Marxism 1 Flashcards
Diagnosing the Social
This is the process of Marx addressing the growing inequalities between wealth and labour- and how this relates to wider social forces.
Marx likened this process to Darwins Evolutionary theory. If Darwin could diagnose the motor of non-human evolution, Marx could diagnose the motor of social evolution.
Historic Materialism
If we want to understand the world, we must look at the material practices between humans and the non-human world.
The ultimate cause of historical change and social relations is found in the mode of production (capitalism). Modes of production are essential to the reproduction of life- they are world making.
Modes of production can be understood in two ways:
1) the socio-technical conditions through which we (re)produce life
2) How we organize the circulation of needs and surpluses
What makes capitalism unique is how value is produced (exploitation) and how surplus is managed (profit and injection back into the economy).
Political Economy
This is the study of how economic exchange. production and surplus is governed.
Marx rejects Smith and Ricardo’s argument that primitive accumulation is a natural inequality and that value is assigned through labour time.
Marx argues that primitive accumulation is the product of violent expropriation of land- the enclosure of such prevents access to the materials of reproduction (forcing the labourers to earn a wage to access this).
Marx also argues that value is only created in the exploitation of labour; value is profit. Value is not given, it is taken.
The commodity and its fetishism becomes key here.
Smith (2009)
Historic materialism is a theory of history that incorporates a series of theses about the dynamics of historical change
Social development is driving by progress in meeting social needs: this is done through production forces; for Marx this is the means of production and labour power. In the mode of production, people enter into certain relations of production (work or ownership relations)
The totality of relations constitutes the economic structure of society: this is a foundation in which legal/political superstructures arise, combining to constitute the overall mode of production.
The mode of production is subject to internal contradictions; many of which reflect forms of ownership and class relations
The relations of production increasingly become restrictive on the further development of productive forces- beginning the process of social revolution (transforming the economic structure and the overall superstructure).
Marx (1968) ‘Commodities and Money’
The commodity is a needs-satisfying object that is produced for trade. A commodity has a use value and an exchange value.
Plain value is also introduced in terms of compatibility of being sold and bought (a combination of both forms of value). This common value is seen in terms of human labour.
For Marx, labour is measured in terms of time- value is socially necessary labour time (the time it takes to produce a commodity). In this sense, if technology is introduced to reduce the amount of time an object takes to make, the commodity decreased in value.
Difference between concrete (specific work) and abstract labour (measured simply by time). Marx boils both of these down to simple labour- the time it takes.
However, this changes with the introduction of money into the C-M-C conversion. Money becomes the universal equivalent for all relative forms of objects. This is referred to as the “metamorphosis of commodities”. This allows commodity fetishism to occur- people no longer see a commodity in terms of the labour put into it, they simply see the price tag attached.
Exchange values conceal the social relations of a particular commodity- price becomes a natural characteristic of a commodity. The process of commodities moving from someone who has no use-value for it, to somebody who does have a use value is a “social metabolism”- this forms the basis for the circulation of money
Marx makes clear that sometimes money itself can become the object of desire itself, and instead of being exchanged, it is hoarded thus breaking the C-M-C cycle. Wealth itself then becomes a form of power-these people do not need to sell commodities in order to purchase one.
Harvey (1975)
Marx’s theory of accumulation under capitalism has a spatial dimension; this makes it possible to connect economic growth with emergent structures of spatial relationships.
Accumulation is the engine which powers growth under capitalism; this is constantly expanding (a stationary form of reproduction is logically incompatible). The progress of accumulation depends on surplus labour, the ability to obtain the means of production and the existence of a market to absorb increasing commodities
Capitalism is susceptible to internal contradictions which arise as crises- these crises arise as a result to barriers to accumulation (e.g. surplus, falling profits or unemployment). In general, crises have the effect of creating fresh room for accumulation (labour is enhanced, the cost of labour is reduced or there is new demand).
Geographical expansion and concentration are a key part of creating new opportunities for accumulation: the goal is “to annihilate space by time”
Castree (2001)
Commodification is now omnipresent: genes, cells and bacteria are just some of the new frontiers of commodification. For Marx, a commodity is something that is subject to the logic of accumulation for accumulation’s sake. De-fetishization does important critical work- bringing to the forefront of the commodity the social relations that lie behind it.
By examining the fetishism behind commodities, Castree points out that there is now a double fetishism at play: the social relations that we wish to move beyond AND the imaginative geographies that are used to sell commodities.
Marx (1844) ‘Estranged Labour’
Our capacity to produce the world is what makes us human- Marx refers to this as our ‘species being’ this is our ability to produce collectively. Capitalism gives us a particular way of working (waged labour). In this system, we sell our labour time in exchange for money
In doing so, we labour to create something that someone else has a vision to create- we end up creating for the capitalist, not ourselves (essentially, we are renting the means of production). As a consequence, we become alienated from the product because the labourers themselves cannot afford the products they produce.
For Marx, this is a problem; we are estranged from the products of our labour AND we are estranged from one another (there are a few men making decisions for the many). From this, private property is able to arise as a concept; allowing a few people to own the means of production (this started with the primitive accumulation of land).
Simultaneously, private property is the means through which future labour is alienated; it essentially created the capacity for the division of labour.
Fundamentally, private property is an organising principle- “This primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as original sin in theology”.
Gregson (2010)
The ‘following the thing’ approach aimed to de-fetishize commodities through the political project of connecting Western consumers with unknown, unseen and unheard produces
In recent years, this approach has been applied and developed in relation to a range of commodities.
All tracking back through the assemblage of the point of sale commodity; ‘following’ therefore is conducted literally along the supply chain.
However, this approach does not fit the focus of this paper (ships being undone and remade). The ships are being stripped of their symbolic representations - they are not coming together, they are being scattered into smaller parts. This is about the labour of breaking things up, not putting them together.
In this approach, ‘following’ does not end with the Western consumer. Discarded commodities become captures in other networks. They are then worked to move them to secondary sites of processing, treatment and re-valuation.
Ships are interesting in this respect- they are the main way through which commodities are transported around the world. But it must not be forgotten that they are also commodities themselves
Additionally, products are rarely materially unravelled or recombined. In this respect, the commodity is destabilised. The commodity is multiple, mutable and material. The thing becomes but a moment in the circulation and assembling of material.
Chan (2013)
In the twenty-first century, consumer electronics has grown to become one of the leading global industries, and Chinese labour is central to its development.
An ever quicker and newer product release, accompanied by shorter product finishing time, places new pressures on outsourced factory workers in the Apple production network.
Price pressures lead firms to compromise workers’ health and safety and the provision of a decent living wage.
The absence of fundamental labour rights within the global production regime driven by Apple and its principal supplier Foxconn have become a central concern for Chinese rural migrant workers, who are at the core of the most rapidly growing sector of the new industrial working class.
Collard (2014)
This article documents the entwined dual processes of commodity formation and disintegration and taking animals apart and putting them back together in the context of the global live wildlife trade.
In making lively companion commodities, animals’ ecological ties are severed and ties with humans intensify, whereas the opposite occurs during rehabilitation.
A central aspect of this refiguring of global live wildlife trade’s animal subjects revolves around the degree to which they are forcibly brought into particular encounters with humans and, if being “put back together,” divested of these encounters.
In both the making and unmaking of companion commodities, animals’ bodies and lives are subject to an extraordinary degree of invasion, manipulation, and control
