I am doing a course on Marx's Capital vol, 1 right now and it is very expanding, the text is much more profound than I had imagined only ever having read references to him or short excerpts ( and David McNally is an excellent teacher for anyone interested). Marx had some very key understandings as to the nature of capitalism. I am struck by his key concept of alienation: the fact of our lack of control or connection to the products of our labor, that what we do and the value of our work is controlled by the market, not by individuals in community, seems to affect all our relationships like a virus. Every time we have the possibility to face each other, face our mutual needs in survival, the market intervenes by abstracting and alienating our labor from ourselves and each other. Thus instead of participating with each other, we expect modern agencies, governments, banks, granting institutions, social workers, to deal with what happens in our community, we always have to find money, time, resources, outside... we go to the market before we turn to each other, how can we have any agency this way?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wonderful! You bring fresh insight to the heart of a very old problem. With the Friedman version of monetarism we are forbidden to intervene in the operation of the market, which is itself an intervention into the social/personal relationship(s) which alone can give real meaning to the process of exchange. Separated from the work of our own hands through technical and systemic abstraction, we have no means with which to give ourselves to others. Everything is transformed into money, which has no meaning outside of the market system. Each exchange just digs a little deeper into this hole in the soul.
ReplyDelete