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(dramatic music)

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- You only have to buy one book,

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and I'm very happy to hold it in my hands

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because it took me six years of work

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with a colleague who did
an amazing translation,

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which I checked meticulously
against the German

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and argued with him on
and off for six years.

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It's a good translation
in a number of ways

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that the other translations weren't.

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There are only really two
viable translations before this.

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I'm not gonna spend much
time talking about that,

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but this opens up the whole panoply

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of Marx's voices and styles,

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including his humor,

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his cutthroat insult capacity,

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his polemics, his storytelling,

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his myth making, and other things.

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You only have to read one book,

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but you need to read it
slowly and repeatedly,

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as maybe you noticed for today.

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It's funny to start a book
with the hardest part,

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that's something we don't usually do.

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Marx did that and then almost
instantly regretted it.

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He wrote to some friends after,

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"Maybe people should
start with Chapter 5."

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Chapter 1 is a doozy.

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It's long and it's full of
problems that Marx hadn't,

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he had worked out and
maybe just worked out

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and he hadn't found the
best mode of presentation.

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Although if you've read the "Grundrisse,"

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which he wrote in the '50s, the late '50s,

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you'll notice that this
is much better laid out

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than the "Grundrisse."

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I recommend that you read
this with other people.

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What better way to contribute

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different understandings
together and build one?

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What better way to produce solidarity?

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A lot of solidarity has
been produced over 150 years

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of reading this book.

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My colleague Michael Denning,

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has a great article which I'll post

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about workers getting together in groups

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and reading this book.

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Okay, I'm gonna say a little bit about

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what kind of course this is.

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This is a text course.

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If you're not into texts,

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I don't mean SMSs,

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this is not the course for you,

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but I imagine you're all text people

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and probably also commentary people

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given that the internet

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is just a big maybe
wasteland of commentary.

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But the practice of commentary
has really come back,

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and we are going to comment this text.

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We won't go through it line by line,

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but I will look at passages in class,

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and so you should bring
your book with you.

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If you have back problems,

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ask someone to carry it for you.

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And we will be actually opening
the book and looking down,

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so you will start to have

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repetitive worker injuries to your neck

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because you'll be going like that.

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You'll have the hunched over thing, right?

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And your arms and shoulders
will start to hurt

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because of carrying this.

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But what a good way to move through

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the pains of work
towards something better.

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I wanna start with some preliminaries

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and divide the book and our work

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into two sides, two elements.

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One is the capital system.

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This is what we'll call it.

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Capitalism, as you may
know, is a common word.

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It's something people talk about

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sometimes with a little bit
of rue and regret and anger,

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sometimes with joy and
hope and determination,

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often with some dogmatic attachments.

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But this is really a system

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and it isn't a belief,

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let's put it that way.

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It's a system that was
not given to us by Marx,

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but given to us by History,
maybe with a capital H.

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And the roots to it are complicated,

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the roots to this system

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that History has thrown up for us

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and in which we live.

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One route,

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I still think the best route,

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to get to the capitalist system

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is through what I call
the capital venture,

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which is like an entrepreneurial
exercise on Marx's part

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to understand it.

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These two go together,

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the capital system gets constructed

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in Marx's capital venture.

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It has to get constructed somewhere.

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Where does capitalism live as a whole?

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It lives here

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because you'll never see
any more than a part of it

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and you won't see it as what it is.

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So Marx made it his task

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to make it accessible to you in a book,

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and this is only Volume 1, as you know.

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Next semester, Volume 2 and then Volume 3

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and then we start
writing Volume 4 together

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in the second year.

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These three volumes out
of a planned four volumes

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are the place, the only
place you can find the system

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altogether analyzed and laid out for you

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in its functions and
parts and ways of being,

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how it affects the
people who live under it.

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The capital venture, as
opposed to the capital system,

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was given to us by Marx

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through a lot of reflection in sources

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that he took up in political economy,

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chiefly English political economy,

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in German philosophy,

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in journalism,

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in these amazing texts called
the Factory Inspector Reports,

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which he relied on,

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through the editing work

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of his daughters and his wife Jenny,

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through reflecting it back

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in the mind of and in the letters

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of his friend Friedrich Engels.

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You know, you could be named
one or two things in Germany,

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Friedrich, Karl,

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there were some Heinrichs,

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get used talking about
people by their last name.

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He among all the people that he befriended

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and then cursed out one way or the other,

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Engels was the only one
that he never divorced.

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And he passed a lot of
his ideas through Engels.

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It was a very important
philosophical friendship.

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The capital system as
a fully fledged system

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is only a few centuries old.

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You can date it from
somewhere in the 18th century,

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that all its parts are together,

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they're all working,

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and it starts to be a
machine or an organism.

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We're gonna go back and forth
between the two figures,

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a machine or an organism,

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that begins to devour its outside,

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take the outside into it ceaselessly.

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Okay, so the first basic insight

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that Marx had about the capital system

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was that it was too big and too complex

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and also to cunning
for anybody to observe.

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There was no standpoint

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from which you could
observe the capital system.

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You feel some of its effects
on your body when you work,

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when you learn how to sit still
in kindergarten, et cetera,

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you feel some of its effects
in your bank account.

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You would feel an effect if
you get evicted from your home

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in a financial crisis.

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In many ways you feel the effects,

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but you can't tell why most of the time.

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The why involves the connections
that make up the whole.

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And the problem with the
whole is that it's enormous,

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has many complex parts.

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Is that its complexity is higher

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than any of the political
economists gave it credit for.

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That's why Marx had to
turn to some other logics,

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including Hegelian logic.

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And there's a third reason
why you can't observe capital,

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the capital system,

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and that is that it likes to hide.

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It really likes to hide.

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In fact, hiding is one of the ways

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that it carries out its operations.

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Its operations depend on
a certain concealment.

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It is a phenomenal logical operation too.

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Its phenomenological operations

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are essential to its economic
and social operations.

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You look at it and you see something

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that isn't the way it actually operates,

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except the way it doesn't operate

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that you're seeing is the way it operates.

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You can see where the
complexity is coming in here.

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Does that make sense?

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Marx calls these necessary
appearances or real appearances,

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and that has a couple
of consequences for us

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when we're studying capital,

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it does not make sense to call
yourself an anti-capitalist.

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You can't be anti something
you can't even encounter.

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You can't be anti something

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that even if you can encounter it

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by reading all these books,

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if you take away its appearances,

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it still operates.

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It operates anyway.

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That it's just by knowing
about it doesn't stop it.

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Just by knowing the truth
about it doesn't stop it.

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In that sense,

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it's not like Marx at
a certain early point

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fantasized about religion

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that if you showed it to be illusioned

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that people would be like,
"Well, okay, I don't need that."

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Which is not true.

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It's not true that religion's
all illusion either.

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Taking away appearances
does not hurt it mortally.

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We will talk about the capital system

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as a historical subject,

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not an object.

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It is something like a king or a god

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that does things,

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it does things to us.

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It's a funny, personified,
impersonal set of processes

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that catches up what we consider persons,

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people, humans, psyches, souls in its web

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and produces actions
through its agency in us,

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a very peculiar kind of subject,

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a historical subject.

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Marx will personify capital a lot,

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and personification is a
tool he uses for critique.

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One of the benefits of this translation,

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I can say them because I
wasn't actually the translator.

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One of the benefits of this translation

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is that the personifications
are made very clear.

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When Marx speaks in the
voice of a commodity,

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when capitalism speaks,

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you can see exactly the maneuver,

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the Marxian maneuver.

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This is the system that's in
charge and makes the decisions

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so he treats it like
the only person around,

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the only person left, capital.

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But we shouldn't capitulate to this

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and start asking it out on dates

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or feeding it dinner.

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We should be suspicious

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also because even though
Marx personifies it

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as a critical gesture,

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it is an impersonal
machine, it doesn't care,

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so it's missing some personal gestures,

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it does not care.

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It doesn't care about anything, in fact.

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It has a very high degree
of impersonal necessity,

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the system, it keeps going,

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it wants to keep going,

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but it doesn't really have affect.

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So Marx's capital venture

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is the adventure of finding the system

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and putting it on display in all its parts

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and its interactions,

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showing where the necessities
are and how they're made

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and where the contingencies are.

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Obviously, his aim is
ultimately revolutionary,

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but as you may know,

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if you've read "The Communist Manifesto"

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and you've now read the
first chapter of this,

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it's a very different tone.

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He is not calling for
people to gather together

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and overthrow anything.

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First of all, you can't see
what there is to overthrow.

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He hasn't described it yet,

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so maybe after these books are done,

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someone could come along,

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and people have come along, as you know,

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to say, "Okay, now that we see this,

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here's how we overthrow it."

263
00:11:57,779 --> 00:12:00,209
But Marx came to a point late in his life

264
00:12:00,210 --> 00:12:03,930
in which after many
revolutionary disappointments,

265
00:12:03,929 --> 00:12:08,039
many, that he wasn't gonna
work on that anymore.

266
00:12:08,039 --> 00:12:10,860
What he was gonna do
is describe the system

267
00:12:10,860 --> 00:12:13,649
in a sense to show why the revolutions

268
00:12:13,649 --> 00:12:15,033
had not been successful.

269
00:12:15,899 --> 00:12:17,459
So in that regard,

270
00:12:17,460 --> 00:12:22,460
you have to put your activist
hope a little bit to the side

271
00:12:22,470 --> 00:12:26,279
and accept this as the
most pessimistic book

272
00:12:26,279 --> 00:12:27,182
you'll ever read.

273
00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:29,820
I'm sorry to say that,

274
00:12:29,820 --> 00:12:34,200
but I like to think that
pessimism leads to realism,

275
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:36,423
and realism can lead to real change.

276
00:12:37,500 --> 00:12:39,003
Marx certainly thought so.

277
00:12:42,509 --> 00:12:44,309
He also spends a lot of time

278
00:12:44,309 --> 00:12:46,859
putting on display the
way capitalism hides

279
00:12:46,860 --> 00:12:48,930
because that's just one of its functions.

280
00:12:48,929 --> 00:12:50,339
Does that make sense?

281
00:12:50,340 --> 00:12:54,023
You can't respond by
debunking and exposing,

282
00:12:54,023 --> 00:12:56,883
that's not a revolutionary activity.

283
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:00,600
But it is part of the analysis

284
00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:03,210
to see how the parts that hide

285
00:13:03,210 --> 00:13:04,560
and the parts that show

286
00:13:04,559 --> 00:13:05,699
are related to one another,

287
00:13:05,700 --> 00:13:08,310
and how it motivates certain
actors in capitalism,

288
00:13:08,309 --> 00:13:10,769
like labor, like owners,

289
00:13:10,769 --> 00:13:14,523
like the apologists for capital,

290
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:18,302
what he calls sometimes vulgar economists.

291
00:13:19,980 --> 00:13:23,940
The best way to do this is unfortunately

292
00:13:23,940 --> 00:13:25,500
I just realized that the subtitle

293
00:13:25,500 --> 00:13:27,000
didn't make it onto the cover,

294
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:28,950
but in fact the original title for this

295
00:13:28,950 --> 00:13:30,750
was "Critique of Political Economy,"

296
00:13:30,750 --> 00:13:32,466
and then later he decided,

297
00:13:32,466 --> 00:13:34,620
"Well, this is about capital too."

298
00:13:34,620 --> 00:13:37,289
But you can see both activities

299
00:13:37,289 --> 00:13:39,719
that he wants to take care of there.

300
00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:41,970
He wants to deal with the way

301
00:13:41,970 --> 00:13:44,220
it's been thought of in the past

302
00:13:44,220 --> 00:13:48,480
and show you how capital works.

303
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:51,240
He thought the best way
to do it was to critique

304
00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:53,913
the accounts of capital
that had come before.

305
00:13:56,429 --> 00:13:59,250
I'm gonna say this is just preliminary

306
00:13:59,250 --> 00:14:04,250
is leading us towards looking
into the first chapter, okay?

307
00:14:04,259 --> 00:14:06,159
How many of you managed to get a book?

308
00:14:07,740 --> 00:14:08,572
Yeah, it's so funny,

309
00:14:08,572 --> 00:14:09,689
this like capitalist model,

310
00:14:09,690 --> 00:14:12,490
they said, "Oh, we only
order half of the books

311
00:14:13,350 --> 00:14:14,550
because we don't know who's gonna stay."

312
00:14:14,549 --> 00:14:15,809
I said, "It's a Capital course.

313
00:14:15,809 --> 00:14:17,369
You know, they're off,
they have to be committed,

314
00:14:17,370 --> 00:14:19,289
they would never do it otherwise."

315
00:14:19,289 --> 00:14:20,669
So they claim that they're getting

316
00:14:20,669 --> 00:14:22,469
the rest of the books for next week.

317
00:14:26,460 --> 00:14:28,350
Marx couldn't write this book

318
00:14:28,350 --> 00:14:31,019
because he was some sort of
special kind of individual,

319
00:14:31,019 --> 00:14:34,862
although he was unique,

320
00:14:35,970 --> 00:14:37,290
a kind of unique freak.

321
00:14:37,289 --> 00:14:38,789
In fact, this book is the product

322
00:14:38,789 --> 00:14:41,012
of about 30 years of work,

323
00:14:41,850 --> 00:14:45,810
40 if you count the very
beginning to the very end

324
00:14:45,809 --> 00:14:46,802
of his work.

325
00:14:48,330 --> 00:14:50,940
It takes an enormous
amount of sitzfleisch,

326
00:14:50,940 --> 00:14:52,143
as they say in German,

327
00:14:53,009 --> 00:14:55,870
butt flesh, that is the
ability to sit in a chair

328
00:14:57,659 --> 00:14:58,492
to do that.

329
00:15:00,389 --> 00:15:01,649
It's not that he could write this book

330
00:15:01,649 --> 00:15:04,079
because he was a special person,

331
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,480
he understood the world
better than anyone else.

332
00:15:07,350 --> 00:15:09,330
And it wasn't because the capital system

333
00:15:09,330 --> 00:15:11,283
was brand new when he started to write.

334
00:15:12,210 --> 00:15:13,043
It wasn't,

335
00:15:13,043 --> 00:15:15,990
it was already 100 years old, let's say,

336
00:15:15,990 --> 00:15:17,432
as a full-fledged system.

337
00:15:19,259 --> 00:15:20,580
And on top of that, you can't really see

338
00:15:20,580 --> 00:15:22,650
what's brand new when it's brand new.

339
00:15:22,649 --> 00:15:25,350
Wait 50 years to see
what all of this garbage

340
00:15:25,350 --> 00:15:27,990
about AI is worth.

341
00:15:27,990 --> 00:15:29,340
Maybe AI will be something big,

342
00:15:29,340 --> 00:15:31,180
maybe one of these pieces of writing

343
00:15:32,279 --> 00:15:33,480
will be the key to it,

344
00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:35,399
but we won't really know for 50 years.

345
00:15:35,399 --> 00:15:40,399
And so Marx came at a perfect
time about 100 years later

346
00:15:40,559 --> 00:15:42,299
after the thing had happened

347
00:15:42,299 --> 00:15:44,732
and its first theorists had theorized it.

348
00:15:46,019 --> 00:15:48,419
So it wasn't because he
had an inspired vision,

349
00:15:48,419 --> 00:15:51,029
he was situated at a juncture.

350
00:15:51,029 --> 00:15:53,309
That juncture was when the capital system

351
00:15:53,309 --> 00:15:56,399
had consolidated itself
in the 18th century,

352
00:15:56,399 --> 00:15:58,529
had ramped up in the early 19th century

353
00:15:58,529 --> 00:16:00,062
into industrial fury,

354
00:16:01,769 --> 00:16:04,860
and the first theorists had started.

355
00:16:04,860 --> 00:16:08,850
Interestingly, capitalism was theorized

356
00:16:08,850 --> 00:16:12,540
for the first time between 1776 and 1817

357
00:16:12,539 --> 00:16:16,199
between Adam Smith's "An
Inquiry into the Nature

358
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:17,970
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,"

359
00:16:17,970 --> 00:16:19,500
known as "The Wealth of Nations,"

360
00:16:19,500 --> 00:16:21,299
and David Ricardo's "On the Principles

361
00:16:21,299 --> 00:16:24,629
of Political Economy
and Taxation" in 1817,

362
00:16:24,629 --> 00:16:26,490
which is strangely coeval

363
00:16:26,490 --> 00:16:29,519
with the American Revolution, 1776,

364
00:16:29,519 --> 00:16:33,360
and the opening of the New
York Stock Exchange, 1817,

365
00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:35,759
whatever you want to say
about the birth of capital

366
00:16:35,759 --> 00:16:39,389
and the US American way of life.

367
00:16:39,389 --> 00:16:41,340
It is true that those were the poles

368
00:16:41,340 --> 00:16:44,280
of the first theorization of capital

369
00:16:44,279 --> 00:16:45,632
between Smith and Ricardo,

370
00:16:46,559 --> 00:16:47,609
which Marx knew well

371
00:16:47,610 --> 00:16:50,190
and both had spawned schools

372
00:16:50,190 --> 00:16:54,150
of political economic study.

373
00:16:54,149 --> 00:16:57,120
What's the good of the
first theorists of anything?

374
00:16:57,120 --> 00:16:59,340
Well, they name the topic,

375
00:16:59,340 --> 00:17:00,600
they say it's a thing,

376
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:03,090
and they give you a first approximation

377
00:17:03,090 --> 00:17:06,509
of what it might look like to study it.

378
00:17:06,509 --> 00:17:07,890
They invented this course,

379
00:17:07,890 --> 00:17:10,170
and Marx more than anything,

380
00:17:10,170 --> 00:17:11,009
not more than anything,

381
00:17:11,009 --> 00:17:13,259
but in addition to writing in German

382
00:17:13,259 --> 00:17:15,059
is writing in English.

383
00:17:15,059 --> 00:17:16,230
Even though in German,

384
00:17:16,230 --> 00:17:18,720
he's using the terms and the phrases

385
00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:21,839
and the grammar of English
political economy in this book.

386
00:17:21,839 --> 00:17:24,149
He does use a lot of terms in English

387
00:17:24,150 --> 00:17:26,300
and leaves them in
English in the original.

388
00:17:28,380 --> 00:17:30,420
What he liked about the
political economists

389
00:17:30,420 --> 00:17:33,580
was the unhealthy mixture
of rightness and wrongness

390
00:17:34,619 --> 00:17:35,869
in what they wrote about.

391
00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:40,380
Because when faced with
a giant impersonal system

392
00:17:40,380 --> 00:17:41,580
that's difficult to see,

393
00:17:41,579 --> 00:17:43,409
that was taking over the world,

394
00:17:43,410 --> 00:17:46,170
making labor look totally different,

395
00:17:46,170 --> 00:17:47,850
making wealth look totally different,

396
00:17:47,849 --> 00:17:49,799
making all your decision
making look different,

397
00:17:49,799 --> 00:17:52,649
making agricultural work look different,

398
00:17:52,650 --> 00:17:55,350
there was nowhere to exactly look for it

399
00:17:55,349 --> 00:17:57,212
except in the books,

400
00:17:58,349 --> 00:18:01,139
in the people who had
started to theorize it.

401
00:18:01,140 --> 00:18:03,210
So what he meant by critique,

402
00:18:03,210 --> 00:18:05,400
this is the first meaning
of critique for Marx,

403
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:08,940
was finding the blind spots, the stubs,

404
00:18:08,940 --> 00:18:10,680
the unworked out ideas,

405
00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:14,793
the lacking logic in the
political economists.

406
00:18:17,069 --> 00:18:19,789
That's why you have "Critique
of Political Economy"

407
00:18:19,789 --> 00:18:22,470
as really an important part of the title.

408
00:18:22,470 --> 00:18:24,480
They overstated things,
they made mistakes,

409
00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:26,069
but they saw a lot.

410
00:18:26,069 --> 00:18:30,240
For example, they saw
how important labor was

411
00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:31,532
to the capital system.

412
00:18:33,329 --> 00:18:36,059
He then compared those blind spots

413
00:18:36,059 --> 00:18:38,429
to the best evidence of his day,

414
00:18:38,430 --> 00:18:40,019
which in some ways is a lot better

415
00:18:40,019 --> 00:18:42,569
than the evidence we have today.

416
00:18:42,569 --> 00:18:46,230
There aren't that many anthropologies,

417
00:18:46,230 --> 00:18:48,539
ethnographic studies of work anymore.

418
00:18:48,539 --> 00:18:50,389
There were a lot in the 20th century.

419
00:18:53,549 --> 00:18:56,430
He compared the political economists

420
00:18:56,430 --> 00:18:58,500
to newspapers, to novels,

421
00:18:58,500 --> 00:19:01,440
which you'll see he
quotes and reminds us of,

422
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:03,779
to ethnographies of factories,

423
00:19:03,779 --> 00:19:06,210
especially the one by his
friend Friedrich Engels,

424
00:19:06,210 --> 00:19:08,819
who wrote "The Condition of
the Working Class in England"

425
00:19:08,819 --> 00:19:11,133
in 1844, and opened Marx's eyes.

426
00:19:12,809 --> 00:19:13,950
It's a great book.

427
00:19:13,950 --> 00:19:15,870
Engels, as you probably know,

428
00:19:15,869 --> 00:19:18,209
was the son of a factory owner

429
00:19:18,210 --> 00:19:21,059
who owned factories in
Germany and in England,

430
00:19:21,059 --> 00:19:26,059
and he sent the 18 or 19-year-old
Engels out to Manchester

431
00:19:26,369 --> 00:19:27,449
to work in the factory.

432
00:19:27,450 --> 00:19:29,403
And Engels was like, "Whoa,

433
00:19:30,539 --> 00:19:32,486
this is awful, dad."

434
00:19:34,319 --> 00:19:35,399
Not the only time

435
00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:40,140
that being against your
parents changed world history,

436
00:19:40,140 --> 00:19:41,432
there was Oedipus,

437
00:19:42,569 --> 00:19:44,269
but this was a very important one.

438
00:19:47,549 --> 00:19:50,069
In this book, you will notice

439
00:19:50,069 --> 00:19:52,409
that there is one set of heroes.

440
00:19:52,410 --> 00:19:55,290
It isn't Marx, it isn't even the workers,

441
00:19:55,289 --> 00:19:57,210
it is the factory inspectors.

442
00:19:57,210 --> 00:20:00,273
They are the David Copperfields
of this gothic novel.

443
00:20:01,710 --> 00:20:03,870
They went out to the factories in England

444
00:20:03,869 --> 00:20:05,459
and they wrote the most scathing reports.

445
00:20:05,460 --> 00:20:07,650
The irony of this, just so you know,

446
00:20:07,650 --> 00:20:08,910
was that the factory inspectors

447
00:20:08,910 --> 00:20:11,009
were empowered by the House of Lords,

448
00:20:11,009 --> 00:20:12,539
which was the old aristocracy

449
00:20:12,539 --> 00:20:14,159
who wanted to get the wealth back

450
00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:16,140
from the rotten capitalists.

451
00:20:16,140 --> 00:20:20,880
So if they exposed their dastardly
treatment of the workers,

452
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:22,470
they thought they could climb back up

453
00:20:22,470 --> 00:20:25,170
to social hegemony,

454
00:20:25,170 --> 00:20:27,120
obviously didn't work,

455
00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:31,409
but the factory inspectors
provide the most scathing,

456
00:20:31,410 --> 00:20:34,920
searing, clear sighted review

457
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,680
of child labor, for example,

458
00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:40,320
of long hours, of disease,

459
00:20:40,319 --> 00:20:43,829
of injury, of hopelessness,

460
00:20:43,829 --> 00:20:47,069
of the immiseration of the workers,

461
00:20:47,069 --> 00:20:48,179
no matter how much they worked,

462
00:20:48,180 --> 00:20:49,920
they couldn't feed themselves,

463
00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:51,810
of malnutrition.

464
00:20:51,809 --> 00:20:54,000
The factory inspectors are the heroes

465
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:57,240
and they served the purpose

466
00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:00,543
of socialism unknowingly.

467
00:21:02,130 --> 00:21:06,120
Okay, so between the descriptive accounts

468
00:21:06,119 --> 00:21:08,279
and the theoretical accounts,

469
00:21:08,279 --> 00:21:11,490
with the help of a bigger
philosophical framework,

470
00:21:11,490 --> 00:21:13,349
a different logic and
a different ontology,

471
00:21:13,349 --> 00:21:14,669
which we'll talk about today,

472
00:21:14,670 --> 00:21:16,529
Marx could describe the capital system

473
00:21:16,529 --> 00:21:19,379
in a way that it still operates today.

474
00:21:19,380 --> 00:21:20,730
I will maintain this.

475
00:21:20,730 --> 00:21:23,250
You will look around and see
if that's true for yourselves.

476
00:21:23,250 --> 00:21:25,769
In essence, it still
operates in the same way

477
00:21:25,769 --> 00:21:27,873
as is described starting in Chapter 1.

478
00:21:29,460 --> 00:21:30,960
What does a capital system do?

479
00:21:32,430 --> 00:21:35,670
We wanna talk about it in a
way that isn't just logical,

480
00:21:35,670 --> 00:21:38,250
that isn't just about its contradictions

481
00:21:38,250 --> 00:21:40,289
in the sense that it doesn't make sense.

482
00:21:40,289 --> 00:21:43,376
Oftentimes you think, "This
just doesn't make sense."

483
00:21:45,210 --> 00:21:46,590
It's not a matter of making sense,

484
00:21:46,589 --> 00:21:51,449
but the toxic effect it has
on people who live under it.

485
00:21:51,450 --> 00:21:52,980
Capitalism is a strange,

486
00:21:52,980 --> 00:21:55,170
the capital system is a strange mix

487
00:21:55,170 --> 00:21:57,870
of a toxin and a remedy.

488
00:21:57,869 --> 00:22:00,509
Sometimes it poisons you

489
00:22:00,509 --> 00:22:02,339
and then offers you the cure,

490
00:22:02,339 --> 00:22:04,112
which poisons you even worse,

491
00:22:05,190 --> 00:22:06,023
as we know.

492
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:09,840
It feeds and clothes most of the planet,

493
00:22:09,839 --> 00:22:11,589
we have to concede this right away.

494
00:22:12,809 --> 00:22:14,609
There isn't a way you
could snap your fingers

495
00:22:14,609 --> 00:22:16,829
and have some central organization

496
00:22:16,829 --> 00:22:20,220
that suddenly took over the distribution,

497
00:22:20,220 --> 00:22:24,269
production of food and
all other necessities,

498
00:22:24,269 --> 00:22:26,049
but this comes at a cost

499
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:30,960
of poisoning sociality according to Marx,

500
00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:32,549
that's called wage labor,

501
00:22:32,549 --> 00:22:34,832
that's the poison of human sociology.

502
00:22:37,410 --> 00:22:39,483
It generates unprecedented wealth,

503
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:42,360
but it distributes that wealth

504
00:22:42,359 --> 00:22:46,500
in terribly uneven and
frankly preposterous ways

505
00:22:46,500 --> 00:22:47,970
that makes no sense

506
00:22:47,970 --> 00:22:49,809
and it redounds on our lives

507
00:22:50,759 --> 00:22:54,359
to the extent that we
have to do crazy things

508
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:55,649
just to survive.

509
00:22:55,650 --> 00:22:57,509
It gives work to billions

510
00:22:57,509 --> 00:23:01,019
and is constantly about to
throw millions out of work,

511
00:23:01,019 --> 00:23:02,639
and you never know whether you're the one

512
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:04,650
who's gonna be thrown out of work today

513
00:23:04,650 --> 00:23:06,873
or you're gonna be promoted.

514
00:23:07,710 --> 00:23:09,360
Right now in any present,

515
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:11,609
you are in this precarious position,

516
00:23:11,609 --> 00:23:12,839
so much so,

517
00:23:12,839 --> 00:23:15,990
and that is kept from you

518
00:23:15,990 --> 00:23:18,599
in the form of our language and ideation

519
00:23:18,599 --> 00:23:19,469
where you say,

520
00:23:19,470 --> 00:23:21,450
I run one of the colleges here

521
00:23:21,450 --> 00:23:24,090
and students are always worried
about, "Will I get a job?"

522
00:23:24,089 --> 00:23:25,559
I'm like, "Get a job?

523
00:23:25,559 --> 00:23:28,559
You're giving them some,
they're getting you."

524
00:23:28,559 --> 00:23:30,000
Obviously, it doesn't work that way,

525
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,069
but we believe we're
lucky when we get a job

526
00:23:32,069 --> 00:23:34,529
and we believe we should
not only have that job

527
00:23:34,529 --> 00:23:36,843
and give them everything but love it.

528
00:23:37,740 --> 00:23:39,272
You must love your work.

529
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:44,009
As Marx says, "You're free.

530
00:23:44,009 --> 00:23:46,166
Free to sell your or die."

531
00:23:49,470 --> 00:23:52,799
The capital system divides
everything up in a different way

532
00:23:52,799 --> 00:23:54,539
and it conquers.

533
00:23:54,539 --> 00:23:57,599
It forms classes, social classes,

534
00:23:57,599 --> 00:24:00,059
it re-skills labor in the factory,

535
00:24:00,059 --> 00:24:03,089
it de-skills labor in factories,

536
00:24:03,089 --> 00:24:05,279
it occupies lands and peoples,

537
00:24:05,279 --> 00:24:06,809
it extracts resources,

538
00:24:06,809 --> 00:24:07,919
all this stuff we know.

539
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,289
It uses race, gender, ethnicity,

540
00:24:10,289 --> 00:24:15,089
country of origin to distribute
wealth in different ways,

541
00:24:15,089 --> 00:24:18,689
unevenly, and not just wealth but labor.

542
00:24:18,690 --> 00:24:22,470
We should think not only of the
distribution of the outcome,

543
00:24:22,470 --> 00:24:26,190
but the distribution of the input,

544
00:24:26,190 --> 00:24:27,299
so labor.

545
00:24:27,299 --> 00:24:29,549
And the affective
distribution of suffering

546
00:24:29,549 --> 00:24:32,047
is another thing we should consider.

547
00:24:32,047 --> 00:24:34,650
"Capital is what makes live and lets die,"

548
00:24:34,650 --> 00:24:35,973
to quote Foucault.

549
00:24:37,170 --> 00:24:39,690
It builds and destroys,

550
00:24:39,690 --> 00:24:42,269
it gives rise to immense
technological change

551
00:24:42,269 --> 00:24:44,430
such that you might be dreaming

552
00:24:44,430 --> 00:24:48,480
of what's the technology
from your childhood

553
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:49,559
that's no longer around?

554
00:24:49,559 --> 00:24:50,909
The DVD.

555
00:24:50,910 --> 00:24:52,650
You might be dreaming of the DVD at night,

556
00:24:52,650 --> 00:24:54,810
but you'll never see one in the day

557
00:24:54,809 --> 00:24:57,419
that has been totally
vanquished from the Earth,

558
00:24:57,420 --> 00:24:58,413
that technology.

559
00:24:59,460 --> 00:25:01,890
And we know the ways in
which it makes life on Earth

560
00:25:01,890 --> 00:25:05,853
precarious to the point of extinction.

561
00:25:07,650 --> 00:25:09,900
It builds and destroys.

562
00:25:09,900 --> 00:25:13,777
It is, to quote Wendy Brown
in her preface to the book,

563
00:25:13,777 --> 00:25:16,047
"World making and world destroying."

564
00:25:20,940 --> 00:25:23,519
There's much more we
can say about the ills

565
00:25:23,519 --> 00:25:25,079
and the goods of capital,

566
00:25:25,079 --> 00:25:27,663
but maybe we can do that
as we go through the book.

567
00:25:30,059 --> 00:25:31,980
Let's open the book

568
00:25:31,980 --> 00:25:33,039
or open your PDF

569
00:25:35,670 --> 00:25:37,470
and begin to look at it.

570
00:25:37,470 --> 00:25:40,170
I wanna start today

571
00:25:40,170 --> 00:25:44,670
from the first sentences,

572
00:25:44,670 --> 00:25:45,993
very famous sentences,

573
00:25:47,970 --> 00:25:51,393
but we need to look into it a little more.

574
00:25:55,656 --> 00:25:57,509
"The wealth of society is dominated

575
00:25:57,509 --> 00:25:59,460
by the capitalist mode of production,

576
00:25:59,460 --> 00:26:00,569
appears in the form

577
00:26:00,569 --> 00:26:03,480
of an enormous accumulation
of commodities."

578
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:05,103
There Marx is quoting himself.

579
00:26:06,630 --> 00:26:08,737
Why not? He's an authority.

580
00:26:08,737 --> 00:26:10,590
"The individual commodity appears

581
00:26:10,589 --> 00:26:12,480
as the elementary form of that wealth.

582
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:16,170
Hence, our investigation begins
by analyzing the commodity."

583
00:26:16,170 --> 00:26:17,580
Let's just take a look at these words

584
00:26:17,579 --> 00:26:21,000
because they will help us
figure out where Marx is going,

585
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:22,173
starting with wealth.

586
00:26:24,059 --> 00:26:25,470
What is wealth?

587
00:26:25,470 --> 00:26:28,329
Anyone wanna bore me

588
00:26:29,819 --> 00:26:30,722
an explanation?

589
00:26:35,849 --> 00:26:36,682
Shout it out.

590
00:26:39,809 --> 00:26:41,279
I got a room full of people

591
00:26:41,279 --> 00:26:44,579
either who are so wealthy
they never thought about it

592
00:26:44,579 --> 00:26:46,949
or so poor they're too
mad to say anything.

593
00:26:46,950 --> 00:26:48,297
Yeah.

594
00:26:48,297 --> 00:26:49,747
- An accumulation of capital.

595
00:26:51,420 --> 00:26:52,253
- No.

596
00:26:52,252 --> 00:26:53,879
Yes, no.

597
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:55,080
Yes and no.

598
00:26:55,079 --> 00:26:57,480
It is certainly an accumulation,

599
00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:58,920
but wealth is not capital.

600
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:00,810
Wealth is a pre-capitalist form,

601
00:27:00,809 --> 00:27:02,159
an extra capitalist form.

602
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,430
We call things wealth under capital,

603
00:27:05,430 --> 00:27:09,210
but wealth is simply an
accumulation of possessions

604
00:27:09,210 --> 00:27:11,430
and maybe you could say an
accumulation of possessions

605
00:27:11,430 --> 00:27:13,289
that have some purchasing power

606
00:27:13,289 --> 00:27:15,182
that allow you to get something else.

607
00:27:16,710 --> 00:27:18,992
Capital is not wealth,

608
00:27:30,042 --> 00:27:33,089
it is a term that belongs
to a different system.

609
00:27:33,089 --> 00:27:36,329
For example, it comes from the system

610
00:27:36,329 --> 00:27:39,419
where you think of the wellbeing
of the whole community.

611
00:27:39,420 --> 00:27:42,810
In fact, the word comes
from the word weal or well,

612
00:27:42,809 --> 00:27:46,169
which means to not be ill,

613
00:27:46,170 --> 00:27:47,343
to keep your health.

614
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,019
And is used frequently in the 18th century

615
00:27:52,019 --> 00:27:54,720
in the compound commonwealth.

616
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,819
There's no such thing as common capital.

617
00:27:56,819 --> 00:27:58,980
You couldn't say common capital.

618
00:27:58,980 --> 00:28:00,480
So when we say wealth management,

619
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:02,460
they're really not thinking
of the meaning of the term.

620
00:28:02,460 --> 00:28:06,120
It is another form of appearance,

621
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:07,349
a way of talking about it.

622
00:28:07,349 --> 00:28:10,230
And Marx would say this is
not a necessary form of,

623
00:28:10,230 --> 00:28:13,380
this is misleading way to talk about it.

624
00:28:13,380 --> 00:28:15,520
And you'll see that he talks about

625
00:28:16,589 --> 00:28:18,089
what he calls the vulgar economists

626
00:28:18,089 --> 00:28:19,829
or the bourgeois economists

627
00:28:19,829 --> 00:28:21,449
in these terms all the time.

628
00:28:21,450 --> 00:28:22,620
They're not taking up

629
00:28:22,619 --> 00:28:24,659
capital's necessary forms of appearance

630
00:28:24,660 --> 00:28:27,273
where value appears as money, for example.

631
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:30,660
What they're doing is deceiving you

632
00:28:30,660 --> 00:28:31,500
and they're just (indistinct)

633
00:28:31,500 --> 00:28:33,539
because they're deceived themselves.

634
00:28:33,539 --> 00:28:35,399
Capital is not wealth.

635
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:37,320
When your wealth is being managed,

636
00:28:37,319 --> 00:28:39,542
it's being used as capital, not wealth.

637
00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:42,690
And we're going to get to what capital is.

638
00:28:42,690 --> 00:28:45,660
Capital has a whole other operation.

639
00:28:45,660 --> 00:28:46,860
You notice in the first sentence,

640
00:28:46,859 --> 00:28:47,819
the wealth of society

641
00:28:47,819 --> 00:28:50,582
is dominated by the
capitalist mode of production.

642
00:28:52,170 --> 00:28:54,840
He talks about societies

643
00:28:54,839 --> 00:28:58,919
and he talks about something
that takes them over

644
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:01,470
at a certain moment in a certain way

645
00:29:01,470 --> 00:29:02,853
under certain conditions.

646
00:29:05,190 --> 00:29:07,830
We have to be wary of thinking of capital

647
00:29:07,829 --> 00:29:10,230
as something that is natural

648
00:29:10,230 --> 00:29:12,509
that exists longer in history.

649
00:29:12,509 --> 00:29:17,069
Capital itself as a technique
is a kind of social technique

650
00:29:17,069 --> 00:29:20,279
for taking money, putting it to work

651
00:29:20,279 --> 00:29:21,452
and getting more money out of it,

652
00:29:21,452 --> 00:29:24,750
it's a contract in which you
take a certain amount of value

653
00:29:24,750 --> 00:29:26,039
and you say, "I'll give this to you now

654
00:29:26,039 --> 00:29:29,970
if you give me more later
along with the original."

655
00:29:29,970 --> 00:29:34,500
That started to be a social
technique in the 15th century,

656
00:29:34,500 --> 00:29:37,470
so still not that old
when it comes down to it,

657
00:29:37,470 --> 00:29:39,273
certainly much younger than wealth.

658
00:29:41,039 --> 00:29:45,569
Anyone in the European context
in the last 2,000 years

659
00:29:45,569 --> 00:29:50,279
could amass possessions

660
00:29:50,279 --> 00:29:52,349
and then use them as they wanted to.

661
00:29:52,349 --> 00:29:54,990
The idea that they would then grow

662
00:29:54,990 --> 00:29:57,212
is an absurd and very new idea,

663
00:29:59,700 --> 00:30:02,403
new to the tune of about 500 years.

664
00:30:04,380 --> 00:30:05,310
The wealth of society

665
00:30:05,309 --> 00:30:08,549
is dominated by the
capitalist mode of production.

666
00:30:08,549 --> 00:30:11,399
Wealth gets transformed

667
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,820
when capitalist ways

668
00:30:14,819 --> 00:30:17,339
of doing things take over.

669
00:30:17,339 --> 00:30:18,299
It's no longer wealth,

670
00:30:18,299 --> 00:30:19,409
it gets translated,

671
00:30:19,410 --> 00:30:22,140
as many, many things do under this system.

672
00:30:22,140 --> 00:30:23,460
It takes old things.

673
00:30:23,460 --> 00:30:25,079
That is why the persistence

674
00:30:25,079 --> 00:30:27,000
of old ways of understanding them,

675
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:28,529
as in the political economists,

676
00:30:28,529 --> 00:30:31,559
is worrisome because the names carry over

677
00:30:31,559 --> 00:30:32,639
other social systems

678
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,673
and ignore the newness of this system.

679
00:30:40,049 --> 00:30:41,909
What is a mode of production?

680
00:30:41,910 --> 00:30:43,009
Let's talk about that.

681
00:30:43,980 --> 00:30:45,360
So we talk about wealth,

682
00:30:45,359 --> 00:30:46,769
dominate is important

683
00:30:46,769 --> 00:30:48,970
because Marx is already thinking here

684
00:30:50,039 --> 00:30:52,262
that there's power involved,

685
00:30:53,339 --> 00:30:56,609
that the mode

686
00:30:56,609 --> 00:30:57,629
or the way of living

687
00:30:57,630 --> 00:30:59,190
or the form of life

688
00:30:59,190 --> 00:31:02,070
takes over and kicks other things out.

689
00:31:02,069 --> 00:31:03,480
You will see in later chapters,

690
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,180
especially in the original
accumulation chapters,

691
00:31:06,180 --> 00:31:10,080
how that happened through violence and law

692
00:31:10,079 --> 00:31:12,903
and deceit and treachery.

693
00:31:14,460 --> 00:31:16,529
So it came to be,

694
00:31:16,529 --> 00:31:20,190
it came to hegemony or
came to power, capital,

695
00:31:20,190 --> 00:31:23,940
through a domineering way.

696
00:31:23,940 --> 00:31:25,950
I don't think it's the
case that every social form

697
00:31:25,950 --> 00:31:28,920
comes to be through domination,

698
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:30,570
through taking over and
kicking everything out,

699
00:31:30,569 --> 00:31:32,309
but capital has that quality,

700
00:31:32,309 --> 00:31:34,710
and historically it had that quality.

701
00:31:34,710 --> 00:31:37,207
It was like, to personify it,

702
00:31:37,207 --> 00:31:38,100
"You're out of here.

703
00:31:38,099 --> 00:31:39,149
The rest of you are out of here.

704
00:31:39,150 --> 00:31:41,640
We're gonna marshal all our resources

705
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:45,657
to push out collective
farming or feudal relations."

706
00:31:46,950 --> 00:31:48,090
It dominates.

707
00:31:48,089 --> 00:31:50,849
So the trace of power
goes through capital,

708
00:31:50,849 --> 00:31:53,500
even though he doesn't have
an analysis of the state,

709
00:31:54,660 --> 00:31:57,540
there are power relations at stake.

710
00:31:57,539 --> 00:31:59,609
In fact, the main relation,

711
00:31:59,609 --> 00:32:01,069
the capital relation,

712
00:32:01,069 --> 00:32:03,329
is something you'll get to down the line,

713
00:32:03,329 --> 00:32:05,222
which is the core of his analysis,

714
00:32:06,390 --> 00:32:07,980
the core of his critique.

715
00:32:07,980 --> 00:32:11,610
This is what exactly the
political economists missed.

716
00:32:11,609 --> 00:32:15,959
And the thing that remains
steadfast in our capitalism,

717
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:20,160
even though some of the forms
of exchange have changed,

718
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,320
the commodities, of course, have changed,

719
00:32:22,319 --> 00:32:23,879
is the capital relation,

720
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:25,780
and that is a relation of extortion

721
00:32:26,759 --> 00:32:31,170
in which the owners hold
back the means of production

722
00:32:31,170 --> 00:32:34,019
from the very ones who can
use the means of production

723
00:32:34,019 --> 00:32:36,480
and force them to sign a
contract to give over their labor

724
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:40,799
and its product to the owners.

725
00:32:40,799 --> 00:32:42,269
That's the capital relation,

726
00:32:42,269 --> 00:32:45,180
and it's a relation of domination.

727
00:32:45,180 --> 00:32:48,029
So keep your eye on domination

728
00:32:48,029 --> 00:32:50,343
and other modes of power,
including extortion.

729
00:32:51,269 --> 00:32:52,410
Mode of production

730
00:32:52,410 --> 00:32:55,950
is a term that comes up a
lot in Marxist discourse.

731
00:32:55,950 --> 00:32:57,900
You probably will notice

732
00:32:57,900 --> 00:33:02,310
that I don't give that dogmatic view

733
00:33:02,309 --> 00:33:03,329
of Marxist discourse,

734
00:33:03,329 --> 00:33:06,179
maybe some of you are
better at it than I am.

735
00:33:06,180 --> 00:33:08,519
For a long time I was
saying, "I'm not a Marxist."

736
00:33:08,519 --> 00:33:10,259
You know, Marx said this famously,

737
00:33:10,259 --> 00:33:12,336
his son-in-law, Paul Lafargue quotes,

738
00:33:12,336 --> 00:33:14,156
"Je ne suis pas marxiste."

739
00:33:16,799 --> 00:33:18,750
But you know strategically
in the right moment

740
00:33:18,750 --> 00:33:20,547
you're like, "I'm a Marxist."

741
00:33:24,450 --> 00:33:25,710
We leave that question open,

742
00:33:25,710 --> 00:33:27,600
and you'll leave that
question open for yourselves

743
00:33:27,599 --> 00:33:29,129
where you fall on this.

744
00:33:29,130 --> 00:33:33,450
But mode of production is
a typical phrase in Marxism

745
00:33:33,450 --> 00:33:35,220
and it implies a number of things.

746
00:33:35,220 --> 00:33:39,990
First of all, it implies that
production is not natural.

747
00:33:39,990 --> 00:33:42,359
You don't always make
things in the same way.

748
00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:43,979
It has modes,

749
00:33:43,980 --> 00:33:48,420
so it is modal or modular

750
00:33:48,420 --> 00:33:50,880
or plastic or elastic.

751
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,370
And one of the ways you
could do a revolution,

752
00:33:53,369 --> 00:33:55,619
one of the ways capitalism
does its revolutions

753
00:33:55,619 --> 00:33:59,369
is by plastifying the mode of production,

754
00:33:59,369 --> 00:34:01,469
changing the mode of production

755
00:34:01,470 --> 00:34:05,579
from hand work to machine
work to digital work.

756
00:34:05,579 --> 00:34:08,880
That is a transformation
of the mode of production.

757
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,539
There are potentially

758
00:34:12,539 --> 00:34:13,650
modes of production

759
00:34:13,650 --> 00:34:15,420
and transformations of
the modes of production

760
00:34:15,420 --> 00:34:18,750
that could lead out of
the capital relation,

761
00:34:18,750 --> 00:34:19,949
that's possible.

762
00:34:19,949 --> 00:34:22,829
It upholds it as we think about it.

763
00:34:22,829 --> 00:34:24,059
And capital is very good,

764
00:34:24,059 --> 00:34:24,989
the capital system,

765
00:34:24,989 --> 00:34:27,599
Mr. Capital. Mrs. Capital, Sir Capital,

766
00:34:27,599 --> 00:34:28,432
what should we call it?

767
00:34:28,432 --> 00:34:30,360
King Capital? King Capital.

768
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:31,443
King Capital,

769
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:35,309
we are writing a kind of fairytale,

770
00:34:35,309 --> 00:34:38,579
King Capital excels

771
00:34:38,579 --> 00:34:41,159
in changing the mode of production

772
00:34:41,159 --> 00:34:43,899
to increase profit

773
00:34:46,260 --> 00:34:47,620
and not to decrease profit

774
00:34:49,079 --> 00:34:54,079
is why kind of hand work movements fail

775
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:55,832
as big movements.

776
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:00,512
Okay, what other words
are we dealing with here?

777
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:04,800
Appears in,

778
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,410
you'll notice that the first four chapters

779
00:35:07,409 --> 00:35:09,690
are about appearances.

780
00:35:09,690 --> 00:35:11,190
It starts very close to you

781
00:35:11,190 --> 00:35:13,682
in the thing that appears
to you first every day.

782
00:35:14,789 --> 00:35:16,440
What's the thing that appears
to you first every day?

783
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:18,179
It's not your toothbrush anymore,

784
00:35:18,179 --> 00:35:19,079
it's here like this.

785
00:35:19,079 --> 00:35:22,139
He's like, "This is how
capitalism appears to me."

786
00:35:22,139 --> 00:35:23,312
It's a very,

787
00:35:24,210 --> 00:35:25,829
it's materialist in a sense

788
00:35:25,829 --> 00:35:28,199
that you're looking at
the actual things you use,

789
00:35:28,199 --> 00:35:30,062
Marx starts with this in the book,

790
00:35:31,170 --> 00:35:34,200
but it's something you can't see

791
00:35:34,199 --> 00:35:35,519
because iPhone is a perfect

792
00:35:35,519 --> 00:35:36,840
or a smartphone is a perfect example

793
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:38,539
because it's so close to your face

794
00:35:39,539 --> 00:35:42,090
you can't see it for what it is.

795
00:35:42,090 --> 00:35:44,130
You can't see it as a commodity, for sure,

796
00:35:44,130 --> 00:35:45,150
while you're using it.

797
00:35:45,150 --> 00:35:48,480
You also can't see its constitution.

798
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:50,639
It is constituted by all its connections

799
00:35:50,639 --> 00:35:51,869
to everything else in the world:

800
00:35:51,869 --> 00:35:52,772
what made it,

801
00:35:54,570 --> 00:35:57,090
its parts, the labor, the ideas,

802
00:35:57,090 --> 00:35:59,250
the history of technology
that led up to it.

803
00:35:59,250 --> 00:36:02,829
Actually, Marx says
somewhere, "If you take a pen

804
00:36:04,380 --> 00:36:05,940
and you started to enumerate

805
00:36:05,940 --> 00:36:07,800
all the labor that went into it,

806
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,080
you would become nauseous very quickly,"

807
00:36:10,079 --> 00:36:11,969
because in fact every made object

808
00:36:11,969 --> 00:36:14,069
is connected to every bit of work

809
00:36:14,070 --> 00:36:15,420
that was ever done in human history

810
00:36:15,420 --> 00:36:18,782
plus all of nature and
evolution back to the Big Bang.

811
00:36:20,369 --> 00:36:21,389
These are the kinds of thoughts

812
00:36:21,389 --> 00:36:23,759
we're dealing with in this class.

813
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:25,020
The world of commodities

814
00:36:25,019 --> 00:36:27,070
is an immense accumulation

815
00:36:28,230 --> 00:36:30,599
of diverse things,

816
00:36:30,599 --> 00:36:33,750
and Marx will say, "There's
one way to hold onto them."

817
00:36:33,750 --> 00:36:35,039
Capitalism does this.

818
00:36:35,039 --> 00:36:37,710
It holds onto them by value.

819
00:36:37,710 --> 00:36:39,990
That's the thing they all
have in common for capitalism.

820
00:36:39,989 --> 00:36:42,929
But if you look at the
world of commodities,

821
00:36:42,929 --> 00:36:44,579
it is dizzying.

822
00:36:44,579 --> 00:36:49,579
Someone sent me recently
a Rosa Parks bikini.

823
00:36:50,110 --> 00:36:51,420
Okay, they didn't send me the bikini,

824
00:36:51,420 --> 00:36:53,940
they send me a link to the bikini,

825
00:36:53,940 --> 00:36:55,679
which is like 19.95,

826
00:36:55,679 --> 00:36:58,079
but you can commodify anything,

827
00:36:58,079 --> 00:37:00,389
everything can be commodified.

828
00:37:00,389 --> 00:37:03,480
We'll talk about the
processes of commodification,

829
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:07,559
but if you look at one commodity,

830
00:37:07,559 --> 00:37:10,019
you don't see its commodity character,

831
00:37:10,019 --> 00:37:11,789
you don't see its relationship to labor

832
00:37:11,789 --> 00:37:13,563
and the history of all labor,

833
00:37:15,030 --> 00:37:18,660
and you don't see its relations
to the immense diversity,

834
00:37:18,659 --> 00:37:22,259
the mind-boggling, infinite,
potentially infinite diversity

835
00:37:22,260 --> 00:37:24,390
of all the commodities that are out there.

836
00:37:24,389 --> 00:37:25,710
Very hard to see.

837
00:37:25,710 --> 00:37:27,512
We're gonna be enumerating this.

838
00:37:31,619 --> 00:37:33,089
Where are we?

839
00:37:33,090 --> 00:37:34,710
Appears in the form of.

840
00:37:34,710 --> 00:37:37,619
Marx sticks with a kind of Aristotelian

841
00:37:37,619 --> 00:37:40,259
philosophical distinction
between form and matter

842
00:37:40,260 --> 00:37:41,460
or form and material.

843
00:37:41,460 --> 00:37:42,630
This comes up a lot,

844
00:37:42,630 --> 00:37:44,849
but he's gonna switch around
what those things are.

845
00:37:44,849 --> 00:37:47,279
And unlike Aristotle,

846
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:48,900
form is not natural,

847
00:37:48,900 --> 00:37:51,480
it's not given by God or born with nature.

848
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:52,829
The forms of things,

849
00:37:52,829 --> 00:37:55,739
capitalism, the capital system,

850
00:37:55,739 --> 00:38:00,059
specializes in transformation of forms,

851
00:38:00,059 --> 00:38:04,199
which you will have seen
in Section 3 of Chapter 1,

852
00:38:04,199 --> 00:38:05,949
which we will talk about on Friday.

853
00:38:07,500 --> 00:38:10,079
Form of, this is a very
important phrase to hold onto,

854
00:38:10,079 --> 00:38:13,110
you will see something
that you want to understand

855
00:38:13,110 --> 00:38:14,370
changing its form a lot.

856
00:38:14,369 --> 00:38:17,699
It takes the form of this
and the form of that, right?

857
00:38:17,699 --> 00:38:19,980
Don't be nervous about it.

858
00:38:19,980 --> 00:38:22,440
If the material content of the commodity

859
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:26,039
is use or use value,

860
00:38:26,039 --> 00:38:28,532
its form is exchange value.

861
00:38:30,420 --> 00:38:32,220
A very strange way of
understanding things,

862
00:38:32,219 --> 00:38:33,419
he takes this from Hegel,

863
00:38:33,420 --> 00:38:37,690
really moves it around to
make us able to understand

864
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:40,653
this world of commodities.

865
00:38:43,590 --> 00:38:45,030
It takes the form of an enormous

866
00:38:45,030 --> 00:38:46,680
accumulation of commodities.

867
00:38:46,679 --> 00:38:48,750
Well, this is a very flat phrase,

868
00:38:48,750 --> 00:38:51,510
enormous accumulation of commodities.

869
00:38:51,510 --> 00:38:52,743
What's an accumulation?

870
00:38:55,079 --> 00:38:57,179
Nothing, it's just a bunch of things.

871
00:38:57,179 --> 00:39:00,599
It's a bunch of things with
no relation to one another.

872
00:39:00,599 --> 00:39:02,699
That's what wealth is and accumulation,

873
00:39:02,699 --> 00:39:05,669
that hides the fact that all
those things are related.

874
00:39:05,670 --> 00:39:06,960
Somebody made them,

875
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:08,099
somebody bought them,

876
00:39:08,099 --> 00:39:09,119
somebody sold them,

877
00:39:09,119 --> 00:39:11,279
somebody extracted the
materials from the Earth,

878
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:12,990
the Earth produced those materials,

879
00:39:12,989 --> 00:39:14,009
the Earth is gonna get back

880
00:39:14,010 --> 00:39:17,100
the disjecta membra of that thing

881
00:39:17,099 --> 00:39:20,793
in some form that ruins it, most likely.

882
00:39:22,710 --> 00:39:24,960
All of the relations are
gone in an accumulation,

883
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,059
so this is the first appearance,

884
00:39:27,059 --> 00:39:28,210
two first appearances

885
00:39:29,099 --> 00:39:32,822
that this is the elementary
form, the commodity,

886
00:39:33,869 --> 00:39:35,819
and that it shows up

887
00:39:35,820 --> 00:39:38,583
as an enormous accumulation
of them, right?

888
00:39:39,900 --> 00:39:41,369
Especially if you are,

889
00:39:41,369 --> 00:39:44,279
you know, when my partner
Catalina came from Argentina

890
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,019
and we went to Target,

891
00:39:46,019 --> 00:39:51,019
maybe if some of you come from
a less consumerized culture,

892
00:39:51,059 --> 00:39:53,096
she was like, she couldn't believe it,

893
00:39:53,097 --> 00:39:55,110
she just walked around like.

894
00:39:55,110 --> 00:39:56,640
Now we bring everyone who comes to visit

895
00:39:56,639 --> 00:39:57,900
for the first time to Target

896
00:39:57,900 --> 00:40:00,450
or one of those places.

897
00:40:00,449 --> 00:40:01,379
I don't go into Walmart,

898
00:40:01,380 --> 00:40:03,690
but I imagine it's even bigger,

899
00:40:03,690 --> 00:40:05,250
and you're just like, "It's astounding.

900
00:40:05,250 --> 00:40:06,690
It looks like an immense accumulation.

901
00:40:06,690 --> 00:40:09,483
It's just like it grew,
it's like paradise.

902
00:40:10,349 --> 00:40:13,886
A very fluorescent paradise."

903
00:40:15,900 --> 00:40:17,880
But it is not an accumulation

904
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:19,923
and it doesn't have an elementary form.

905
00:40:21,030 --> 00:40:25,080
It's a set of dynamic
relations in which people live,

906
00:40:25,079 --> 00:40:27,632
expend their energies and die.

907
00:40:28,980 --> 00:40:31,769
Nourish themselves,
interact with one another,

908
00:40:31,769 --> 00:40:34,650
it's not an economy, it's a social system.

909
00:40:34,650 --> 00:40:36,480
This is the main aim of this book

910
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:39,603
is to say economy has its place,

911
00:40:40,949 --> 00:40:43,439
but we need to move beyond
economistic thinking

912
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,920
towards what Marx calls social thinking.

913
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:48,119
We can see what that is.

914
00:40:50,668 --> 00:40:53,313
(hums) We're getting there.

915
00:40:54,510 --> 00:40:57,780
The main mode,

916
00:40:57,780 --> 00:41:01,380
especially in these first
chapters, is analysis.

917
00:41:01,380 --> 00:41:02,970
Just to say what analysis is.

918
00:41:02,969 --> 00:41:04,349
It's very hard to read this book.

919
00:41:04,349 --> 00:41:06,029
It switches around a lot.

920
00:41:06,030 --> 00:41:08,310
You'll find he'll be
telling a joke one minute,

921
00:41:08,309 --> 00:41:10,469
he'll be doing dialectics another minute,

922
00:41:10,469 --> 00:41:11,519
what's dialectics?

923
00:41:11,519 --> 00:41:12,619
We'll talk about that.

924
00:41:14,579 --> 00:41:17,969
But the first chapters are about analysis

925
00:41:17,969 --> 00:41:21,599
because he thinks he can
take you to the falsity

926
00:41:21,599 --> 00:41:23,849
of what you think a commodity is

927
00:41:23,849 --> 00:41:25,619
and your relationship to it

928
00:41:25,619 --> 00:41:27,420
by breaking it down into its parts,

929
00:41:27,420 --> 00:41:29,519
which is what analyzing is.

930
00:41:29,519 --> 00:41:32,163
So he does a lot of
operations in this book,

931
00:41:33,030 --> 00:41:35,430
critique of the political economists,

932
00:41:35,429 --> 00:41:38,669
analysis of what we take
to be the basic forms.

933
00:41:38,670 --> 00:41:40,110
He will do dialectics,

934
00:41:40,110 --> 00:41:41,940
which is a synthetic operation

935
00:41:41,940 --> 00:41:44,280
so that we can get from
the elementary form

936
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,070
and its false appearance
as an accumulation

937
00:41:47,070 --> 00:41:49,320
to the whole,

938
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:50,700
which is the only perspective

939
00:41:50,699 --> 00:41:53,129
from which to understand capital.

940
00:41:53,130 --> 00:41:55,829
So if you feel lost at the beginning,

941
00:41:55,829 --> 00:41:57,900
I think it's the best
way to start the book

942
00:41:57,900 --> 00:42:00,302
for people who are reading
it 150 years later.

943
00:42:02,130 --> 00:42:02,970
Why?

944
00:42:02,969 --> 00:42:04,319
Because it starts exactly

945
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:06,450
with the false position that you're in

946
00:42:06,449 --> 00:42:07,679
and moves you very slow.

947
00:42:07,679 --> 00:42:09,000
This is what he thought he was doing,

948
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:10,829
moves you slowly to the whole,

949
00:42:10,829 --> 00:42:12,150
which is the only perspective

950
00:42:12,150 --> 00:42:15,480
from which to know that
these are false appearances

951
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,079
because the iPhone is a the product,

952
00:42:19,079 --> 00:42:21,630
I mean, so much you could
say about the iPhone.

953
00:42:21,630 --> 00:42:22,507
I always tell students,

954
00:42:22,507 --> 00:42:24,539
"You should do an analysis of the iPhone."

955
00:42:24,539 --> 00:42:25,529
I'm sure there are good ones.

956
00:42:25,530 --> 00:42:27,640
If you know one, send it to me

957
00:42:31,409 --> 00:42:34,829
because it is a temporary,

958
00:42:34,829 --> 00:42:36,210
in so many ways,

959
00:42:36,210 --> 00:42:40,983
embodiment of drives of the system.

960
00:42:42,900 --> 00:42:45,090
And only when you know
the system and its drives

961
00:42:45,090 --> 00:42:49,773
can you understand how
this is just a part.

962
00:42:52,199 --> 00:42:54,272
False to look at it as a thing.

963
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:57,510
Commodities are not things.

964
00:42:57,510 --> 00:42:59,260
Oh, we didn't talk about commodity.

965
00:43:00,659 --> 00:43:01,492
What is a commodity?

966
00:43:01,492 --> 00:43:03,210
And then I'm gonna open up to questions.

967
00:43:03,210 --> 00:43:04,260
Does that sound good?

968
00:43:06,449 --> 00:43:08,042
Yes? Okay.

969
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:12,900
By analyzing the commodity, right?

970
00:43:12,900 --> 00:43:14,760
So that's already a kind of false move.

971
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:16,613
What you would wanna do is
start with the capital system.

972
00:43:16,612 --> 00:43:19,230
I would be like, "What's that?

973
00:43:19,230 --> 00:43:20,460
There's no capital system,

974
00:43:20,460 --> 00:43:21,293
there's no system.

975
00:43:21,293 --> 00:43:22,470
I just go to work,

976
00:43:22,469 --> 00:43:23,399
I have this thing,

977
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:24,720
I go shopping, right?"

978
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:26,789
I know somebody picked this,

979
00:43:26,789 --> 00:43:28,739
but you don't know all the
steps that happened in between,

980
00:43:28,739 --> 00:43:31,169
including the pressures on the farmers

981
00:43:31,170 --> 00:43:32,610
to put out a certain amount

982
00:43:32,610 --> 00:43:35,610
and to buy genetically modified seeds

983
00:43:35,610 --> 00:43:37,863
that are copyrighted, et cetera.

984
00:43:38,940 --> 00:43:40,440
You have to know the whole system

985
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,079
to be able to understand
even one of its phenomena.

986
00:43:43,079 --> 00:43:44,699
So he starts with one of its phenomena

987
00:43:44,699 --> 00:43:46,259
to show you that you can't understand it

988
00:43:46,260 --> 00:43:48,003
without moving well beyond it.

989
00:43:49,619 --> 00:43:53,849
A commodity is, this is important,

990
00:43:53,849 --> 00:43:55,980
it's like a spoiler,

991
00:43:55,980 --> 00:43:58,320
it's like we've got to the end of,

992
00:43:58,320 --> 00:43:59,673
what did I watch recently?

993
00:44:01,110 --> 00:44:03,210
We just watched "Stranger
Things" for like the 10th time.

994
00:44:03,210 --> 00:44:04,829
It's like you get to started with the end

995
00:44:04,829 --> 00:44:07,170
of the first season of
"Stranger Things," right?

996
00:44:07,170 --> 00:44:08,003
So here it is,

997
00:44:08,003 --> 00:44:11,913
a commodity is a product
produced for exchange.

998
00:44:19,289 --> 00:44:22,920
Oh, that was a long exposition

999
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,833
of the first two
sentences, three sentences.

1000
00:44:27,809 --> 00:44:29,253
How about some questions?

1001
00:44:34,889 --> 00:44:36,150
- You said that something,

1002
00:44:36,150 --> 00:44:37,050
I don't know what it was,

1003
00:44:37,050 --> 00:44:38,789
that doesn't have an elementary form.

1004
00:44:38,789 --> 00:44:40,769
You said something doesn't
have an elementary form,

1005
00:44:40,769 --> 00:44:41,820
maybe accumulation,

1006
00:44:41,820 --> 00:44:43,180
you just explain what you meant by that?

1007
00:44:43,179 --> 00:44:46,289
- Yeah, the capital system
has no elementary forms.

1008
00:44:46,289 --> 00:44:50,969
Marx does not think that
at least social forms,

1009
00:44:50,969 --> 00:44:53,489
and actually if you think about
the science he was reading

1010
00:44:53,489 --> 00:44:56,012
in the 19th century, also natural forms,

1011
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:59,910
start from elements
which then build them up.

1012
00:44:59,909 --> 00:45:01,199
That's something you might think of

1013
00:45:01,199 --> 00:45:02,792
in physics or in chemistry,

1014
00:45:04,139 --> 00:45:06,779
but it's also false.

1015
00:45:06,780 --> 00:45:08,700
We break out the table of elements,

1016
00:45:08,699 --> 00:45:10,049
but when you look at a compound,

1017
00:45:10,050 --> 00:45:13,710
it has all of these characteristics

1018
00:45:13,710 --> 00:45:15,960
that aren't reducible to their elements.

1019
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:17,670
So I would say that the capital system

1020
00:45:17,670 --> 00:45:19,440
is not reducible to its elements

1021
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,619
and it's not explainable by its elements.

1022
00:45:22,619 --> 00:45:25,049
For that reason, he turns to Hegel

1023
00:45:25,050 --> 00:45:28,410
and you need a mode of discourse

1024
00:45:28,409 --> 00:45:30,099
that starts from the whole

1025
00:45:31,199 --> 00:45:32,969
because the parts all existed

1026
00:45:32,969 --> 00:45:35,250
in one form or another
beforehand in history.

1027
00:45:35,250 --> 00:45:36,869
There was money,

1028
00:45:36,869 --> 00:45:38,940
there was exchange,

1029
00:45:38,940 --> 00:45:41,943
there were dirty merchants
trying to get more for less.

1030
00:45:42,869 --> 00:45:45,089
There was exploitation, for sure,

1031
00:45:45,090 --> 00:45:46,233
there was extortion.

1032
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:51,570
It's only this whole that puts
them in a certain position

1033
00:45:51,570 --> 00:45:54,423
and makes them do certain
things vis-a-vis one another.

1034
00:45:55,679 --> 00:45:56,942
Why do we need an iPhone?

1035
00:45:57,809 --> 00:46:00,599
Because of the way work turns out really,

1036
00:46:00,599 --> 00:46:02,549
or because you're far away from home

1037
00:46:02,550 --> 00:46:04,743
because of the way work turns out really,

1038
00:46:06,179 --> 00:46:10,079
or because students need to
contact me while I'm walking.

1039
00:46:10,079 --> 00:46:11,329
I don't know why that is.

1040
00:46:14,010 --> 00:46:15,840
Only explainable by the whole.

1041
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,720
But that's a real conundrum
for a scientist of capital

1042
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:23,009
because how do you explain
the whole as a whole?

1043
00:46:23,010 --> 00:46:24,600
To explain the whole as a whole.

1044
00:46:24,599 --> 00:46:26,099
Describe the whole as a whole.

1045
00:46:27,750 --> 00:46:28,829
Yeah.

1046
00:46:28,829 --> 00:46:30,719
- I was wondering if you
could talk a little bit about

1047
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:34,619
translation means and its use
in this version of the text

1048
00:46:34,619 --> 00:46:36,150
because I noticed you referenced

1049
00:46:36,150 --> 00:46:38,340
in bold, black and key rule,

1050
00:46:38,340 --> 00:46:40,019
but used writing, machine, journaling,

1051
00:46:40,019 --> 00:46:42,659
you were image it by
many times crazy a bit-

1052
00:46:42,659 --> 00:46:44,129
- Yes.
- Into English.

1053
00:46:44,130 --> 00:46:46,650
And there was one phrase particular,

1054
00:46:46,650 --> 00:46:48,389
the power of production

1055
00:46:48,389 --> 00:46:50,507
or the productiony power,

1056
00:46:50,507 --> 00:46:53,018
I've lost it on (indistinct)
productive power.

1057
00:46:53,018 --> 00:46:53,920
- Yes.
- But I wonder if it

1058
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,550
could also be read as
like productive potential

1059
00:46:56,550 --> 00:46:58,750
and how much something
like that would shift

1060
00:46:59,610 --> 00:47:01,773
capitalism of indifferently seen.

1061
00:47:02,610 --> 00:47:03,443
- It's a great question,

1062
00:47:03,443 --> 00:47:07,620
a question about translation
and Marxist language,

1063
00:47:07,619 --> 00:47:09,359
how much English changes it

1064
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:12,720
and how many other languages
Marx was working with.

1065
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:16,439
Marx knew, I don't know,
six or seven languages.

1066
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:18,059
He was a 19th century intellectual,

1067
00:47:18,059 --> 00:47:19,799
that's what you did.

1068
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:22,890
Aren't we weak in comparison?

1069
00:47:22,889 --> 00:47:23,909
I encourage you to go out.

1070
00:47:23,909 --> 00:47:25,652
I managed like five,

1071
00:47:27,630 --> 00:47:28,890
but many of them badly.

1072
00:47:28,889 --> 00:47:30,089
I encourage you to go out,

1073
00:47:30,090 --> 00:47:31,200
and he could read in all of them

1074
00:47:31,199 --> 00:47:33,119
and quote in all of them
and remember all of them,

1075
00:47:33,119 --> 00:47:36,092
it was really astounding,
really astounding.

1076
00:47:38,369 --> 00:47:42,029
About how translation affects the text,

1077
00:47:42,030 --> 00:47:44,250
it of course has a big effect.

1078
00:47:44,250 --> 00:47:46,679
And let's take the word
term you mentioned,

1079
00:47:46,679 --> 00:47:48,329
produktivkraft, productive power,

1080
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:53,430
or arbeitskraft, labor power.

1081
00:47:53,429 --> 00:47:55,960
Not only are those

1082
00:47:57,989 --> 00:48:00,389
hard to understand conceptually,

1083
00:48:00,389 --> 00:48:04,170
but Marx is actually inventing
labor power as a term.

1084
00:48:04,170 --> 00:48:07,349
In fact, he considered that
to be his biggest contribution

1085
00:48:07,349 --> 00:48:09,239
or one of his biggest contributions,

1086
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:11,889
the idea that there is this
thing called labor power.

1087
00:48:13,710 --> 00:48:17,730
I think it would be going
beyond the translation

1088
00:48:17,730 --> 00:48:22,652
to imagine that that would be
something like a potential,

1089
00:48:23,610 --> 00:48:25,200
but that doesn't make it wrong,

1090
00:48:25,199 --> 00:48:26,909
that would be an interpretation.

1091
00:48:26,909 --> 00:48:30,992
Marx was very precise with
his terms most of the time,

1092
00:48:33,389 --> 00:48:36,719
but he did have a bit of
an Aristotelian background,

1093
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:38,730
so he likes matter and form,

1094
00:48:38,730 --> 00:48:43,440
and he also likes
potentiality and actuality

1095
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:46,079
as a set of terms that
describe how things work.

1096
00:48:46,079 --> 00:48:48,299
And it is true that when
you sell your labor power,

1097
00:48:48,300 --> 00:48:49,830
you're selling a potential.

1098
00:48:49,829 --> 00:48:53,639
And the big joke on workers

1099
00:48:53,639 --> 00:48:55,199
is a terrible way to put it,

1100
00:48:55,199 --> 00:48:58,679
the big deception is you
sell them your labor power,

1101
00:48:58,679 --> 00:49:01,139
but they're getting your actual labor.

1102
00:49:01,139 --> 00:49:02,759
So you have a certain
quantity of labor power,

1103
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:04,950
like, "I could do this much, here it is."

1104
00:49:04,949 --> 00:49:05,782
But then you go in there

1105
00:49:05,782 --> 00:49:07,529
and they're like, "Well,
sorry, you're doing this much,"

1106
00:49:07,530 --> 00:49:09,690
you're actually doing a lot more.

1107
00:49:09,690 --> 00:49:12,300
So labor power is a tool of capitalism

1108
00:49:12,300 --> 00:49:16,053
to make it work out such that
more comes from the same.

1109
00:49:17,730 --> 00:49:21,900
So you could do a good
interpretation of arbeitskraft

1110
00:49:21,900 --> 00:49:25,349
or produktivkraft as a kind of potential

1111
00:49:25,349 --> 00:49:28,469
that when it's actualized is
different than its potential,

1112
00:49:28,469 --> 00:49:32,189
so that would be also moving
beyond Aristotle or Hegel.

1113
00:49:32,190 --> 00:49:33,360
Yeah.

1114
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:35,460
- I had a question
about the different ways

1115
00:49:35,460 --> 00:49:36,900
that bridged Marxist writing

1116
00:49:36,900 --> 00:49:39,570
because you mentioned he
was also very a satirist

1117
00:49:39,570 --> 00:49:42,600
and also wrote stern and
also political economists,

1118
00:49:42,599 --> 00:49:45,239
so like how does the
style itself try to work

1119
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:47,219
oh, would capital against (indistinct)?

1120
00:49:47,219 --> 00:49:48,052
- Yes.

1121
00:49:48,989 --> 00:49:50,309
Oh, that's a great question.

1122
00:49:50,309 --> 00:49:51,750
I've thought about this a lot,

1123
00:49:51,750 --> 00:49:56,750
and you should think of Marx
and Engels as genre geniuses.

1124
00:49:57,510 --> 00:49:59,138
These were like the Rupert Murdochs

1125
00:49:59,137 --> 00:50:01,500
of the left in the 19th century.

1126
00:50:01,500 --> 00:50:03,809
They tried everything

1127
00:50:03,809 --> 00:50:06,393
to liberate labor,

1128
00:50:07,559 --> 00:50:09,179
first to bring about liberal changes

1129
00:50:09,179 --> 00:50:10,589
and also to move towards socialism.

1130
00:50:10,590 --> 00:50:12,420
They tried every genre imaginable.

1131
00:50:12,420 --> 00:50:14,909
One of them you know, "The Manifesto,"

1132
00:50:14,909 --> 00:50:18,420
another one you might know the
"Thesis," remember that text?

1133
00:50:18,420 --> 00:50:21,150
Famous text, "Theses on Feuerbach."

1134
00:50:21,150 --> 00:50:22,619
They wrote letters, they gave speeches.

1135
00:50:22,619 --> 00:50:26,789
Marx was up in 1871 in La
Commune on the barricades

1136
00:50:26,789 --> 00:50:29,313
giving a speech to the Communards.

1137
00:50:30,179 --> 00:50:31,980
He gave founding speeches,

1138
00:50:31,980 --> 00:50:34,740
which included a lot of
theory at the inauguration

1139
00:50:34,739 --> 00:50:37,439
of the International
Working Men's Association.

1140
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:42,179
They sent sometimes shameful,

1141
00:50:42,179 --> 00:50:45,539
insulting letters about
other people to one another.

1142
00:50:45,539 --> 00:50:46,440
They really tried everything.

1143
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:47,789
He wrote, of course, he was a journalist

1144
00:50:47,789 --> 00:50:49,949
and he wrote hundreds of articles.

1145
00:50:49,949 --> 00:50:52,409
They wrote encyclopedia entries,

1146
00:50:52,409 --> 00:50:56,339
Engels writes long entries about arms

1147
00:50:56,340 --> 00:50:58,920
and how they're useful
for popular uprisings.

1148
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,019
He has a great article on the rifle.

1149
00:51:01,019 --> 00:51:02,190
So they were trying everything,

1150
00:51:02,190 --> 00:51:05,280
and in this text, Marx
is doing the same thing.

1151
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:08,190
I mean, what's the difference
if you take capitalism

1152
00:51:08,190 --> 00:51:10,079
that bourgeoisie down by logic

1153
00:51:10,079 --> 00:51:12,599
or you take them down by yelling at them,

1154
00:51:12,599 --> 00:51:13,739
doesn't matter,

1155
00:51:13,739 --> 00:51:15,329
so he tried everything

1156
00:51:15,329 --> 00:51:18,449
and I think that goes to an
important theoretical point,

1157
00:51:18,449 --> 00:51:22,949
which is even though he found
ways to analyze the system,

1158
00:51:22,949 --> 00:51:27,482
he did not find the way
that it would disintegrate.

1159
00:51:28,710 --> 00:51:31,139
And he was constantly trying
all the way up to the end,

1160
00:51:31,139 --> 00:51:35,039
including in his last years

1161
00:51:35,039 --> 00:51:36,630
learning calculus

1162
00:51:36,630 --> 00:51:39,873
so that he could better
understand business cycles.

1163
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:42,930
Yeah.

1164
00:51:42,929 --> 00:51:46,230
- So, you began the
lecture you said to be wary

1165
00:51:46,230 --> 00:51:48,900
thinking of capital as natural,

1166
00:51:48,900 --> 00:51:50,700
but you also brought up how,

1167
00:51:50,699 --> 00:51:51,809
at least from ours,

1168
00:51:51,809 --> 00:51:52,980
what matters about capital

1169
00:51:52,980 --> 00:51:54,960
is less about quadruple contradictions

1170
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:56,699
and more about the negative effects

1171
00:51:56,699 --> 00:51:58,859
of the people way under it.

1172
00:51:58,860 --> 00:52:00,599
I guess like two questions.

1173
00:52:00,599 --> 00:52:02,346
One, maybe when God is just like,

1174
00:52:02,347 --> 00:52:03,660
"What do you mean by natural?

1175
00:52:03,659 --> 00:52:04,920
Is history natural?"

1176
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:06,990
But also assuming that people

1177
00:52:06,989 --> 00:52:09,359
can set their by natural (indistinct),

1178
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:11,927
why does it matter whether capital is at?

1179
00:52:11,927 --> 00:52:13,559
- That's a great question.

1180
00:52:13,559 --> 00:52:14,619
The question was

1181
00:52:16,469 --> 00:52:19,319
why did I say capital is not natural

1182
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:21,870
or the capital system is not natural?

1183
00:52:21,869 --> 00:52:25,202
And the question is why does it matter?

1184
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:28,410
And for Marx it mattered,

1185
00:52:28,409 --> 00:52:32,789
first of all, within the theory
that there's a separation

1186
00:52:32,789 --> 00:52:35,192
between social things and natural things.

1187
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:40,173
Social things modify natural things.

1188
00:52:41,610 --> 00:52:42,690
He was aware,

1189
00:52:42,690 --> 00:52:46,289
in fact, he read Darwin's
"Origin of Species,"

1190
00:52:46,289 --> 00:52:49,050
and there's a footnote to it, praising it.

1191
00:52:49,050 --> 00:52:51,720
He was aware that nature
was being understood

1192
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:53,139
itself as having a history

1193
00:52:54,570 --> 00:52:58,140
and as being a kind of
self-modifying thing.

1194
00:52:58,139 --> 00:52:59,940
One word for that is organism,

1195
00:52:59,940 --> 00:53:02,010
self-sustaining, self-modifying,

1196
00:53:02,010 --> 00:53:06,030
and that's a word that Marx
likes to use for capital too.

1197
00:53:06,030 --> 00:53:08,820
But this has to be separate and malleable

1198
00:53:08,820 --> 00:53:11,130
in a different way than nature.

1199
00:53:11,130 --> 00:53:14,463
Social things, in fact, they
have to be made by humans.

1200
00:53:16,559 --> 00:53:18,900
So history for Marx,

1201
00:53:18,900 --> 00:53:20,190
you could have natural history,

1202
00:53:20,190 --> 00:53:22,409
but social history was the history

1203
00:53:22,409 --> 00:53:25,449
of the way human beings
make their means for living

1204
00:53:27,210 --> 00:53:30,179
and produce for themselves
their wants and needs.

1205
00:53:30,179 --> 00:53:32,369
Only if it's not natural for him

1206
00:53:32,369 --> 00:53:34,199
in the sense of being fixed

1207
00:53:34,199 --> 00:53:37,532
and given outside of human activities,

1208
00:53:38,460 --> 00:53:41,429
only if it's not natural,
is it criticizable for him.

1209
00:53:41,429 --> 00:53:44,849
Things that are natural or not
thought of as criticizable,

1210
00:53:44,849 --> 00:53:47,342
you know, criticize a comet,

1211
00:53:48,449 --> 00:53:50,402
criticize a tiger,

1212
00:53:51,510 --> 00:53:53,432
criticize a tectonic plate,

1213
00:53:54,329 --> 00:53:55,650
and then come back and tell me about it.

1214
00:53:55,650 --> 00:53:56,483
Yes.

1215
00:53:56,483 --> 00:53:58,710
- Do you find it more helpful

1216
00:53:58,710 --> 00:54:00,720
or more insightful to read "Capital"

1217
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:02,309
as kind of an accumulation,

1218
00:54:02,309 --> 00:54:04,230
I guess, of Marx's previous styles,

1219
00:54:04,230 --> 00:54:07,409
be that German idealism

1220
00:54:07,409 --> 00:54:10,109
or journalism or what have you?

1221
00:54:10,110 --> 00:54:12,180
Or do you find it more
helpful to kind of read it

1222
00:54:12,179 --> 00:54:15,149
as a turning away to something new,

1223
00:54:15,150 --> 00:54:16,050
to a (indistinct)?

1224
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:22,710
- The question is about Marxist styles,

1225
00:54:22,710 --> 00:54:25,650
is it a kind of compendium
of previous styles

1226
00:54:25,650 --> 00:54:27,960
or is it something new?

1227
00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:31,829
He had been working in political
economy since about 1843.

1228
00:54:31,829 --> 00:54:34,949
He writes the first draft of this in 1867.

1229
00:54:34,949 --> 00:54:37,589
The first draft of this set of drafts,

1230
00:54:37,590 --> 00:54:40,110
the Latin American

1231
00:54:40,110 --> 00:54:43,380
Marx philosopher Enrique Dussel

1232
00:54:43,380 --> 00:54:45,390
calculates that this book

1233
00:54:45,389 --> 00:54:48,809
is about 1/72nd of all the
manuscripts he produced

1234
00:54:48,809 --> 00:54:51,449
around the "Capital" project.

1235
00:54:51,449 --> 00:54:53,132
The "Capital" project is huge.

1236
00:54:54,090 --> 00:54:54,923
It goes on and on.

1237
00:54:54,922 --> 00:54:56,039
It starts from the "Grundrisse"

1238
00:54:56,039 --> 00:54:59,730
and ends with notes he
was making towards changes

1239
00:54:59,730 --> 00:55:01,532
all the way up into the late '70s.

1240
00:55:03,269 --> 00:55:05,699
So the project was ongoing,

1241
00:55:05,699 --> 00:55:09,719
and my sense is as he got
more of an understanding

1242
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:13,289
of the intractability of capitalism,

1243
00:55:13,289 --> 00:55:16,440
he started to marshal
more of his own forces.

1244
00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:19,019
I think it's great that
he had all this practice

1245
00:55:19,019 --> 00:55:20,820
in different genres.

1246
00:55:20,820 --> 00:55:22,769
For example, he wrote hundreds of articles

1247
00:55:22,769 --> 00:55:26,969
for the New York Daily Tribune in English,

1248
00:55:26,969 --> 00:55:29,459
which were during the Civil War

1249
00:55:29,460 --> 00:55:32,970
reports of Europe's
reactions to the Civil War.

1250
00:55:32,969 --> 00:55:35,969
Marx was a staunch abolitionist,

1251
00:55:35,969 --> 00:55:38,163
and so this was important work for him,

1252
00:55:39,179 --> 00:55:43,259
but it trained him in
approaching things of the day

1253
00:55:43,260 --> 00:55:46,890
with a certain kind of attitude.

1254
00:55:46,889 --> 00:55:48,150
And you'll find that
all throughout the book,

1255
00:55:48,150 --> 00:55:51,240
especially in Chapter
8 on the working day.

1256
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:55,439
So I think what I would like
to say is he saw this task

1257
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:58,920
as requiring these specific resources

1258
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:00,720
at these specific times

1259
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:03,629
to understand, for example, how capital

1260
00:56:03,630 --> 00:56:06,273
as an organism that eats its limits,

1261
00:56:08,010 --> 00:56:09,990
how it does this,

1262
00:56:09,989 --> 00:56:11,969
you have to look at worker struggles

1263
00:56:11,969 --> 00:56:14,099
and you need to do that
in a documentary fashion.

1264
00:56:14,099 --> 00:56:14,932
And that's Chapter 8,

1265
00:56:14,932 --> 00:56:16,500
it's 100 pages, I'm sorry,

1266
00:56:16,500 --> 00:56:18,480
I think we're doing it in a week.

1267
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:20,490
It'll be like a history class there

1268
00:56:20,489 --> 00:56:21,509
or give up philosophy

1269
00:56:21,510 --> 00:56:23,670
and you read all these
accounts of what it was like

1270
00:56:23,670 --> 00:56:26,070
and how they fought and how
the legislation changed.

1271
00:56:26,070 --> 00:56:27,600
And what he does is demonstrate to you

1272
00:56:27,599 --> 00:56:29,880
that even if you get
a shorter working day,

1273
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:32,010
they're gonna get their pound of flesh,

1274
00:56:32,010 --> 00:56:32,843
and they did.

1275
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:37,829
So he uses this historical
documentary style

1276
00:56:37,829 --> 00:56:39,869
to make a point he couldn't
have made theoretically,

1277
00:56:39,869 --> 00:56:41,190
or had he made it theoretically

1278
00:56:41,190 --> 00:56:43,200
it would be like reading Hegel,

1279
00:56:43,199 --> 00:56:45,206
you'd be like, "Is that really true?"

1280
00:56:47,849 --> 00:56:51,269
Here's what I recommend, buy this book.

1281
00:56:51,269 --> 00:56:54,362
Really it's mainly supporting
the Academic Press.

1282
00:56:55,469 --> 00:56:57,599
We begged them to come out
with a paperback first,

1283
00:56:57,599 --> 00:56:59,460
but they have to make their money back.

1284
00:56:59,460 --> 00:57:01,559
But buy the book, it's a great book,

1285
00:57:01,559 --> 00:57:04,289
and we will continue with Chapter 1

1286
00:57:04,289 --> 00:57:06,779
all the way through Monday.

1287
00:57:06,780 --> 00:57:08,310
Don't forget that Friday is Monday,

1288
00:57:08,309 --> 00:57:11,190
so we will meet back here Friday at 11:35.

1289
00:57:11,190 --> 00:57:13,470
And thank you all for coming.

1290
00:57:13,469 --> 00:57:17,402
I hope you've liked this.

1291
00:57:19,849 --> 00:57:21,551
(gentle music)

1292
00:57:21,550 --> 00:57:22,697
(switch clicking)

1293
00:57:22,697 --> 00:57:26,209
(air whooshing)
(suspenseful music)