Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: "All that was once directly lived has become mere representation."[1] Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing."[2] This condition, according to Debord, is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life."[3]Debord describes correctly, but concludes wrongly; he thinks this is bad thing! Paddy Cheyevsky's film "Network" has a much more optimistic and hopeful conclusion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI5hrcwU7Dk
You'd be amazed at how many people think "Network" is satire. Fools!
The problem with Marxian critiques is that most people don't understand the basic concepts, and by "most people" I mean especially academics and Marxists (separate because there are really precious few academic Marxists despite what pseudo-paranoids the right say). Ask these authorities what "commodity fetishism" means and you'll either get a stream of nonsense or the confident claim that it's the same as Veblen's conspicuous consumption or both. When you don't get "commodity fetishism" right—it might better be called the fallacy of immanent value—you don't understand what is mean by a commodity in the first place, and then you don't really understand capitalism and why capitalism is historically distinctive.
ReplyDeleteI'll turn this on its head. Warren Mosler, a successful hedge fund trader and one of the founders of MMT, the modern monetary theory movement in economics, and no way, no how a Marxist at all has said that unemployment is a monetary phenomenon. Where you don't have a monetary economy—and we didn't have those until pretty recently in human history, money doesn't really dominate until well after the Middle Ages, maybe not until the 19th century—people are either (a) engaged in productive activities, be they directly or indirectly productive for that person or (b) supported materially by others. If "unemployment" doesn't exist, then neither does "employment."
Now back to Marx: the real core of the critique in Capital is that labor is treated as a commodity, i.e., your "employment" activity is "worth" something. Forget the labor theory of value, this is basic and doesn't depend on that.
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DeletePut it differently:
DeleteSay somebody hits you, and you say, "OW! Why did you do that?"
They say, "Do what?"
You: "You hit me. You hurt me!"
They: "OK, that's right, I hit you, but I didn't really *hurt* you. That's inaccurate. The pain you feel—which I don't doubt is real, and believe me, you have my sympathy—that's a NATURAL phenomenon, that's due to the force of my fist landing on your body, it's got nothing to do with Me! Why, I have only your best interests at heart. Here, poor you, let me get you a bandage."
You: "A bandage? What for? I'm not cut."
They: (Cut you)
You: "OW! Why did you do that?"
They: "Do what?"
You: "You cut me. That hurt!"
(etc.)
Oops, left out this link to a talk by Mosler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfJAdxnGNL8
ReplyDeleteHe mentions somewhere there that unemployment is a monetary phenomenon.
DeleteI've mostly been answering these posts "in character," but you do realize that claiming "Network" isn't satire is itself satire, right?
ReplyDelete(Although I'm not 100% sure on that question either, TBH)
I got that. :) But too many people think that a critique of capitalism = "We can never have nice things." Not saying you do, because you don't, but I can never pass up a chance to attack that notion. ;)
DeleteThanks for the affirmation.
ReplyDeleteAlso, yeah.