Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:00 pm

Kid of the Black Hole
01-14-2010, 12:30 PM

but speaks to the exact same thing I think

<div class=excerpt>But where, in a given society, the fundamental form of production is that spontaneous division of labor which creeps in gradually and not upon any preconceived plan, there the products take on the form of commodities, whose mutual exchange, buying and selling, enable the individual producers to satisfy their manifold wants. And this was the case in the Middle Ages. The peasant, e.g., sold to the artisan agricultural products and bought from him the products of handicraft. Into this society of individual producers, of commodity producers, the new mode of production thrust itself. In the midst of the old division of labor, grown up spontaneously and upon no definite plan, which had governed the whole of society, now arose division of labor upon a definite plan, as organized in the factory; side by side with individual production appeared social production. The products of both were sold in the same market, and, therefore, at prices at least approximately equal. But organization upon a definite plan was stronger than spontaneous division of labor. The factories working with the combined social forces of a collectivity of individuals produced their commodities far more cheaply than the individual small producers. Individual producers succumbed in one department after another. Socialized production revolutionized all the old methods of production. But its revolutionary character was, at the same time, so little recognized that it was, on the contrary, introduced as a means of increasing and developing the production of commodities. When it arose, it found ready-made, and made liberal use of, certain machinery for the production and exchange of commodities: merchants' capital, handicraft, wage-labor. Socialized production thus introducing itself as a new form of the production of commodities, it was a matter of course that under it the old forms of appropriation remained in full swing, and were applied to its products as well.

In the medieval stage of evolution of the production of commodities, the question as to the owner of the product of labor could not arise. The individual producer, as a rule, had, from raw material belonging to himself, and generally his own handiwork, produced it with his own tools, by the labor of his own hands or of his family. There was no need for him to appropriate the new product. It belonged wholly to him, as a matter of course. His property in the product was, therefore, based upon his own labor. Even where external help was used, this was, as a rule, of little importance, and very generally was compensated by something other than wages. The apprentices and journeymen of the guilds worked less for board and wages than for education, in order that they might become master craftsmen themselves.

Then came the concentration of the means of production and of the producers in large workshops and manufactories, their transformation into actual socialized means of production and socialized producers. But the socialized producers and means of production and their products were still treated, after this change, just as they had been before — i.e., as the means of production and the products of individuals. Hitherto, the owner of the instruments of labor had himself appropriated the product, because, as a rule, it was his own product and the assistance of others was the exception. Now, the owner of the instruments of labor always appropriated to himself the product, although it was no longer his product but exclusively the product of the labor of others. Thus, the products now produced socially were not appropriated by those who had actually set in motion the means of production and actually produced the commodities, but by the capitalists. The means of production, and production itself, had become in essence socialized. But they were subjected to a form of appropriation which presupposes the private production of individuals, under which, therefore, every one owns his own product and brings it to market. The mode of production is subjected to this form of appropriation, although it abolishes the conditions upon which the latter rests. [2]</div>

I just chose an excerpt but the rest is definitely a must-read as well.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... p/ch03.htm

The distinction I am cutting is what I bolded. Commodity production was NOT the prevailing mode of production during the medieval era.
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:01 pm

Dhalgren
01-14-2010, 12:34 PM

I was off track, for sure.
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:01 pm

Kid of the Black Hole
01-14-2010, 01:00 PM

I am not trying to "weigh in" as an expert at all, I am just trying to discuss things without getting it all cluttered in my head.

I was mainly posting the Engels piece because 1. I really like Socialism: Scientific or Utopian because it is so direct and straightforward and 2. I wanted to make sure what we were talking about was as transparent for other readers as possible

I don't think its helpful to break society into a bunch of individual "Is" who are all producers. In fact, I think Marxs leads off in the preface of Capital (to one of the German editions) by saying you CAN'T do that because you immediately find you have a hollow abstraction and have to delve into the next level.

That next level being that some people are different from others in that they do not work but instead live off the work of others (ie class). And then you have to keep digging from there because "class" is an abstraction outside of being placed into specific historical contexts. And from that "reduction" you can then start to reconstitute the empirical reality you started with -- with all of its peculiarities and in all of its specific glory -- but in a much more coherent framework, a much more structured way.

This methodological approach is almost straight Hegel by the way.
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:02 pm

Dhalgren
01-14-2010, 01:56 PM

has almost no meaning if individuals are not, at the very least, implied. To say that fetishism is the warping of human relationships to the point where they are dealt with as though the relationships were between inanimate objects (commodities) and not human beings (producers) - and then say you cannot discuss this in the context of individual human beings makes no sense to me. It is precisely the impact upon the individual class member that this is to be understood, isn't it? One of the problems, I think, is that these issues and this subject is real world, everyday, meat and potatoes stuff. It is not that "society" be "broken" into "a bunch of individuals". It is that society IS made up of a bunch of individuals.

We are trying to "get" how this thing works and I understand that; and I am very willing to suspend all of these considerations if that will be helpful for me in grasping this better (or at all). But disregarding the individual class member seems to me to be an odd way of going about it. But I will listen...

(Oh, and I love Engels, too.)
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:03 pm

Kid of the Black Hole
01-14-2010, 02:10 PM

but at the same time, each individual acts against a backdrop that is established by 100s, 1000s, 1000000s of other individuals.

For instance, commodity production of any type including "simple" is only possible with a fairly well-developed set of relations (for starters, otherwise everyone would be too busy hunting/growing their own food to produce commodities)
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:03 pm

curt_b
01-14-2010, 02:16 PM

But human beings (producers) is just part of the story. There are human beings (expropriators) that enter into those social relationships. They also are necessary for the dance of commodities.

The whole thing is kept in the air by class structure, which can't be considered as an "I", but can be considered as a bunch of us and a few of them. It's not a disregard of individuals, but a recognition that it's all about us v. them. The impact on each of us may be existentially unique, but it can only be understood, as an effect that commodity fetishism has on us as a class.
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:04 pm

Kid of the Black Hole
01-14-2010, 04:39 PM

That was the point I was trying to make
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:04 pm

chlamor
01-14-2010, 07:45 PM

Crystal clear.
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:04 pm

Kid of the Black Hole
01-14-2010, 08:01 PM
those who are always so quick to invoke "The People" as some sort of idyllic unification/culmination of humanity, understand exactly what Curt wrote and are plying on it heavily.

"The People"? What the hell is that?
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #4) Fetishism...

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:05 pm

Dhalgren
01-15-2010, 06:41 AM
Anax said that everything that existed after the advent of capitalism exist before its advent. And he asked where did the fetishism come from. That is what I was trying to work through - to answer Anax's question.
OK, it did not come from a change in the "reason" for production. So you are saying that it came from class antagonism? Or from a new arrangement of classes? Or from the growth of one class and the shrinking of the other? Or the creation of a new class, altogether?
Help me out here.
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