I took a last minute trip to Chicago recently, had a lovely time. Packed Marx’s 1844 Manuscripts to read in the back seat of the car. I decided to look over some of it for comparison w/ stuff in the Fragment on Machines, which I’ve been pestering folks about reading so I can purloin their ideas. Happily there’s growing interest. There’s probably going to be some here and there blogging, like I’ll put up my notes soon, but there’s also talk about a more sustained discussion come July, of the Fragment and the so-called Unpublished 6th Chapter to v1 of Capital. Anyone else interested in that please let me know. Anyone who wants to talk Fragment on Machines, just read it, post yr thoughts and let me know you did so and I’d be keen to discussify. Also, before I forget, Craig did a post recently dealing with the 1844 Manuscripts as well. Check it out. Now then. *Ahem.*
Marx discusses “a society in which wealth is increasing,” which he calls the only condition favorable to the worker under capitalism.
This favorable condition, of course, has its dark side. Namely, “
the raising of wages gives rise to overwork among the workers. The more they wish to earn, the more must they sacrifice their time and carry out slave-labour, completely losing all their freedom, in the service of greed. Thereby they shorten their lives. This shortening of their life-span is a favourable circumstance for the working class as a whole, for as a result of it an ever-fresh supply of labour becomes necessary. This class has always to sacrifice a part of itself in order not to be wholly destroyed. (Via. Also p22 in my hard copy.)
Note the synecdoche. The worker, one, stands in for all workers, as in the entire working class. There is a condition which is favorable to that of all workers. This condition is not, however, favorable to every worker. Some of them must die. The class is such that the deaths of some are good for the class as a whole. I may be reading this overly strongly, but the point seems to be more than just “the deaths of some are good for others.” That condition is one in which there is not a unifying perspective, simply a conflict and a winner, not a matter of a greater good. I think Marx here means something more like “the deaths of some are good for all such that those deaths are valuable to the whole,” which is to say that there is a unifying perspective wherein the deaths of these workers are better than the deaths of some which profit the lives of others. A greater good. Put another way, there is a class interest, which can be acted upon against the lives of individual members of that class. This is the same rhetorical move found in, say, “The Iraqi is better today for the liberation that has occurred.” Bracketing of course that no such liberation took place, even if that were so, this grammatically singular figure papers over that some died and as such are not better off.
Marx’s point, of course, is that “even in the condition of society most favourable to the worker, the inevitable result for the worker is overwork and premature death, decline to a mere machine, a bond servant of capital,” (23) which is fair enough. But this account is insufficiently one sided (or, to use a term I got from my friend Geo who got it from Sorel, diremptive), to say the least.
Later, Marx quotes Smith:
3) In a country which had acquired that full complement of riches both the wages of labour and the profits of stock would probably be very low the competition for employment would necessarily be so great as to reduce the wages of labour to what was barely sufficient to keep up the number of labourers, and, the country being already fully peopled, that number could never be augmented. [The quote is from the, Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, p. 84, available online here. It’s p24 in the Marx.]
Marx adds “The surplus would have to die.”
Then he continues:
Since, however, according to Smith, a society is not happy, of which the greater part suffers — yet even the wealthiest state of society leads to this suffering of the majority — and since the economic system (and in general a society based on private interest) leads to this wealthiest condition, it follows that the goal of the economic system is the unhappiness of society. (24-25.)
There’s a translator’s note on the word “economic system” which reads “Marx uses the German term “Nationalökonomie” to denote both the economic system in the sense of science or theory, and the economic system itself.” (Page 24, note 3.) That is to say, the term means both the words and thoughts of political economists (their books, their policy proposals, etc) and the function of the economy. There’s a dual meaning in the German. Unhappiness is the goal of the material economy (the economic system) and the goal of economic discourse. There is an ambiguity throughout the German and the English, as to when is Marx talking about everyday not-solely-discursive activities (the economy) and the discursive register (economists). Of course, the two aren’t wholly separate (management handbooks, policy, etc, these are part of the economy’s functioning as a field of power and conflict) but neither are they wholly identical.
The Spanish version emphasize the latter meaning more, translating “Nationalökonomie” not as “economic system” but as “political economy” (”Economía Política”). The English version doesn’t solely translate “Nationalökonomie” this way, but rather tries to pick whichever emphasis seems most appropriate. Sometimes “economic system” and sometimes “political economy.” (”Political economy” is always a translation of “Nationalökonomie” here, and “political economist” is “Nationalökonomen.”)
For instance: “It goes without saying that the proletarian (…) is considered by political economy only as a worker,” and “In political economy labour occurs only in the form of activity as a source of livelihood.” (Both from p27 in the book version I have. In that version, the second half of the second sentence quoted here reads “in the form of wage-earning activity.” The Spanish says “lucrative activity.” The German reads “Erwerbstätigkeit.”) The duality isn’t an ambivalence here, as the point applies accross the board. Economists and employers both consider proletarians solely as vendors of labor power and/or purchased labor power to be put to work. And labor is only considered as waged labor. This latter is a mistake all too often followed by Marxists.
Note the “National” in “Nationalökonomie.” Marx quotes Wilhelm Schulz, “To develop in greater spiritual freedom, a people [ein Volk] must break their bondage to their bodily needs — they must cease to be the slaves of the body.” (29.) The point here is the use “a people.” The people, the nation, these operate the same rhetorical move. Carl Schmitt does this when he writes on the people. He speaks of an organized people acting and so forth. But it is not the entire people, every single member of the people, that acts. Rather, there is a distribution of power within the people, wherein some make decisions on the enemy, others make decisions on the strategic, technical, and tactical matters of carrying out the conflict with the war, and still others carry out these decisions.
What I want to get at is that Karl’s remarks, remarked on above, on the class and Carl’s remarks on the people are quite similar, at least here. The class has an interest such that some of its component parts can be sacrificed for the good the whole. Ditto the people. In both cases the operation is one of producing a larger political entity - producing some aggregate as the political entity such that its component parts are not political. In this case, however, it is not the entity which acts. It is some parts of the entity which act upon others. Or rather, the political entity is a complex organism with delegated functions, like Plato’s city. Some think (the brain, the gold), others work (the hands, the bronze). And of course, the cessation of slavery to the body occurs differently for different people in the distribution of functions. Some read and think and direct. Others, the same ones who work, die and then achieve their reward.
For Karl und Carl (at least in the Manuscripts and the Concept of the Political) the political entity is, if not the state, at least state-like. The individual is sacrificed to the class, for the good of the class. I do not see how this can not but mean a delegation of function wherein some within the class - or allegedly within the class or allegedly representing the class - decide upon the lives (of others in) the class.
Schmitt writes, “Every state provides (…) some kind of formula for the declaration of an internal enemy.” (p46) This is so for everything which Schmitt calls a political entity. He adds that whatever formula or mode is used, “whether ostracism, proscription, or outlawry (…) the aim is always the same, namely to declare an enemy.” This formula is resorted to when the members of a political entity refuse their position - refuse to be sacrificed - such that the entity’s existence as an entity is threatened. That is to say, hose to whom the entity’s existence as an entity provides some power and prestige are threatened. The declaration of enemy’s is harshest against those who might threaten the power to declare enemies and create the aggretations that are political entities (for Schmitt this power is the same). This is why Schmitt polemicizes against individualism.
“In case of need, the political entity must demand the sacrifice of life. (…) No consistent individualism can entrust to someone other than to the individual himself the right to dispose of the physical life of the individual. (…) For the individual as such there is no enemy with whom he must enter into a life-and-death struggle if he personally does not want to do so.” (p71.)
If a political entity loses its power to demand sacrifice, “it ceases to be a political entity.” (p47) This might happen as a result of the effective organized carrying out of a political program based on a principle like that sketched by Benjamin in his unpublished 1920 fragment, “The Right To Use Force.” Benjamin here sets out to defend the pressing need “[t]o recognize the individual’s sole right to use force.” He writes, “exposition of this standpoint is one of the tasks of my moral philosophy, and in that connection the term “anarchism” may very well be used to describe a theory that denies a moral right not to use force as such but to every (…) monopoly over it.” (Benjamin, p232-233.) Such a perspective, with sufficient power, would effectively constitute, an anti-political force such that no decision could be made, no friend-enemy grouping forged or defended or made practical in relation to the political entity of the people. I like this point even more if read as not solely about military force (monopoly on the power to kill at gunpoint) but about the force exercised in the economy, the death brought about by work. This refusal extends to bosses and to so-called representatives and members of the working class. Marx writes, “Whilst the interest of the worker, according to the political economists, never stands opposed to the interest of society, society always and necessarily stands opposed to the interest of the worker.” (26.) At least some of the time “the worker” and “the interest of the worker” - ie, the interest of the class as a whole and even more so the interest proclaimed by some on the part of the whole - is also opposed to at least some individual workers. Like those slated for sacrifice.
But I digress.
Returning to Marx:
What is the basis of capital, that is, of private property in the products of other men’s labour?
“Even if capital itself does not merely amount to theft or fraud, it still requires the cooperation of legislation to sanctify inheritance.” (Say, Traité d’economie politique.)
How does one become a proprietor of productive stock? How does one become owner of the products created by means of this stock?
“By virtue of positive law.” (Say.) [These are from page 35 of the Manuscripts.]
In the German the quote from Say reads “Durch das positive Recht.” I can never keep my head straight on Recht. I believe it means something like the order of law, the legal order. Not “the law” as in the currently existing set of laws, but rather more in the sense of the set of laws plus the order or process of their making - the legal and legislative order. I’m happy to be corrected, and if no one does then I’ll have to look it up later. For now I’m happy to read it sloppily also in terms of sovereignty and decision. This is one of the points I am failing to make in my nattering on about the national and Marx/Schmitt parallels. A certain something in Marx, at least in the Manuscripts, makes his less attentive to the state/sovereignty’s role in capitalism. Enclosure and primitive accumulation was in large part accomplished via the state, and certainly by state-like formations. The continuation of capitalism after primitive accumulation was aided by the criminalization of worker associations, then later by a certain regime of legalized and law centered association (the business unions). Border policy today is vital to the constitution of labor markets. These are only some examples. I’m not (yet!) enough of a marxologist to be able to say where this comes from. Perhaps Marx is insufficiently critical in his critique of political economy, still allowing something people/national/state-like into the formulations of the class. Or perhaps he wasn’t as good on the positive components of working class self-organization, having devoted much more time to reading and criticizing the work of those who controlled the working class.
In any case, Marx continues:
What does one acquire with capital, with the inheritance of a large fortune, for instance?
“The person who [either acquires, or] succeeds to a great fortune, does not necessarily [acquire or] succeed to any political power […. ] The power which that possession immediately and directly conveys to him, is the power of purchasing; a certain command over all the labour, or over all the produce of labour, which is then in the market.” (Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, Vol. I, pp. 26-27.)[Also from page 35.]
Marx seems to accept Smith’s distinction that capital is not a political power. If so, this is a mistake (and one that I’ll try to pay more attention to later this summer, when I finally get around to reading the Lenin that I asked Jodi to read with me ages ago and then had to shelve). Schmitt also, I think, wants to distinguish political and economic power. This doesn’t hold, if we see the political in Schmitt’s terms as the power to kill, to make kill, and to make die. The capitalist economy is a site for the operation of all of these powers. Differently, sure, but that’s true of a number of sites that are less controversially political as well.
Following immediately from the Smith quote, Marx writes “Capital is thus the governing power over labour and its products.” (36.) The term “govern” here takes a step toward the view I want to push forward, gestured at in my hand waving around Benjamin above, in which the economy is political. Economic and political is not an interesting or instructive disjunction. (Of course, full disclosure, my own politics are of a rather economistic focus, fetishizing the workplace, and worse, the waged workplace. This is not to say that ‘economic’ and ‘political’ don’t map onto distinctions one wants to make. Of course not. But those terms are inadequate to those distinctions.)
If I get time eventually, this reading could be furthered by looking at Marx’s reading of Buret (it could also be furthered by looking at the German “state debate” from the 70s, another one on the list - miles to go before I sleep). Marx quotes, “Industry has become a war, and commerce a gamble.” He then adds “Up to the present, industry has been in a state of war, a war of conquest” and quotes again:
“It has squandered the lives of the men who made up its army with the same indifference as the great conquerors. Its aim was the possession of wealth, not the happiness of men.”
“These interests” (that is, economic interests), “freely left to themselves … must necessarily come into conflict; they have no other arbiter but war, and the decisions of war assign defeat and death to some, in order to give victory to the others…. It is in the conflict of opposed forces that science seeks order and equilibrium: perpetual war, according to it, is the sole means of obtaining peace; that war is called competition.”
“The industrial war, to be conducted with success, demands large armies which it can amass on one spot and profusely decimate. (These are all from pages 33-34.)
Along the same lines, Marx’s quote from Pecqueur, “human law has given owners the right to use and abuse - that is to say, the right to do what they will with the materials of labor” (47) and from Schulz:
“In England, where a single factory owner sometimes employs ten to twelve thousand workers … it is already not uncommon to find such combinations of various branches of production controlled by one brain, such smaller states or provinces within the state. Thus, the mine owners in the Birmingham area have recently taken over the whole process of iron production, which was previously distributed among various entrepreneurs and owners. Finally in the large joint-stock enterprises which have become so numerous, we see far-reaching combinations of the financial resources of many participants with the scientific and technical knowledge and skills of others to whom the carrying-out of the work is handed over.”(51.)
I find the “smaller states” reference intriguing. It seems to suggest the firms and factories are states or state-like entities (of course requiring and articulated with other and larger ones - for example the “joint-stock enterprise”, ie, the corporation, is itself a legal entity).
Final word(s)
- The translation relationship between “Political Economy” and “Nationalökonomie” gets at an important issue for (re)reading Marx, which is the relation of the “Political” with the “National.” It seems to me that one must either prevent the reduction of the first to the second, or oppose both. I’m not fussed which, as I think it’s a similar outcome regardless of what one names it.)
- Also, just to be clear, I should say “national or the national-like,” a la a certain version of the relationship between class-in-itself and class-for-itself, and/or the relationship between technical and political class composition. I’ve tried to make sense of this before, or at least tried to start, primarily via reading Schmitt. I took a paragraph or so from that older post and used it in this new one. I’m currently in the process of revising and writing a better thing about all that, re: Schmitt’s Concept of the Political and Political Theology. I’m also looking forward to the upcoming Schmitt symposium on Schmitt’s Theory of the Partisan.
- All page #s from Schmitt are from the Concept of the Political, translated by George Schwab, pub by U of Chicago Press 1996. All page #s from Marx are from the 1988 edition of the Martin Milligan translation published by Prometheus Press. The German and Spanish versions of the text used here come from the handy marxists.org site, particularly the list there of Marx stuff available electronically in multiple languages, including English.
(Note to self - still have to take notes on the Fragment, then go back and take notes again on the Manuscripts, to compare and contrast the two. That was the initial impetus behind putting the Manuscripts in my backpack on my trip, all of this Nationalökonomie stuff was an unexpected detour.)