[iDC] Re: a critique of naturalized capitalism

[Sam Ladner]

Nicholas,

After coming off week of re-reading Capital, I respectfully submit that you
are not speaking of Marxian notions of capital. There is nothing "natural"
about it. Capital is completely constructed.

There is no medieval capitalism; the system of production was not
capitalism. Surely capital existed but it was not the dominant force in
production. Markets existed but NATIONAL markets were constructed by
nations. They did not spontaneously exist.

I think "most analyses of capital are myopically obsessed" with exchange
because that is the ESSENTIAL process of capitalism. Marx's famous M-C-M
equation notes that money becomes a commodity and then becomes (more) money.
This "sleight of hand" is the heart of capital. Capital is not capital if it
cannot guarantee a positive return on investment. This is why Marxian
anaylses are "obsessed" with exchange; it is the way value is created, and
in turn, the determinant variable of social relations. Marx's capital is a
political economy of time, insofar as it examines the exchange of labour
time for commodities.

Perhaps your critique would be better leveled at modernity, not capital.
Modernity is of course co-constituitive of capitalism, but it can be better
contrasted with "beauty" or "culture." In a sense, I hear a
modernism/romanticism dichotomy in your debate. If you are speaking of a
desire for beauty, completion, perfection, "capital" or even "the
capitalising code" is not the best choice of words.

I think capital is entirely the wrong choice of word because it is entirely
socially constructed. I do not agree there is anything naturalized of
capitalism (not would Marx; most emphatically no).



On 4/7/07, Nicholas Ruiz III <editor at intertheory.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Ryan/all:
>
> We should note here that certain factions of genetic
> Code are more represented by Capital, than others.
> Most analyses of Capital are myopically obsessed with
> this small part of the world equation of exchange;
> indeed, it is the part most often categorized as some
> form or other of 'capitalism'...in any event, the part
> of 'it' we are most affected by in life.  Polity
> involves this segment of exchange, modulating its
> activity, while modulated by it.
>
> Many are under the spell of history, which provides
> Capital with a birth, a Beginning, but Capital was
> always present in its basic form: a capitalizing Code.
> We might even say, in our lighter moments, that
> Capital is the dream of the Code; its macrolevel
> extension in to the world, from its micro/molecular
> proximity in the biological cell.  Where Culture
> dreamed of beauty, Capital yearned to be effective.
> At last, Capital learned to effect beauty, so as to
> assimilate beauty as a veneer.
>
> Today, Capital is beautiful—operationally, and that is
> the aesthetic we revere; the beauty of utility.  The
> problem with the recognition of Capital's enduring
> omnipresence is that there is no one to indict of the
> crimes Capital commits—do we indict ourselves, that is
> to say, human society? And then, do we punish
> ourselves?  After all Freud, already tried to issue
> such a judgment:
>
> "But with the recognition that every civilization
> rests on a compulsion to work and a renunciation of
> instinct and therefore inevitably provokes opposition
> from those affected by these demands, it has become
> clear that civilization cannot consist principally or
> solely in wealth itself and the means of acquiring it
> and the arrangements for its distribution; for these
> things are threatened by the rebelliousness and the
> destructive mania of the participants in
> civilization."
>
> What Freud missed here is that the human instinct is
> precisely to work at something (even nothing); there
> is not a renunciation of instinct in that activity,
> but rather an embrace of an instinct to survive, to
> produce, to replicate (and if not replicate, certainly
> to copulate—where replication becomes incidental for
> most of the species)—that is the Code's agenda—the
> Code is as the Code does.  In addition, civilization
> can consist of Capital accrual and defense—and it has
> and does so—increasingly, via the "world-widening of
> the world" (i.e. globalization).  It is not wealth
> that most seek, but rather, production of a life or
> lives.
>
> Capital makes itself known, among other ways, as a
> function and a tool of precisely the "rebelliousness
> and destructive mania" of which Freud speaks.  Though
> circumstances are novel, the inception point of all of
> this is not contemporary, nor modern, or medieval, or
> even ancient. We are merely molecular progeny in
> perpetual flux. Our possibility came into being from
> the point at which molecules began to self-organize,
> conserve, replicate: that is the beginning of
> utilitous Code, a material manifestation of which
> today, is Capital; notice how it too, self-organizes,
> conserves, accumulates, replicates, etc.  It is in
> that sense, that Capital, and increasingly today,
> global Capital, represents and implements the Code,
> and is a tool of it.
>
>
> NRIII
>
>
> --- Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 7, 2007, at 8:25 AM, Nicholas Ruiz III wrote:
> >
> > > I'm not sure I understand the question...could you
> > > elaborate a bit...?
> > >
> > > NRIII
> >
> > i'm questioning the use of the phrase "decided by
> > virtue of our birth
> > as living capitalized beings, driven by the currency
> > of the Code..."
> > There are two paths that seem to be suggested by
> > this language, but
> > correct me if i'm wrong:
> > 1. This (capitalism) is Nature as code, an
> > indifferent system that is
> > not explainable through social/cultural systems, but
> > is a phenomenon
> > of the Universe that is reducible only to observable
> > mechanisms.
> > 2. This (capitalism) is Nature as metaphysical
> > "Code", written into
> > the specifically "human nature" as sin is attributed
> > to all humans
> > "by virtue of our birth" in Judeo/Christian terms.
> >
> > Either way, capitalism (as both an ideology and
> > material system) is
> > unavoidable and evolutionary, as well as totalizing.
> > As if there is/
> > cannot be other ideologies/systems parallel to it,
> > that are not
> > merely false or mythical.
> > If this is the case being stated, i'm not sure what
> > the meaning of
> > the term "capitalism" might be, as in either case,
> > it becomes
> > synonymous with "Nature" and/or "Human."
> > Obviously, i would disagree with such an assertion -
> > hence my
> > recalling of Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory (which,
> > to simplify, is
> > the notion that the behavior we call "selfish" or
> > "self-
> > interestedness" (the traits, not coincidentally,
> > most celebrated by
> > capital) is "hard-wired" into us genetically).
> > If what's being stated is not this, and is just
> > using the language of
> > "Code" (the capital "C" is part of what caught my
> > attention) and
> > "genetic protocol" rhetorically and metaphorically,
> > then i think it's
> > a bit problematic as a critical gesture, as it
> > evades critically
> > through naturalization. It seems, to me, to dismiss
> > the importance of
> > the political, rather than locating it.
> > best,
> > ryan
> > >
> > >
> > > --- Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> On Apr 2, 2007, at 11:03 AM,
> > >> idc-request at mailman.thing.net wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Herein lies the importance of the political.  It
> > >> is
> > >>> not that we will not be capitalists--this has
> > >> already
> > >>> been decided by virtue of our birth as living
> > >>> capitalizing beings, driven by the currency of
> > the
> > >>> Code; that genetic protocol of environmental
> > >> utility
> > >>> and capitalization.  Every breath we take is a
> > >>> capitalization on the environment we exist
> > >> within...
> > >>
> > >> does the word "capitalism" mean anything specific
> > >> here?
> > >> sounds like a "selfish gene" argument to me.
> >
> >
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>
>
> Dr. Nicholas Ruiz III
> Editor, Kritikos
> http://intertheory.org
>
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