Lesson Six: Social Capital & World Market”
Christopher J. Arthur, “The Practical Truth of Abstract Labor”
Patrick Murray, “Unavoidable Crises”

Hans Georg Backhaus

- to read Marx against Marx
- published Dialectic of Value Form in 1997
- thought misreadings of Marx had collapsed value creation into the labor process…
1. substance of value= abstract labor
2. magnitude of value= socially necessary labor time i.e. time as the measure of labor
3. form of value= exchange value
- thought people only focused on 1 and 2 but that instead we need to understand the dialectical
logic between the 3
- focuses especially on 3 since it is only then that value comes into existence in actuality as
opposed to potentiality
- but this means we can’t analyze 3 without a theory of money – since in exchange value is
always realized in monetary terms—this is his “monetary theory of value”
- sees a sharp divide between production and exchange in that value only exists in the latter
which sanctions the social character of the product, whereas, in production we have only
concrete labor processes (but again no value without exchange and no social mediation without
exchange)—so what is the connection between production and exchange? So he wants to bring
in production
- in sum, value is only in exchange, which is a social form, but which acts irrespective of the
intentions of the private producers (who are not willfully producing values)—the value form acts
upon individuals and through them i.e. it is a social abstraction with practical agency
- thinks value cannot be measured since it’s a social form—so the problem of transformation into
price is for him a false problem

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Chris Arthur
- takes capital rather than the proletarian to be the real subject of capital and the real source of
value
- tries to show how the value form is also present at the moment of production
- also adds that it is not true that abstract labor produces value and there is NOT a distinction as
Marx makes it between abstract and concrete labor
- wants to show that abstract labor is an abstraction i.e. not a real entity but a social abstraction
that still has ramifications in practice
- the indifference to the content of labor (that it is only measured in temporally)—this is capital
itself making this abstraction since it is indifferent to the content of labor and only prizes time
- prioritizes Grundrisse since that is where Marx speaks of value as a subject and also where he
discusses abstract labor conferring a concrete social form
- thinks it’s a mistake to think value is labor since value must be a social form
- capital organizes workers in the unity of a factory, creates the world market and thereby the
value sites production, organizes the labor process, is indifferent to labor and only prizes labor
time—the labor process is modified because it is subsumed by the circuit of capital—capital does
all the work, it gives the social character to the commodity and NOT labor power

Antonio Negri
- wanted to give a political reading with political purchase
- like Backhaus he thinks value has been misinterpreted i.e. collapsed into the labor process and
neglected in terms of its social character
- the money form acts as a capitalist’s command by means of the state—it is a political command
- all moments of the circuit of capital are characterized by a political antagonism between the
classes making capitalism a perpetually unstable, unpredictable system—since the way the
production process is negotiated is always an outcome of conflict
- reduce to exchange value labor power—this is capitalists’ pressure i.e. living labor capacity is
struggled over by the capitalist’s attempt to transform it into a quantitative source of value and
resistance from the worker (e.g. sabotage—a non-organized implicit resistance)
- the antagonism (maximization of surplus value vs. necessary labor) produces the development
of capital
- for Negri, the real subject is the working class since; it is the driving force of history—of
capitalist response to resistance
Class composition= a political concept that expresses the unity of a) some elements of the
concrete labor process and the way it is social organized and b) the behavior, activities of
resistance (spontaneous and organized) of the working class and the way it is politicized
- Negri thinks there’s a correspondence between cycles of struggle and capitalist development
(restructuring) i.e. investment, reorganization of the labor process, technological innovation
- all this creates conditions for new social class formation since the more capital expands the
more the working class is unified and potentially organized—so, every time the workers are
vanquished the struggle will compound on a higher level
The falling rate of profit= criticizes Marx’s connection of this to the organic composition of
capital (ratio between constant and variable capital where the more constant increases the more
profit tendentially decreases and the more frequent are crises i.e. you replace workers with
machines to lower workers’ wage which at the same time reduces profit—so the key aspect for

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Marx is capitalist competition) since for Negri this is all an outcome of class struggle, so, the
profit falls because laborers struggle to increase necessary labor
Self-valorization of the working class= the qualitative and quantitative expansion of needs and
desires of the working class i.e. the increase of free time for the consumption of use value,
accomplished for Negri through struggle—a political wage is Negri saying the political demand
for wages pushes capitalism toward crisis
- the political struggle is what produces capitalist expansion i.e. the falling rate of profit pushes
capital to develop a world market (wherein the state underwrites capital’s power over workers)—
which development also socializes the working class i.e. the workers capacity to overthrow
capitalism on a global scale

Nancy on this
Chris Arthur
- tries to unpack the system logic from the point of view of capital, and capital as a social form
with practical force

3/5/19

Critiques of Marx so Far

1. exploitation= private appropriation of surplus value
2. class domination=
3. perversity= capitalism turns things upside down, e.g., subjecting living to congealed labor,
use value to exchange value
- these strands are characterized as an alienation critique which ostensibly presupposes some
authentic trans-historical species being, but they could also be understood as the undermining of
collective and individual freedom
Critique as Crisis
- not simply that capitalism produces bad stuff (poverty, unemployment, and repetitive,
mechanical labor) but that it does so systematically due to its “law of motion” i.e. as a result of
crisis tendencies that are inherent in it
- capitalism’s constitutive dynamics are self-undermining i.e. its driving valorization process is
inherently entangled with de-valorization—pushes beyond boundaries to barriers in a spiral of
self-undermining difficulties so that its self-unfolding ensures its ultimate demise
- insofar as capitalism progressively develops productive forces it become a fetter on the ongoing
development and social realization of those same progressive forces—in developing the basis for
freedom capitalism blocks freedoms realization
- en nuce, thanks to the inherently contradictory character of its constitutive dynamics capitalism
is historically and structurally self-undermining
3 Levels of Crisis
1. Business-as-Usual Capitalism= self-undermining even in this, e.g., the gap between
producers and consumer i.e. the sale of commodities is not guaranteed in their production
2. Development Crisis= historical moments in which accumulated difficulties explode and
ramify throughout the system i.e. moments where crises tendencies become actual crises—these
can be resolved provisionally through capitalist restructuring (which inaugurates a new phase in
capitalism) e.g. the destruction of masses of value through bankruptcy, war, economic crisis OR
(we could add) organizational innovation, geopolitical shift in hegemony, restructuring of the

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global financial order, shifts in means of energy production, outsourcing to low-wage

manufacturing
3. Epochal Crisis= the moment when the other kind of fixes (spatio-temporal fixes) are no
longer available in forms that are sufficient to relaunch production on a wider scale—can only be
resolved through the abolition of capitalism itself
- Marx’s understanding of capitalism as a crisis ridden system is another genre of critique i.e.
answers the question: What is wrong with capitalism?
- all these genres are interweaved since no single genre of critique is powerful enough to do this
on its own
The Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall
Profit vs. Surplus value
Surplus value= surplus value belongs to Marx’s discourse of critical theory (is introduced to
explain something the CPEs could not explain, namely, how surplus is possible i.e. the ratio of
necessary to surplus labor) and is measured in the temporality of the class relation between labor
and capital
Profit= the commonsense experience and real aims of the capitalist himself and is not limited to
production (where it is created), but also includes circulation
- the real measure of value is the relation of surplus to necessary labor but the capitalist measures
value by the standard of capital itself which it treats as its own presupposition i.e. it measures
value by the value of the presupposed capital—the capitalist starts with a fund to be invested (in
production) and expects to come out with more,not focusing on expropriating labor time but on
how much he’s had to put out as input and how much he’s likely to get out at the end, as outputs,
hence the focus on capitalist investment as Marx stresses…
- we’re dealing with variable capital (labor’s wages) and fixed or constant capital or means of
production (instruments, raw materials, accessory materials)
- for the capitalist, profit must be measured against all such costs—so surplus value minus all the
other inputs
Rate of profit= ratio of earned revenue to initial capital outlay
- capitalism is indifferent to concrete production except as it is a necessary bearer of its own
valorization—but the concrete aspect becomes relevant as an opportunity cost
- opportunity costs become of even more important in the joint stock company—share value
appreciation > concrete production
- Marx’s point is that the capitalist calculation and associated shifts in investments do not by
themselves increase surplus value, they merely redistribute surplus value among capitals—only
expropriation of surplus labor can increase value (uneven rates of productivity and variable
pricing will balance in this regard)
“Capital in general”= the general rate of profit i.e. the average rate of profit that emerges as a
result of all that intraclass struggle (among capitalists)
- CPEs had observed the falling rate or profit but couldn’t explain it on its own terms i.e. without
externalities like soil depreciation
- Marx’s own view is that capitalist development brings a rise in the organic composition of
capital i.e. ratio of constant to variable capital—greater proportion of capitalist outlay goes to
machinery than to workers’ wages
- this shift in organic composition means higher productivity—fewer workers can produce more
BUT that means declining surplus value—this is a tendency, not an iron law and may be checked
and indeed often is checked by countervailing tendencies

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- in some cases, the falling rate results in modifications to capitalism but in time the tendency
reasserts itself ever more sharply and in the long run portends an epochal crisis which would
threaten the existence of capital as such

Arruzza on this
- commodity has two incommensurable aspects: use and exchange
- there is no internal boundary to the capitalist production of exchange value BUT use value has
its limits in the needs of circulation (i.e. demand and availability of money)
So how does a capitalist avoid overproduction crises?
- increasing creation of new market
- creation of new needs and the means to satisfy them through the mastery of nature (the
cultivation of all the qualities of the social man)
Marx on competition
- to understand overproduction we must understand competition between capitals: 1) each
individual capital treats his worker as wage workers but sees everyone else as consumers so he
tends to compress his wages but sees everyone else as potentially solvent consumers, in other
words, the expectation of adequate demand where there is none 2) we have to look at exchange
among capitalists themselves i.e. the presupposition by capitalists that the buying and selling
among capitalist will have its final realization of benefit on the market—overproduction among
capitalists is an extension of overproduction on the market

3/12/19

Grundrisse: The Fragment on Machines

Analogies to Capital Vol. 1
Real vs. formal subsumption= distinction between 2 ways capital organizes capital and
exchange i.e. formal subsumption absorbs even commodities not produced in a capitalist way
(so it doesn’t revolutionize the entire production process) whereas in real subsumption we have
the reorganization of the whole process including industry and culture
- Marx insists that fixed capital i.e. machinery doesn’t create new value, rather the value
crystallized in machinery as past labor time is progressively transferred to the commodities
produced and living labor is the mediator between machine and final product i.e. through living
labor labor congealed in machinery is transferred to the commodity
- machinery confronts the worker as an alien power that dominate him or her i.e. it is not clearly
perceived as the outcome of human creativity but rather as a vampire
Why dominating power? Because the machinery determines the temporal rhythm of process
and the role of the worker who become an appendage of the machine and within the machine
human knowledge is crystallized but in such a way that it doesn’t belong to the worker
- the introduction of machines is science applied to the labor process BUT there’s no addition to
the worker’s knowledge per se—so an increasing scientificity of the process that correspondns to
the immiseration of the knowledge of the worker
Differences from Capital Vol. 1
- in the Grundrisse he hasn’t developed a full theory of value and socially necessary labor time,
doesn’t have a distinction between absolute and surplus value, and confuses immediate and
abstract labor

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- in the fragment, Marx doesn’t justify at the level of the logic of capital—the introduction of
machinery, here, it’s just an empirical judgement
Absolute vs. relative surplus value= absolute is extracting surplus value by increasing the
mass of surplus value produced e.g. lengthening or intensifying labor, relative surplus is
increasing the portion of surplus labor per se e.g. increasing technology which depresses value of
the commodities necessary for reproduction of labor e.g. cheapening cost of food through
industrialization of e.g. agriculture
Why is this important? Investment in technology is driven by the necessity of increasing the
rate of surplus value. Capital doesn’t have an interest per se in reducing the value of
commodities by mechanizing. Marx thinks mechanization is an essential component but doesn’t
say why and yet postulates that capital will mechanize so much so as to supplant labor…
- BUT this isn’t the case because capital doesn’t have a tendency to mechanize everything (in
which case Communism would be hastened) rather mechanization goes hand in hand with forms
of production that are labor intensive so that in sectors where it is not convenient to mechanize it
is not done.
- So either we can read this fragment as astutely predicting capital’s obsolescence as a measure
of wealth OR we can say that the issue is seeing how capital combines different levels of
productivity so absolute and relative surplus value are not two stage in history of capital but are
omnipresent way of extorting surplus value habitually combined with one another.
Pg. 91 Volume 39: The General Intellect
- the laborer is just an overseer of the scientific unfolding of the mechanization process which
capital has managed to master
- and so direct exploitation of the labor of the worker will be sidelined in the face of socially
produced knowledge
- at the same time, instead of this process generating social wealth it is employed for the further
exploitation of workers
Pg. 94-5= the great development of large-scale industry and the immense knowledge that goes
into it is actually producing immiseration instead of social wealth at the time of writing BUT this
tendency toward mechanization and the dev. of social knowledge becoming the real productive
force of society—this will at the same time lead to the overthrow of capitalism because it will
make labor time/value obsolete
- sees in technology the material basis for communism and the emancipation of human time
General intellect= social knowledge (science, technology) as crystallized and objectified in
fixed capital
- the objectivation of all social knowledge in fixed capital and the enormous expansion of
international cooperation at the level of production is again the material basis for communism
Sarossa’s Objections
- when Marx analyzes this advance of technology he also has in mind that this changes human
being in the productive process and in society, so…
In what ways are the kinds of workers that emerge in large-scale industry fit to be
revolutionary subjects (given the alienation of worker’s abilities, knowledge, skills etc.)?
The industrialization might create the universal worker but only as an empty universality.
Sarossa’s Solution
1. concerning social reproduction= The worker must be deskilled but only to a certain point.
He must still have labor power sellable on the market. And indeed the state tends to intervenes
(or sometimes through class struggle) to institute basic elementary education. Plus, machinery is

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also produced by human labor so somebody has the knowledge required for this. So, on the one
hand we have a tendency to create a universal worker in the sense of empty universality. On the
other hand we have the enormous expansion of a social sector of labor that creates the universal
worker in a different way i.e. a different kind of contents—a concrete universal.
- Sarossa’s point is not that the laborer is the revolutionary subject but that we can’t lose site of
the dichotomy between loss of skill and gaining in skills. Capital doesn’t produce social
knowledge it just appropriates it.
- It is in this contradiction that we need to find material basis for a revolutionary subjectivity.
That is, identifying at the level of capital the way capital itself creates the basis for a
revolutionary subjectivity.
Arruzza’s Conclusion: Today capitalism organizes and produced social knowledge; it doesn’t
just appropriate it. Collaboration between academe and private corporations.

3/26/19

Debates on the general intellect

1. Carlo Vercellone, “From Formal Subsumption to the General Intellect: Elements for a Marxist
Reading of the Thesis of Cognitive Capitalism,”
2. Paulo Virno, “General Intellect,”
3. Tony Smith, “The ‘General Intellect’ in the Grundrisse and Beyond,”
4. Massimiliano Tomba and Riccardo Bellofiore, “The ‘Fragment on Machines’ and the
Grundrisse: The Workerist Reading in Question,”

Grundrisse: “Fragment on Machines”

The general intellect= diffuse mass of general social knowledge
- how does this impact the position of living labor in relation to capitalist production vis-à-vis
revolutionary subjectivity
Conceptual problem’s in today’s readings
1. The shape of capitalist development= how does capitalism progress—is there a linear stage-
to-stage development or uneven development, and what serves as the distinction between such
phases?
- should the focus be on the situation of labor in commodity production?
What is the motor of historical development of capitalism?
- is the motor class struggle, or logic of value creation i.e. a system of logic?
2. The state of value theory
- does embedded labor time serve as the measure of value—is this operative in all phases of
capitalism or only the industrial phase, which is also to ask what makes a given social formation
capitalist?
3. What is the role of free gifts in capital accumulation i.e. inputs into capitalist production
or conditions for capitalist production that are not denominated in value terms?
4. Crisis Theory
- does it emanate from system logic or political struggle?
- should we think of crisis as the culmination as a final catastrophic meltdown a la the general
intellect exploding the labor theory of value
- could also be a play of tendency and counter-tendency by contrast

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- there is also a distinction between a developmental crisis in capitalism and an epochal crisis
that pushes us beyond capitalism as such
5. Diagnosis of the Times
- what are we looking for in such a diagnosis and what a plausible or persuasive diagnosis look
like
Paulo Virno, “General Intellect,”
- we get the diffusion of the general intellect without any of the hoped for revolutionary
developments—Why not?
- Marx wrongly equated the general intellect with fixed capital
- Virno thinks the general intellect goes beyond this—it exists in the consciousness of workers
which harbors mass intellectuality, not specialized scientific knowledge, but informal everyday
knowledge—the capacity and orientation to act cooperatively and interact intersubjectively with
others, drawing on imagination, language etc. in a word, lifeworld knowledge precisely not
crystallized in machinery
- lifework knowledge should be thought of as productive forces as well
- this mass intellectuality is a nucleus of social connectedness separate from the quid pro quo of
exchange i.e. dissociated sociality
- the result of this mass intellectuality is not a revolutionary subjectivity but cynicism (which is
to say that the alienated sociality of exchange at least plants in our mind some idea of equality
even if it’s insufficiently market centered), the new mass intellectuality drops equality—the
result is not emancipation but new form of hierarchy
But, could this Habermasian mass intellectuality be the source of revolutionary democracy
nonetheless?
- thinks this could only happen if we abolish wage labor which could itself only happen because
of a more robust intellectuality in the public sphere
- nonetheless, where the site of action might be would not be the point of production but the
public sphere
1. Carlo Vercellone, “From Formal Subsumption to the General Intellect: Elements for a
Marxist Reading of the Thesis of Cognitive Capitalism,”
- Capitalism’s history consists in a sequence of stages differentiated by the power-knowledge
relations between capital and labor as reflected in the form the socially organized labor takes
- the technology of industrial production should not be though exclusively as a strategy for
increased surplus value but rather as a means of control of the workforce by capital
The 3 Stages
1. formal subsumption= 16-18th century often called merchant capitalism in which the
workforce is controlled primarily by the need for cash wages which is itself premised on the
proletarian separation from means of production and subsistence
- the workforce has craft knowledge in this phase but capital organizes them in the factory setting
so there’s no internal restructuring of the production process itself
- this stage incarnates a contradiction between the working class’ monetary dependence on the
one hand and its autonomy in relation to production
- there’s a preponderance of variable capital relative to constant and production runs on the basis
of the worker’s knowledge
- capital aims to better cease control of production which is still retained by the workers in their
operative knowledge of production

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- this is a low organic composition of capital working through the abstraction of absolute surplus
value
2. real subsumption= the industrial revolution wherein we get machine manufacturing through
the energy produced by engines
- here labor works by dependence on the wage and by monopolization of the knowledge of
production (i.e. Smithian parcellation of work) such that labor is deskilled, rendering craft
obsolete
- rise in the organic composition of capital and the emergence of relative surplus value extraction
- this is the mass production machine of standardized goods i.e. Fordism
3. cognitive capitalism= the role of knowledge in production is central, both as a means and end
of production—producing knowledge by means of knowledge
- increasing importance immaterial and cognitive dimension of labor

- we have 3 different mechanisms of subordinating the labor process to capital and these are
understood as the three phases
- writing in a time of crisis of real subsumption and at the cusp of a transition to cognitive
capitalist which is market by a struggle of workers to re-appropriate the knowledge and with it
the possibility of controlling the labor process where the idea would be to take the surplus labor
time generated by capital and convert it to free time—this is the stage of the general intellect
- the demand for education develops but it’s a mistake to see education as just capital’s way of
disciplining a workforce and imbuing it with the necessary skills, rather mass education is a site
of struggle for broader intellectual formation and access to the full heritage of society which is a
real resource for class struggle—this is what the general intellect is for him
- here the deskilled cog in a machine is overcome and general intellectual formation is available
to the working class as social knowledge, which can become a productive force and therefore the
process of production can be subordinated to the general intellect where labor time is replaced by
knowledge value
- this would also mean overcoming the class monopoly on knowledge i.e. a restoration of the
commons, the overcoming of real subsumption as a sublation i.e. reassertion of worker control at
a higher level
- BUT instead, we have the reassertion of mechanisms of control first available in formation
subsumption—monetary control is resurfacing in the financial/mercantile mechanisms of
accumulation
- but as in the first phase there’s a latent contradiction between worker knowledge and
dependency, BUT capital recognizes this and resorts to intellectual property to combat this (as
well as financialization)—even though possibilities for free time and enjoyment remain in the
face of the external constraint imposed by these new forms of financialization

Criticisms of Vercellone: 3. Tony Smith, “The ‘General Intellect’ in the Grundrisse and
Beyond,” 4. Massimiliano Tomba and Riccardo Bellofiore, “The ‘Fragment on Machines’
and the Grundrisse: The Workerist Reading in Question,”
- his model is too linear, since there is uneven development and coexistence of different value
forms, imbricated such that each enables the other in a single capitalism
Pg. 356-7= “Capital’s higher technical composition in some parts of the world…”
- the import is too move from a linear stage theory to a world-system theory where we can
appreciate how the computer rests on the sweatshop and the cyborg on the slave—the linear

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model is too Eurocentric in this way i.e. the so-called cognitive model of capitalism is enabled by
other forms of exploitation in say the global south

4/2/19

Alienation, Human Nature and Primitive Accumulation

- alienation controversy arose with publication of The Economic and Philosophical manuscripts
in 1932
- these manuscripts offered the opportunity a different kind of Marx in contrast with the
positivistic breed petrified in the 3rd International
Althusser: Epistemological Break= articulated by Althusser in opposition with the humanist
reading of Marx
- Althusser worried that the humanist interpretation would tame the specificity of the science of
historical materialism and would conflate Marxism with a standard rationalist philosophy—
emphasizing the humanism in Marx would render it just another philosophy WITHOUT
understanding the enormous rupture in thought caused by historical materialism
- Althusser distinguished four different moments…
1. Early Writings
- Hegelian and German Idealism
2. Writings of the Break
3.
4. Mature Writing
- the full articulation of his theoretical practice as opposed to ideology
- But it is not as easy to identify Marx’s “break” as Althusser thought
Althusser: Science vs. Ideology
- problematic in that it assumes scientific practice can be separated from belief and norm
Ideology= the imagined relation human have to their own existence—an unavoidable standpoing
(but even in science!)
- also, Althusser can’t define science esp. historical materialism qua science
- and yet, Althusser’s criticism of Marxist humanism was hugely influential such that future
scholarship all had to reckon with it
- this goes back to alienation in that the scholarship had to take a stand on Althusser and whether
his timeline of Marx’s development was accurate
- the problem of the connection between humanism and alienation arises in the 1844
manuscripts…
Alienation in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
4 Forms of Alienation Produced by Alienated Labor
1. Alienation of the worker from the product—which doesn’t belong to him and has power
over the worker
2. Alienation of the worker from the activity of production given the transformation of
production via real subsumption—worker has no knowledge the process and work is repetitive
and tedious
3. Alienation of human beings from others
4. Alienation of human being from species being (this was the problematic one for humanists)

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Species-being= the specific human ability in the exchange with nature to transform both
reciprocally—the production objects, creation of a world that is also a transformative of
ourselves i.e. production of new needs, desires and abilities
- this is alienated under capitalism because again workers have not control over what they
produce and they don’t have control over the labor process but are controlled by it—and both has
consequences for relations between humans since is social appropriation is deformed then social
relation will be as well
- what is missing from these manuscripts is a historical grounding of alienation along with the
specific mechanisms of it in capitalism accumulation
Rail Jeggis: forms of accumulation
1. Powerlessness= lack of control over ourselves and our world
2. meaninglessness
- the social relations are governed by process outside our knowledge
David Harvey’s article
- around the German Ideology Marx dropped the term alienation--Marx is trying to distinguish
his project from Young Hegelians
- but after decline of Young Hegelian he can reinclude it and does in the Grundrisse i.e.
alienation of worker from product (Fragment on Machines, Capital as Accumulated Labor);
alienation from human beings (Section on Exchange)
Marx: Grundrisse
Ch. On Money
- generalized exchange vs. universality
- in capitalist societies exchange is generalized
- personal relations and dependents are replaced by dependence on bankers i.e. dissolution of
agrarian feudalism and community and the dissolution of beliefs that explained and justified
these relations
- but then beyond primitive accumulation we have the emergence of the free individual who can
sell their labor power on the market BUT at the same time dependent on each other for the
conditions of their reproduction—a dependence mediated by things i.e. money and commodity
Vol. 28: Pg. 94= reification of personal capacities into capacities of things, so what gives social
power is money i.e. what you carry in your pocket
- alienation arises because of the way capital has reshaped human being into atomized ind.
supposedly endowed with freedom, rational agents capable of directing their own lives BUT this
apparent freedom and autonomy conceals an absolute mutual dependence over which we no
longer have control because it is regulated by impersonal laws outside our purview
Pg. 100-101= alienation produced by capitalism which dominates apparently free individuals
through abstractions (e.g. the market)
Universalization and Universally Developed Individuals
- a universal human being is a creation of capitalism in that capitalists create a world market to
expand social relations of production to universal constant
- also, labor power is purchased as an abstract universal commodity
- capitalist has in sum produced the universal human but as an empty universality, which itself
enables the communist universality of human nature i.e. the global development of human
capacities
- the dissolution of the blood and soil social matrix which creates humans as empty universals
also enables cosmopolitan universalization of humanity

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Pg. 99= the empty universality produced by capitalism enables the concrete universality of
communism

Pg. 381= the worker produces capital which is the alien object outside the workers control which
also dominate him
- workers produce commodity but also the social relations of production in reproducing
themselves qua workers as a class relation—responsible for our own oppression, alienation
4 Conditions for Alienation to Emerge
1. living labor as pure subjective existence i.e. free people formally free to their labor power who
have no access to means of production
2. sufficiently accumulated capital
3. a system of free exchange (formal freedom, abolition of serfdom)
4. class of capitalist who have sufficiently accumulated enough capital and who are invested in
compounding it by investing the creation of surplus value
Harvey’s Article
2 Sources of Alienation in Contemporary Capitalism
2. debt= a claim on future labor insofar as it must be repaid
- creates a vast network of social control that disenfranchises e.g. our pensions, including union
pensions, depend on the stability of the economic system, which militates against class struggle
- hence political institutions have been circumvented in that they are powerless to change
systemic debt—which leads to legitimacy crisis of liberal democracy

4/9/19

SCHEDULE MEETING W/ARUZZA

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