1 00:00:00,649 --> 00:00:03,232 (bright music) 2 00:00:12,689 --> 00:00:15,989 - We ended without talking about money's four functions. 3 00:00:15,990 --> 00:00:18,600 Money as a measure of value, as a means of circulation, 4 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:21,540 as a store of value and as a means of payment. 5 00:00:21,539 --> 00:00:26,539 There are other related functions like standard of price. 6 00:00:26,850 --> 00:00:30,213 Standard of price simply means what you're paying in, 7 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:34,440 so and so many dollars. 8 00:00:34,439 --> 00:00:37,049 The price will be counted in dollars. 9 00:00:37,049 --> 00:00:38,909 The price will be counted in gold. 10 00:00:38,909 --> 00:00:40,919 That's a function of the money. 11 00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:42,810 It tells you that you're not gonna be paying 12 00:00:42,810 --> 00:00:44,343 in calorie shells or, 13 00:00:46,859 --> 00:00:47,912 locks of your hair. 14 00:00:50,429 --> 00:00:53,850 That's as a standard of price. 15 00:00:53,850 --> 00:00:55,890 As a measure of value 16 00:00:55,890 --> 00:00:59,253 it's more substantial. 17 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:02,940 The measure of value is talking 18 00:01:02,939 --> 00:01:07,109 about not the particular content of the measure of value, 19 00:01:07,109 --> 00:01:08,280 that is the price. 20 00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:10,799 The price is the content of the measure of value. 21 00:01:10,799 --> 00:01:14,703 It just tells you that money functions to measure value. 22 00:01:16,530 --> 00:01:17,362 Okay? 23 00:01:17,362 --> 00:01:19,260 Marx is not gonna talk about how you arrive 24 00:01:19,260 --> 00:01:21,240 at specific prices 25 00:01:21,239 --> 00:01:25,319 and it turns out the factors involved in this specific price 26 00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:27,299 are too much for even him to calculate 27 00:01:27,299 --> 00:01:29,343 or anyone to calculate in advance. 28 00:01:30,180 --> 00:01:32,430 There are many factors, it's highly contingent. 29 00:01:32,430 --> 00:01:33,720 They go up and down, 30 00:01:33,719 --> 00:01:36,719 but value is still the main determinant. 31 00:01:36,719 --> 00:01:38,879 Makes up the body of the price 32 00:01:38,879 --> 00:01:42,839 and the the clothing of the price changes minute by minute, 33 00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:43,673 day by day. 34 00:01:45,420 --> 00:01:47,760 You can get to where he works that out in volume three. 35 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:50,460 So, if you stick with me for the next couple of years. 36 00:01:51,870 --> 00:01:53,670 Money as a measure of value 37 00:01:53,670 --> 00:01:55,799 is related to money as a standard of price. 38 00:01:55,799 --> 00:01:57,359 It's because that money 39 00:01:57,359 --> 00:02:01,439 has stepped out of the commodity world, become independent 40 00:02:01,439 --> 00:02:05,099 and serves only now its main function 41 00:02:05,099 --> 00:02:09,210 as being the value of those commodities, 42 00:02:09,210 --> 00:02:10,980 as being able to hold the value, 43 00:02:10,979 --> 00:02:13,049 as being able to transport the value 44 00:02:13,050 --> 00:02:16,473 and also being able to measure the value in its units. 45 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:19,633 (clears throat) 46 00:02:19,633 --> 00:02:21,539 So, first he talks about a measure of value 47 00:02:21,539 --> 00:02:25,112 as values, form of appearance. 48 00:02:26,219 --> 00:02:28,080 The determining reflection, 49 00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:31,560 the value mirror for labor time. 50 00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:34,830 Money as the measure of value allows the value 51 00:02:34,830 --> 00:02:38,400 of any commodity to appear just like the equivalent formed. 52 00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:39,360 It is an equivalent. 53 00:02:39,360 --> 00:02:41,100 It's the universal equivalent. 54 00:02:41,099 --> 00:02:42,269 It is the mirror. 55 00:02:42,270 --> 00:02:44,550 So, if you wanna know what the value of something is, 56 00:02:44,550 --> 00:02:47,730 you can't give me more of that thing. 57 00:02:47,729 --> 00:02:48,869 It would be ridiculous to say 58 00:02:48,870 --> 00:02:51,569 the value of a banana is a banana, 59 00:02:51,569 --> 00:02:56,280 or the value of a ton of iron is a ton of iron. 60 00:02:56,280 --> 00:02:58,770 You have to give it either in something else 61 00:02:58,770 --> 00:03:01,650 or when the system becomes complex enough, 62 00:03:01,650 --> 00:03:03,120 you give it in money 63 00:03:03,120 --> 00:03:05,159 and the money will tell you what the value is, 64 00:03:05,159 --> 00:03:09,152 tell you that there is value and will represent that value. 65 00:03:10,770 --> 00:03:15,770 So, money as a measure of value becomes the denominator 66 00:03:16,050 --> 00:03:17,820 for all commodities. 67 00:03:17,819 --> 00:03:20,282 Iron over gold, wheat over gold, 68 00:03:21,150 --> 00:03:22,659 locks of hair over gold 69 00:03:23,580 --> 00:03:25,173 and education over gold. 70 00:03:27,330 --> 00:03:30,060 It's what he calls the value expression for a commodity. 71 00:03:30,060 --> 00:03:31,710 So, you need to know these different terms. 72 00:03:31,710 --> 00:03:34,260 Again, he's not really laying out 73 00:03:34,259 --> 00:03:36,060 a scientifically finished system. 74 00:03:36,060 --> 00:03:38,680 He's trying to figure out how it works 75 00:03:39,810 --> 00:03:42,150 in the third or fourth iteration here, 76 00:03:42,150 --> 00:03:43,890 and figure out how to express it to you 77 00:03:43,889 --> 00:03:45,329 in ways you will understand. 78 00:03:45,330 --> 00:03:49,770 So, if you think it's one analogy too many 79 00:03:49,770 --> 00:03:53,189 or one opposite phrase too many, 80 00:03:53,189 --> 00:03:55,020 you can just leave them aside. 81 00:03:55,020 --> 00:03:59,189 But money is the value expression for a commodity. 82 00:03:59,189 --> 00:04:02,460 It is the money form of that commodity 83 00:04:02,460 --> 00:04:05,490 and that's what measure of value means. 84 00:04:05,490 --> 00:04:07,140 It both represents the value 85 00:04:07,139 --> 00:04:09,719 and it represents the amount of value, 86 00:04:09,719 --> 00:04:10,859 which is the most important 87 00:04:10,860 --> 00:04:14,103 and only quality of value is that it has an amount. 88 00:04:21,269 --> 00:04:22,829 One thing that happens here, however, 89 00:04:22,829 --> 00:04:26,219 is commodity gets a money name 90 00:04:26,220 --> 00:04:28,320 or money gets a money name like pounds 91 00:04:28,319 --> 00:04:30,959 and you say, what is the value of this commodity? 92 00:04:30,959 --> 00:04:33,089 Well, it's worth so and so many pounds 93 00:04:33,089 --> 00:04:35,699 or it's worth so and so many dollars. 94 00:04:35,699 --> 00:04:37,592 This money name, 95 00:04:38,519 --> 00:04:40,949 things have a name, they have a form 96 00:04:40,949 --> 00:04:41,969 and they have a content. 97 00:04:41,970 --> 00:04:45,660 For Marx, this is the way his philosophical vocabulary 98 00:04:45,660 --> 00:04:47,370 is being developed. 99 00:04:47,370 --> 00:04:48,203 A name, 100 00:04:49,779 --> 00:04:50,909 a form, and a content. 101 00:04:50,910 --> 00:04:52,620 The money name, 102 00:04:52,620 --> 00:04:54,870 and he's a little bit suspicious of names, 103 00:04:54,870 --> 00:04:56,579 they can do both things. 104 00:04:56,579 --> 00:04:58,589 They can express something, 105 00:04:58,589 --> 00:05:00,179 but they can also conceal something 106 00:05:00,180 --> 00:05:03,420 and the money name conceals this entire process. 107 00:05:03,420 --> 00:05:06,330 We say 10 bucks, 10 bucks. 108 00:05:06,329 --> 00:05:08,579 I'll give you this thing for 10 bucks. 109 00:05:08,579 --> 00:05:09,472 Gimme that thing for 10 bucks 110 00:05:09,473 --> 00:05:11,879 and the 10 bucks comes to stand in 111 00:05:11,879 --> 00:05:14,939 for the whole ontological machination 112 00:05:14,939 --> 00:05:17,252 that makes something into a value. 113 00:05:19,709 --> 00:05:21,359 Money is a real concealer 114 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:26,360 and you should remember that what expresses also conceals 115 00:05:27,060 --> 00:05:29,250 because it only expresses something. 116 00:05:29,250 --> 00:05:32,012 It's very particular capitalistic, 117 00:05:32,939 --> 00:05:35,639 semiotics or capitalistic aesthetics 118 00:05:35,639 --> 00:05:38,579 is always made to express something in particular 119 00:05:38,579 --> 00:05:39,962 and hide the rest. 120 00:05:42,648 --> 00:05:44,010 (clears throat) 121 00:05:44,009 --> 00:05:45,659 Money as a means of circulation. 122 00:05:45,660 --> 00:05:47,610 We're just about to overcome all of these. 123 00:05:47,610 --> 00:05:51,060 These are, by the way, not things that Marx invented, 124 00:05:51,060 --> 00:05:53,339 they're things that he found in political economy 125 00:05:53,339 --> 00:05:55,049 and he's about to do a critique of it, 126 00:05:55,050 --> 00:05:57,990 but calling them insufficient for understanding capital. 127 00:05:57,990 --> 00:06:00,903 Any of them can be working in other systems and were, 128 00:06:01,860 --> 00:06:03,600 the way they work together, 129 00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:06,033 plus one extra factor, the extra, 130 00:06:07,110 --> 00:06:09,150 the more the surplus, 131 00:06:09,149 --> 00:06:12,512 which is what the capital system is aiming for its purpose. 132 00:06:14,579 --> 00:06:16,649 Constitutes his critique of political economy. 133 00:06:16,649 --> 00:06:18,689 They forgot where the more comes from. 134 00:06:18,689 --> 00:06:21,959 All of this just explains value in an equivalent system 135 00:06:21,959 --> 00:06:25,052 that circulates around and doesn't make any more of itself. 136 00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:28,260 So, we're working between chapters three and four. 137 00:06:28,259 --> 00:06:30,300 Chapter four is one of my favorite chapters, 138 00:06:30,300 --> 00:06:31,199 really revelatory, 139 00:06:31,199 --> 00:06:33,300 especially in the last four or five pages. 140 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:38,430 But we need to understand how these work so we can see 141 00:06:38,430 --> 00:06:41,519 how central money is to the capitalist economy, 142 00:06:41,519 --> 00:06:43,560 capitalistic economy, 143 00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:45,843 and how it changes its nature. 144 00:06:47,430 --> 00:06:50,129 So, second, money has been traditionally 145 00:06:50,129 --> 00:06:51,509 a means of circulation. 146 00:06:51,509 --> 00:06:53,789 It facilitates the form change 147 00:06:53,790 --> 00:06:55,590 or metamorphosis of commodities 148 00:06:55,589 --> 00:06:58,289 that mediates the social metabolism. 149 00:06:58,290 --> 00:06:59,673 This is page 79. 150 00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:01,802 Marx says this. 151 00:07:02,646 --> 00:07:06,000 "Money is a means or a medium or a mediator, 152 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:07,769 a facilitator. 153 00:07:07,769 --> 00:07:09,930 Without it, things couldn't circulate" 154 00:07:09,930 --> 00:07:11,519 and so you need a certain amount of money 155 00:07:11,519 --> 00:07:12,779 in circulation all the time, 156 00:07:12,779 --> 00:07:14,219 so the deals can be happening, 157 00:07:14,220 --> 00:07:16,350 the trades can be happening all over. 158 00:07:16,350 --> 00:07:18,720 If there's insufficient money, people can't trade 159 00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:21,573 because they're not gonna suddenly become barterers. 160 00:07:23,009 --> 00:07:28,009 This is related but different function of money. 161 00:07:28,439 --> 00:07:32,939 Under capital, things take on different functions, 162 00:07:32,939 --> 00:07:35,219 and in economics things take on different functions. 163 00:07:35,220 --> 00:07:36,243 In economies, 164 00:07:38,189 --> 00:07:40,173 money is a means of circulation. 165 00:07:43,199 --> 00:07:45,632 As a means of circulation, it, 166 00:07:49,709 --> 00:07:51,392 produces a contradiction. 167 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:00,003 Here's what he says, let's take a look at this. 168 00:08:04,410 --> 00:08:08,493 I'm looking at page 79 as means of circulation, 78. 169 00:08:10,889 --> 00:08:14,169 He gives the form of circulation 170 00:08:15,329 --> 00:08:16,682 as an ellipse, 171 00:08:19,439 --> 00:08:22,170 which is the geometric corollary 172 00:08:22,170 --> 00:08:24,663 of what he calls a real contradiction. 173 00:08:30,779 --> 00:08:32,879 Here's one contradiction. 174 00:08:32,879 --> 00:08:35,610 When a body is both falling toward another body 175 00:08:35,610 --> 00:08:37,289 and falling away from it, 176 00:08:37,289 --> 00:08:39,120 the ellipse is one of the forms of motion 177 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:40,409 through which this contradiction 178 00:08:40,409 --> 00:08:43,319 is just as much realized as resolved. 179 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:47,823 And this is what happens in the circulation form. 180 00:08:49,169 --> 00:08:53,222 Money is moving away and coming back at the same time. 181 00:08:55,139 --> 00:08:56,913 It takes the form of an ellipse. 182 00:08:59,895 --> 00:09:02,562 (clears throat) 183 00:09:05,159 --> 00:09:07,850 Value is moving away and coming back at the same time. 184 00:09:07,850 --> 00:09:10,590 In so far as I trade one thing for another, 185 00:09:10,590 --> 00:09:12,149 the value moves along with that thing, 186 00:09:12,149 --> 00:09:14,600 but it also comes back to me in a different form. 187 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:18,990 You could call this a contradiction unfolded in time. 188 00:09:18,990 --> 00:09:22,533 Here we're talking about the philosophical ideas in play. 189 00:09:23,669 --> 00:09:28,289 But nonetheless, if at the very instant of a trade 190 00:09:28,289 --> 00:09:31,469 you said this value is both in the money 191 00:09:31,470 --> 00:09:35,129 and in the commodity, it would be it's an oddity. 192 00:09:35,129 --> 00:09:37,590 There has to be a moment in which it's in both of them 193 00:09:37,590 --> 00:09:39,240 and then switches. 194 00:09:39,240 --> 00:09:44,070 There is a ontological contradiction there, 195 00:09:44,070 --> 00:09:46,653 and he wants to play that out. 196 00:09:53,279 --> 00:09:56,220 Circulation he calls a moving contradiction. 197 00:09:56,220 --> 00:09:59,009 What you have, I want what I have you want, 198 00:09:59,009 --> 00:10:00,840 the value that I have transfers to you, 199 00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:03,030 the value that you have transfers to me, 200 00:10:03,029 --> 00:10:07,112 value moves in these eccentric ellipses. 201 00:10:08,039 --> 00:10:08,872 Sandra. 202 00:10:08,873 --> 00:10:10,206 - Where's the contradiction? 203 00:10:10,206 --> 00:10:13,559 - The contradiction is that for a moment at least 204 00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:15,572 the value is going in both directions. 205 00:10:17,279 --> 00:10:19,230 - How does that non fiction? 206 00:10:19,230 --> 00:10:20,100 - Well, it can't, 207 00:10:20,100 --> 00:10:25,067 value doesn't double itself just out of nowhere. 208 00:10:25,067 --> 00:10:26,534 - But there there are two commodities, right? 209 00:10:26,534 --> 00:10:27,634 There's the double of value. 210 00:10:27,634 --> 00:10:28,529 - Mm-hmm. - Half of it is going, 211 00:10:28,529 --> 00:10:30,329 yeah, who is gonna other place. 212 00:10:30,330 --> 00:10:33,120 - No, it's not half of it going, it's the whole. 213 00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:34,830 - Yeah, the whole of one and the whole of the other. 214 00:10:34,830 --> 00:10:36,780 - That's right, but at a moment they switch. 215 00:10:36,779 --> 00:10:38,490 So, he thinks of this as a contradiction, 216 00:10:38,490 --> 00:10:39,842 is a real contradiction. 217 00:10:40,860 --> 00:10:42,810 That's one way to think of the transformation 218 00:10:42,809 --> 00:10:45,479 or the transfer of value as a real contradiction. 219 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:47,700 I have the value now you have the value, 220 00:10:47,700 --> 00:10:49,700 you have the value now I have the value. 221 00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:52,740 How did it become naturalized 222 00:10:52,740 --> 00:10:56,039 to think that that makes sense? 223 00:10:56,039 --> 00:10:58,409 Where is the thing that's moving between the two? 224 00:10:58,409 --> 00:11:00,752 There is no actual transfer that takes place. 225 00:11:03,090 --> 00:11:04,503 That the physical transfer. 226 00:11:05,580 --> 00:11:07,480 - While you're exchanging commodities. 227 00:11:09,779 --> 00:11:10,612 - Let's keep going 228 00:11:10,613 --> 00:11:12,800 and see if we can get a better handle on this. 229 00:11:13,710 --> 00:11:17,040 He calls it also social metabolism. 230 00:11:17,039 --> 00:11:20,819 That is taking something that's locked inside something else 231 00:11:20,820 --> 00:11:23,100 and making it available 232 00:11:23,100 --> 00:11:25,470 to be used in a different part of society. 233 00:11:25,470 --> 00:11:27,779 This is what happens with the value in one thing, 234 00:11:27,779 --> 00:11:31,529 which is not useful to me as I give it to someone else 235 00:11:31,529 --> 00:11:33,692 for whom it is a value. 236 00:11:36,210 --> 00:11:37,860 He calls it social metabolism 237 00:11:37,860 --> 00:11:40,379 where these things are getting processed. 238 00:11:40,379 --> 00:11:43,379 Another analogy he uses is digestion. 239 00:11:43,379 --> 00:11:45,243 These are things becoming digested. 240 00:11:48,052 --> 00:11:48,885 (clears throat) 241 00:11:48,885 --> 00:11:52,629 And if you think about circulation as a kind of metabolism 242 00:11:53,639 --> 00:11:55,529 on the analogy of a body, 243 00:11:55,529 --> 00:11:58,319 you can also think about the rate of metabolism. 244 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:02,010 That is that things not only have to get transferred, 245 00:12:02,009 --> 00:12:04,679 but if they get transferred at a certain speed, 246 00:12:04,679 --> 00:12:06,239 you need more of them. 247 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:09,633 Like my nemesis, skinny people who can eat a lot. 248 00:12:11,399 --> 00:12:14,579 You need more of it and it has almost no consequence. 249 00:12:14,580 --> 00:12:16,032 Da. 250 00:12:16,032 --> 00:12:17,070 (clears throat) 251 00:12:17,070 --> 00:12:17,903 All right. 252 00:12:21,120 --> 00:12:26,043 Money as a means of circulation works in this formula, 253 00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:30,090 which is the formula of exchange economies. 254 00:12:30,090 --> 00:12:31,019 This is famous. 255 00:12:31,019 --> 00:12:34,169 People have taught this formula for 150 years. 256 00:12:34,169 --> 00:12:37,589 It's kind of beautiful that Marx can boil everything down 257 00:12:37,590 --> 00:12:40,379 to a simple formula or a simple visual. 258 00:12:40,379 --> 00:12:42,120 But then it's not so simple 259 00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:47,120 because here's the contradiction right there. 260 00:12:47,190 --> 00:12:49,530 It's actually happening simultaneously. 261 00:12:49,529 --> 00:12:51,899 When I sell my commodity to you for money, 262 00:12:51,899 --> 00:12:54,659 you give your money to me for the commodity. 263 00:12:54,659 --> 00:12:57,360 This is a kind of heuristic 264 00:12:57,360 --> 00:13:01,649 or an artificial unfolding 265 00:13:01,649 --> 00:13:03,629 of what happens like this. 266 00:13:03,629 --> 00:13:06,783 So, the money doubles there for a minute. 267 00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:18,990 This is a simultaneous thing 268 00:13:18,990 --> 00:13:20,733 and you can see also that, 269 00:13:23,429 --> 00:13:24,262 let's see, 270 00:13:25,950 --> 00:13:26,973 it could go on, 271 00:13:29,429 --> 00:13:30,262 right? 272 00:13:31,379 --> 00:13:34,592 You have one transaction, 273 00:13:37,740 --> 00:13:39,243 a second transaction. 274 00:13:40,710 --> 00:13:44,733 This is how circulation works in simple circulation. 275 00:13:46,481 --> 00:13:48,269 (clears throat) 276 00:13:48,269 --> 00:13:51,750 When you get money for your commodity, as you know, 277 00:13:51,750 --> 00:13:54,812 the value that's in this commodity has changed forms. 278 00:13:56,159 --> 00:13:58,159 It comes in a different form altogether. 279 00:14:01,590 --> 00:14:04,470 This is a change that's absolutely crucial 280 00:14:04,470 --> 00:14:05,670 for the capital system 281 00:14:05,669 --> 00:14:09,870 just as it's crucial for other not fully capitalist systems 282 00:14:09,870 --> 00:14:12,182 that use a trade economy. 283 00:14:14,789 --> 00:14:17,459 One thing you start to get here in this section, 284 00:14:17,460 --> 00:14:20,129 you get even more in the next chapter, 285 00:14:20,129 --> 00:14:25,129 is the picture of an economy as an immense network of trades 286 00:14:25,830 --> 00:14:29,009 that are going on all at once in a fairly chaotic fashion. 287 00:14:29,009 --> 00:14:30,960 Except they all have to have this form 288 00:14:30,960 --> 00:14:32,730 and to some degree this commodity 289 00:14:32,730 --> 00:14:34,800 has to be more or less the same. 290 00:14:34,799 --> 00:14:36,939 Say it is iron for money 291 00:14:38,700 --> 00:14:41,730 and money for, let's see what are we doing here? 292 00:14:41,730 --> 00:14:43,832 A money for iron, that's that one thing. 293 00:14:44,820 --> 00:14:48,243 So, then the iron goes to something else. 294 00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:53,400 Let me think about that. 295 00:14:54,643 --> 00:14:56,610 (clears throat) 296 00:14:56,610 --> 00:14:59,797 What he's showing you above all here is how the sale 297 00:15:02,100 --> 00:15:05,399 is different than the purchase in its perspective. 298 00:15:05,399 --> 00:15:09,360 A purchase is turning a money into a commodity 299 00:15:09,360 --> 00:15:11,610 and a sale is turning a commodity into money. 300 00:15:13,500 --> 00:15:17,850 In a purchase, prices he calls the bedroom eyes 301 00:15:17,850 --> 00:15:20,399 with which commodities wink at money. 302 00:15:20,399 --> 00:15:21,572 It's a beautiful line. 303 00:15:22,470 --> 00:15:26,700 And it implies the kind of power and seduction 304 00:15:26,700 --> 00:15:28,830 and attraction that's involved in this. 305 00:15:28,830 --> 00:15:30,840 You look at a price and you think, 306 00:15:30,840 --> 00:15:33,180 my money is attracted to that price. 307 00:15:33,179 --> 00:15:35,009 My money is very close to that price. 308 00:15:35,009 --> 00:15:37,679 I might even have something left over for lunch. 309 00:15:37,679 --> 00:15:38,512 I'll buy it. 310 00:15:40,830 --> 00:15:43,290 But you see also here a kind of schizophrenia 311 00:15:43,289 --> 00:15:48,289 where the seller is also a buyer. 312 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:50,253 The seller is a buyer of money, 313 00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:55,290 and the buyer is also a seller. 314 00:15:55,289 --> 00:15:57,692 The buyer is a seller of money. 315 00:15:59,495 --> 00:16:01,988 Yeah, the buyer's a seller of money. 316 00:16:01,988 --> 00:16:02,821 (clears throat) 317 00:16:02,821 --> 00:16:04,740 And in this way we begin to see 318 00:16:04,740 --> 00:16:09,690 how every economic activity turns into a circuit 319 00:16:09,690 --> 00:16:11,673 that has to be closed. 320 00:16:14,159 --> 00:16:15,329 The seller takes their money 321 00:16:15,330 --> 00:16:17,910 and goes invest it in something they need. 322 00:16:17,909 --> 00:16:20,159 The buyer takes their banana 323 00:16:20,159 --> 00:16:22,773 and reproduces their labor-power. 324 00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:27,360 It's a kind of perpetual motion machine 325 00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:29,513 and this is one of the characteristics of the capital system 326 00:16:29,513 --> 00:16:32,700 that is not characteristic of feudalism or other things, 327 00:16:32,700 --> 00:16:37,080 although in all economic systems, you need to reproduce. 328 00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:39,870 You need to reproduce your own energies, 329 00:16:39,870 --> 00:16:42,210 you need to reproduce the society. 330 00:16:42,210 --> 00:16:47,210 It doesn't have to become restless endless notion. 331 00:16:50,399 --> 00:16:53,730 Circulation, in case you wanna know, is taken up, 332 00:16:53,730 --> 00:16:56,820 exploded and developed in volume two, 333 00:16:56,820 --> 00:16:58,320 which I recommend you reading. 334 00:16:59,549 --> 00:17:02,522 If you look at pages 86 to 87, 335 00:17:03,450 --> 00:17:07,957 you have here a really clear initial interpretation 336 00:17:09,720 --> 00:17:12,452 of how circulation changes space and time. 337 00:17:17,549 --> 00:17:18,722 First of all, 338 00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:24,030 if you look in the middle of the second full paragraph, 339 00:17:24,029 --> 00:17:26,099 starting with commodity circulation differs 340 00:17:26,099 --> 00:17:28,139 from the direct exchange of products, 341 00:17:28,140 --> 00:17:30,960 not only in terms of form, but also in its essence. 342 00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:35,100 He says in the middle, "We see here how the exchange 343 00:17:35,099 --> 00:17:37,169 of commodities bursts the individual 344 00:17:37,170 --> 00:17:38,430 and local limits that go 345 00:17:38,430 --> 00:17:40,529 with the direct exchange of products, 346 00:17:40,529 --> 00:17:44,069 thereby advancing the metabolization of human labor. 347 00:17:44,069 --> 00:17:44,903 On the other hand, 348 00:17:44,903 --> 00:17:47,430 a whole network of natural social connections develops 349 00:17:47,430 --> 00:17:49,259 through commodity circulation. 350 00:17:49,259 --> 00:17:53,069 One that human actors involved can't control. 351 00:17:53,069 --> 00:17:54,750 The weaver can sell his linen only 352 00:17:54,750 --> 00:17:57,630 because the farmer has already sold his wheat. 353 00:17:57,630 --> 00:17:59,270 The drunk can sell his bible. 354 00:17:59,269 --> 00:18:01,019 Ha ha ha. 355 00:18:01,019 --> 00:18:04,230 Only because the weaver has already sold his linen. 356 00:18:04,230 --> 00:18:07,289 The distiller can sell his Eau-de-vie only because the drunk 357 00:18:07,289 --> 00:18:10,769 has already sold the water of everlasting life and so on." 358 00:18:10,769 --> 00:18:11,910 Marx's never tires 359 00:18:11,910 --> 00:18:15,932 of ridiculing certain aspects of religion. 360 00:18:17,910 --> 00:18:22,170 Drunk priests who needed a buck to buy their schnapps, 361 00:18:22,170 --> 00:18:24,000 maybe not in the best taste, 362 00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:26,403 but he was not always in the best taste. 363 00:18:27,779 --> 00:18:29,700 What happens with circulation? 364 00:18:29,700 --> 00:18:33,240 With circulation space spreads out, 365 00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:35,849 the limits of a society spread 366 00:18:35,849 --> 00:18:40,849 to almost unlimited spatial size. 367 00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:42,180 Watch the expense. 368 00:18:42,180 --> 00:18:44,039 Look at the title of that TV show. 369 00:18:44,039 --> 00:18:46,109 Did you ever watch that show "Expense?" 370 00:18:46,109 --> 00:18:48,899 They do mining in the outer belts 371 00:18:48,900 --> 00:18:51,390 where they have a bunch of wage slaves 372 00:18:51,390 --> 00:18:54,603 who do all the mining, who then rebel. 373 00:18:56,303 --> 00:18:57,480 (clears throat) 374 00:18:57,480 --> 00:19:00,360 Time also changes because my time 375 00:19:00,359 --> 00:19:03,479 is totally dependent on when you can sell your product. 376 00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:04,740 'Cause I can't sell my product to you 377 00:19:04,740 --> 00:19:08,043 until you sell your product to Austin, for example. 378 00:19:09,089 --> 00:19:10,439 This is called turnover times 379 00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:13,620 and time becomes the measure of turnovers, 380 00:19:13,619 --> 00:19:14,939 and this impinges on us. 381 00:19:14,940 --> 00:19:18,180 This is like the new seasons, the seasons of capital. 382 00:19:18,180 --> 00:19:20,523 It's no longer the harvest, it's the turnover. 383 00:19:22,109 --> 00:19:23,849 A new calendar, a new clock, 384 00:19:23,849 --> 00:19:27,240 the clock to begin with, Richard. 385 00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:32,240 - So, like is time contractors is (indistinct) 386 00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:33,480 - I don't know if it's as simple 387 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:36,089 as to say time is contracted and space is expanded 388 00:19:36,089 --> 00:19:38,309 because space is also abrogated completely 389 00:19:38,309 --> 00:19:40,232 by virtual networks. 390 00:19:41,759 --> 00:19:46,740 Time becomes much more critical, 391 00:19:46,740 --> 00:19:50,039 much more in need of calculation, 392 00:19:50,039 --> 00:19:55,039 but not calculable in a simple clock format. 393 00:19:55,319 --> 00:19:58,200 Because there's so many sets of dependencies, 394 00:19:58,200 --> 00:19:59,940 you can't really fully calculate it. 395 00:19:59,940 --> 00:20:03,539 So, time is incalculable, let's say in a human life 396 00:20:03,539 --> 00:20:05,789 because you don't know when you're gonna die. 397 00:20:05,789 --> 00:20:08,879 So, you live in a species not of infinity 398 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:11,400 as a certain romantic imaginary would have it. 399 00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:16,400 But confusion and in determination, right? 400 00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:18,360 Could be tomorrow, could be whenever. 401 00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:20,129 This is not the time of capital. 402 00:20:20,130 --> 00:20:23,910 The time of capital is not the time of existence. 403 00:20:23,910 --> 00:20:25,473 Sorry, Martin Heidegger. 404 00:20:26,730 --> 00:20:29,819 You can try to be a living existent under capital, 405 00:20:29,819 --> 00:20:32,572 but you're likely to have to go to work in the meantime. 406 00:20:34,470 --> 00:20:36,779 There's a lot to say about that. 407 00:20:36,779 --> 00:20:37,859 It is important to understand 408 00:20:37,859 --> 00:20:40,109 that money as a means of circulation, 409 00:20:40,109 --> 00:20:43,042 if you didn't have money, if it didn't serve this function, 410 00:20:44,039 --> 00:20:46,470 we would have a different universe, 411 00:20:46,470 --> 00:20:48,269 a different cosmology, different space 412 00:20:48,269 --> 00:20:51,573 and time pressures on ourselves. 413 00:20:56,863 --> 00:20:57,696 (clears throat) 414 00:20:57,695 --> 00:21:00,689 It also gets right into the center of beings. 415 00:21:00,690 --> 00:21:04,952 Sorry, again, Martin Heidegger, page 87. 416 00:21:06,299 --> 00:21:09,480 There is a kind of schizo tendency in capital 417 00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:11,130 to split things apart, 418 00:21:11,130 --> 00:21:15,030 like a thing becomes a purchase thing and a sold thing. 419 00:21:15,029 --> 00:21:16,829 Those are not the same thing at all. 420 00:21:18,450 --> 00:21:21,753 A sold thing could be used for its use value. 421 00:21:23,460 --> 00:21:24,660 It might be resold, 422 00:21:24,660 --> 00:21:25,980 but in simple circulation, 423 00:21:25,980 --> 00:21:28,170 we're not talking about capital yet. 424 00:21:28,170 --> 00:21:30,663 So, the person who buys it uses it. 425 00:21:31,536 --> 00:21:32,650 A thing that is sold 426 00:21:33,599 --> 00:21:36,119 is a couple of steps away from use value. 427 00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:37,412 It is still a value. 428 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:42,900 The identity of things gets broken. 429 00:21:42,900 --> 00:21:46,023 Space and time get transformed. 430 00:21:49,619 --> 00:21:53,339 This is the recipe for a set of crises 431 00:21:53,339 --> 00:21:56,159 in which the things don't arrive on time. 432 00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:58,259 The money doesn't arrive on time. 433 00:21:58,259 --> 00:22:01,859 Space becomes an obstacle rather than a facilitator. 434 00:22:01,859 --> 00:22:04,079 You can see here on the bottom of page 87, 435 00:22:04,079 --> 00:22:05,669 he mentions for the first time 436 00:22:05,670 --> 00:22:07,320 a very important word for Marx. 437 00:22:07,319 --> 00:22:09,873 He spent his whole life tracking crises, 438 00:22:10,859 --> 00:22:14,972 real crises, monetary crises, overproduction crises, 439 00:22:16,769 --> 00:22:18,363 natural crises like weather, 440 00:22:19,799 --> 00:22:22,440 and was interested in finding out, as you know, 441 00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:25,950 where the internal tendencies towards crises were 442 00:22:25,950 --> 00:22:27,059 in the capital system. 443 00:22:27,059 --> 00:22:30,450 He was convinced that if there wasn't gonna be a revolution, 444 00:22:30,450 --> 00:22:34,830 there were certainly gonna be crises that wounded capital 445 00:22:34,829 --> 00:22:36,542 and maybe even brought it down. 446 00:22:37,559 --> 00:22:41,399 Although he never saw that in a fateful way, 447 00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,040 despite some Marxist readings of this book, 448 00:22:44,039 --> 00:22:45,149 there was no prediction 449 00:22:45,150 --> 00:22:47,910 that within a certain amount of generations 450 00:22:47,910 --> 00:22:52,143 a crisis would happen and capital would fall. 451 00:22:57,809 --> 00:22:59,639 This is the philosophical explanation 452 00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:01,590 of a crisis in the bottom of 87. 453 00:23:01,589 --> 00:23:03,869 I just wanna point it out to you. 454 00:23:03,869 --> 00:23:06,569 If things that complete each other internally 455 00:23:06,569 --> 00:23:08,159 and thus aren't independent, 456 00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:11,430 become externally, independent past a certain point, 457 00:23:11,430 --> 00:23:14,279 then their unity will make itself felt with great force 458 00:23:14,279 --> 00:23:17,009 by way of a crisis. 459 00:23:17,009 --> 00:23:18,779 So, money and commodities 460 00:23:18,779 --> 00:23:21,930 are absolutely internally dependent on one another. 461 00:23:21,930 --> 00:23:23,070 If you take all the money out 462 00:23:23,069 --> 00:23:24,869 of the system one way or the other, 463 00:23:24,869 --> 00:23:26,489 that's a crisis, 464 00:23:26,490 --> 00:23:29,190 that acts as though money is independent. 465 00:23:29,190 --> 00:23:33,090 This is already leading towards the definition of capital, 466 00:23:33,089 --> 00:23:35,579 which is not just money or value, 467 00:23:35,579 --> 00:23:37,919 but money in constant circulation 468 00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:41,763 and value in constant transformation for a certain purpose. 469 00:23:43,950 --> 00:23:44,783 Does that make sense? 470 00:23:44,782 --> 00:23:46,529 That's a very abstract view of a crisis. 471 00:23:46,529 --> 00:23:49,589 We can talk about how crises happen otherwise, yes. 472 00:23:49,589 --> 00:23:53,549 - Yeah, I heard actually his circuit, right? 473 00:23:53,549 --> 00:23:55,710 So, it looks like the C, it mixes 474 00:23:55,710 --> 00:24:00,480 that CMC will represent that there's some depend, 475 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:01,829 but like circuits that added in it, 476 00:24:01,829 --> 00:24:04,559 because we get to there'll be C prime, 477 00:24:04,559 --> 00:24:07,079 C prime prime, C prime prime, right? 478 00:24:07,079 --> 00:24:10,106 There could be a sacrificial way the trinity of one. 479 00:24:10,106 --> 00:24:13,500 But I guess my question is to what extent 480 00:24:13,500 --> 00:24:15,569 or at what level do we start, right? 481 00:24:15,569 --> 00:24:19,289 What level the owners of commodities 482 00:24:19,289 --> 00:24:21,659 or the owners of money say, okay, 483 00:24:21,660 --> 00:24:23,997 there's a point where I no longer need a commodity 484 00:24:23,997 --> 00:24:25,920 and I want to like see if my body, right? 485 00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:26,753 That's my first question. 486 00:24:26,752 --> 00:24:28,097 And then the second question- 487 00:24:28,097 --> 00:24:29,639 - Death. - To do with- 488 00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:30,590 - That's my answer. 489 00:24:31,500 --> 00:24:32,369 - What's the difference? 490 00:24:32,369 --> 00:24:33,993 I don't know if Marx says this, 491 00:24:33,993 --> 00:24:35,009 but I don't know what's the difference 492 00:24:35,009 --> 00:24:38,400 between commodity circulation and barter? 493 00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:42,700 The barter system (indistinct) makes that distinction. 494 00:24:42,700 --> 00:24:45,000 - Yeah, no, no, he certainly makes that distinction. 495 00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:49,650 The first question is when does this commodity exchange 496 00:24:49,650 --> 00:24:51,180 or commodity circulation stop? 497 00:24:51,180 --> 00:24:54,509 And it only stops when the whole society is destroyed 498 00:24:54,509 --> 00:24:57,119 and it stops for an individual when they're dead. 499 00:24:57,119 --> 00:24:58,259 It has to keep going. 500 00:24:58,259 --> 00:25:03,259 That is one of the basic assumptions of Marxist system 501 00:25:04,230 --> 00:25:09,230 that individuals need to reproduce their life forces 502 00:25:09,569 --> 00:25:12,450 and societies need to reproduce their individuals 503 00:25:12,450 --> 00:25:15,660 and their life forces interdependently. 504 00:25:15,660 --> 00:25:17,580 'Cause my life forces depend on all of you 505 00:25:17,579 --> 00:25:19,772 and yours all depend on me and each other. 506 00:25:20,789 --> 00:25:22,769 Your individuality is not separable. 507 00:25:22,769 --> 00:25:25,889 That would be another thing that if you separated it out, 508 00:25:25,890 --> 00:25:27,120 it would be a big crisis. 509 00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:28,082 That is if, 510 00:25:32,490 --> 00:25:36,539 libertarianism were not such a ridiculous fantasy, 511 00:25:36,539 --> 00:25:38,250 if you could actually carry it out 512 00:25:38,250 --> 00:25:40,893 and everyone severed themselves from everyone else, 513 00:25:42,180 --> 00:25:43,130 everyone would die. 514 00:25:44,519 --> 00:25:47,549 So, it is libertarianism is not just a death wish, 515 00:25:47,549 --> 00:25:49,019 but a murderous wish. 516 00:25:50,696 --> 00:25:51,529 AJ. 517 00:25:51,529 --> 00:25:52,799 - So, capital has a tendency 518 00:25:52,799 --> 00:25:57,389 to split couple things into their kind of independent parts 519 00:25:57,390 --> 00:26:00,450 and crises arise when that split happened. 520 00:26:00,450 --> 00:26:02,819 - No, what one definition of a crisis 521 00:26:02,819 --> 00:26:05,879 is when the capital system can't keep going. 522 00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:07,540 So, it must keep going 523 00:26:08,490 --> 00:26:11,430 and keep these interdependencies alive. 524 00:26:11,430 --> 00:26:14,700 Your second question was about the difference 525 00:26:14,700 --> 00:26:17,343 between the circulation of commodities and barter. 526 00:26:18,180 --> 00:26:21,212 Barter is not according to Marx circulation, 527 00:26:22,710 --> 00:26:23,853 it's not circular. 528 00:26:26,670 --> 00:26:28,860 It doesn't send something out to get something back. 529 00:26:28,859 --> 00:26:30,719 Well, it does actually. 530 00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:32,430 But it doesn't circulate in society. 531 00:26:32,430 --> 00:26:35,549 It goes just usually between individuals. 532 00:26:35,549 --> 00:26:40,079 So, I would as a barterer, barter each one of my what? 533 00:26:41,940 --> 00:26:46,940 Pens to individuals who have individual wants for them. 534 00:26:47,130 --> 00:26:48,570 That is not circulation. 535 00:26:48,569 --> 00:26:52,289 Circulation is where someone trades something to me 536 00:26:52,289 --> 00:26:53,942 and I trade that to someone else. 537 00:26:55,859 --> 00:26:57,089 Yep. 538 00:26:57,089 --> 00:27:00,869 - So, does Marx explain 539 00:27:00,869 --> 00:27:04,709 the evolution from barter to circulation? 540 00:27:04,710 --> 00:27:06,930 - There is no evolution from barter to circulation, 541 00:27:06,930 --> 00:27:08,702 at least historically, 542 00:27:11,490 --> 00:27:13,039 they're just different systems. 543 00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:16,890 Yep, circulation comes into play 544 00:27:16,890 --> 00:27:21,890 when a society is so big that is big enough 545 00:27:23,549 --> 00:27:25,442 and the form simply takes hold. 546 00:27:26,279 --> 00:27:27,210 Both of those are true. 547 00:27:27,210 --> 00:27:28,200 So, it's contingent, 548 00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,539 but also there's some necessity in there, 549 00:27:30,539 --> 00:27:34,649 that one producer couldn't get all that they want 550 00:27:34,650 --> 00:27:36,200 from bartering their own thing. 551 00:27:39,140 --> 00:27:41,850 But that doesn't happen because barter develops. 552 00:27:41,849 --> 00:27:44,069 That happens for all sorts of other reasons. 553 00:27:44,069 --> 00:27:44,903 Does that make sense? 554 00:27:44,903 --> 00:27:47,700 Population growth, ideas, 555 00:27:47,700 --> 00:27:49,049 trial and error. 556 00:27:49,049 --> 00:27:51,359 The strange success of the idea of capital 557 00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:55,049 in the 15th century for trading across large distances, 558 00:27:55,049 --> 00:27:56,500 the historical forces 559 00:27:57,990 --> 00:27:59,579 and contingencies, 560 00:27:59,579 --> 00:28:02,759 accidents that make it possible 561 00:28:02,759 --> 00:28:05,369 that the rollercoaster, 562 00:28:05,369 --> 00:28:08,969 that the perpetual motion machine of capital gets started 563 00:28:08,970 --> 00:28:11,400 are not part of the perpetual motion machine. 564 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:13,800 There is no necessity that capitalism 565 00:28:13,799 --> 00:28:17,759 would have inaugurated, none whatsoever. 566 00:28:17,759 --> 00:28:19,650 And you'll see that in later chapters. 567 00:28:19,650 --> 00:28:20,580 It did. 568 00:28:20,579 --> 00:28:22,919 Once it got going, it consumes everything 569 00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:24,750 and its necessity takes over. 570 00:28:24,750 --> 00:28:26,049 That's the problem really. 571 00:28:27,430 --> 00:28:29,063 Yeah. - Yeah, you just- 572 00:28:29,063 --> 00:28:30,509 - Another question out. 573 00:28:30,509 --> 00:28:32,190 So it looks to me like from Marx 574 00:28:32,190 --> 00:28:35,130 the difference between circulation and barter will be 575 00:28:35,130 --> 00:28:36,600 that whereas in the barter system 576 00:28:36,599 --> 00:28:38,629 there's a kind of restriction of place and time 577 00:28:38,630 --> 00:28:39,540 as you mentioned earlier 578 00:28:39,539 --> 00:28:41,849 in circulation there are restriction, 579 00:28:41,849 --> 00:28:44,699 circulation goes beyond presents. 580 00:28:44,700 --> 00:28:45,533 - Yeah. 581 00:28:45,532 --> 00:28:49,709 And the name for that lack of restriction is money. 582 00:28:49,710 --> 00:28:52,890 So, it's not just an ideal lack of restriction, 583 00:28:52,890 --> 00:28:54,450 it is a material lack of restriction. 584 00:28:54,450 --> 00:28:56,460 We have this technology called money 585 00:28:56,460 --> 00:28:58,950 that's used in this particular way 586 00:28:58,950 --> 00:29:02,730 and as he'll say in commodity circulation, 587 00:29:02,730 --> 00:29:06,000 the money is constantly moving in an eccentric path. 588 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,000 It moves from this person to that person, 589 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,063 and then from this person to that person, 590 00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,019 will have a very different circulatory 591 00:29:19,019 --> 00:29:20,403 movement under capital. 592 00:29:22,500 --> 00:29:25,009 - But this is not the capitalist. 593 00:29:26,190 --> 00:29:27,150 - We're not a capital yet. 594 00:29:27,150 --> 00:29:29,220 We're in a kind of threshold form, 595 00:29:29,220 --> 00:29:32,880 which is commodity circulation in an exchange market. 596 00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:36,660 But no one wants the capital difference yet, 597 00:29:36,660 --> 00:29:39,750 which is getting more from the same. 598 00:29:39,750 --> 00:29:43,772 A totally absurd requirement, which it turns out is a lie. 599 00:29:46,710 --> 00:29:47,543 Okay. 600 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,160 He spends a while here talking 601 00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:51,300 about the circulation of money. 602 00:29:51,299 --> 00:29:54,240 It's very important that money circulate too, 603 00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:58,262 because insofar as commodities change places with money, 604 00:29:59,190 --> 00:30:00,870 money has to be there 605 00:30:00,869 --> 00:30:02,879 for these commodities to change places. 606 00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:07,050 And even though the reason commodities are sold 607 00:30:07,049 --> 00:30:09,990 is because of their use value, I need it. 608 00:30:09,990 --> 00:30:11,849 The reason they're sold 609 00:30:11,849 --> 00:30:13,949 is because money is there to make them go. 610 00:30:14,970 --> 00:30:16,680 So, which of these reasons wins out? 611 00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:18,509 Well, in an exchange economy, money does 612 00:30:18,509 --> 00:30:20,190 or it comes to look like it does. 613 00:30:20,190 --> 00:30:23,370 And so we have phrases like money is power. 614 00:30:23,369 --> 00:30:25,500 Money makes the world go round. 615 00:30:25,500 --> 00:30:27,059 It does make the world go round. 616 00:30:27,059 --> 00:30:28,740 Of course there would be no world to go round 617 00:30:28,740 --> 00:30:30,029 if we didn't make commodities 618 00:30:30,029 --> 00:30:32,430 that people could use to reproduce their powers, 619 00:30:34,049 --> 00:30:35,579 and to just enjoy them. 620 00:30:35,579 --> 00:30:36,932 I love a good commodity, 621 00:30:38,609 --> 00:30:39,812 sometimes too much. 622 00:30:41,099 --> 00:30:42,269 In the commodity system, 623 00:30:42,269 --> 00:30:44,343 commodities move towards consumption. 624 00:30:46,380 --> 00:30:48,450 Money moves away from its starting point 625 00:30:48,450 --> 00:30:51,063 and they move towards consumption. 626 00:30:53,220 --> 00:30:55,200 Marx wants you to be absolutely clear, 627 00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,470 however that commodities move money, 628 00:30:58,470 --> 00:31:00,029 not the other way around. 629 00:31:00,029 --> 00:31:01,619 Money in fact is a commodity. 630 00:31:01,619 --> 00:31:02,729 It has value. 631 00:31:02,730 --> 00:31:03,783 Somebody made it. 632 00:31:04,769 --> 00:31:08,403 If nobody made it, it would be valueless like air. 633 00:31:10,500 --> 00:31:13,200 Without the commodity there'd be no system. 634 00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:14,640 Marx says, despite the appearance 635 00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:16,710 that money makes the world go round, 636 00:31:16,710 --> 00:31:18,513 commodities are prime movers. 637 00:31:22,019 --> 00:31:23,400 He talks about the need 638 00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,920 to have a certain amount of money in circulation 639 00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:30,029 and to relate the amount of money in circulation 640 00:31:30,029 --> 00:31:31,920 to the speed by which it circulates. 641 00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,740 You can have less money in circulation if it goes faster, 642 00:31:34,740 --> 00:31:36,480 obviously 'cause it makes its way 643 00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,779 to the other transactions more quickly. 644 00:31:39,779 --> 00:31:41,789 Okay, quickly these other ones. 645 00:31:41,789 --> 00:31:45,930 Well, money has to store value because of the temporality 646 00:31:45,930 --> 00:31:47,432 in an exchange economy. 647 00:31:48,690 --> 00:31:50,400 When I'm waiting for something to come in, 648 00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:51,780 I have to have the money for it. 649 00:31:51,779 --> 00:31:55,292 So, it has to keep the value that it's representing. 650 00:31:56,730 --> 00:31:58,289 This is one of its functions. 651 00:31:58,289 --> 00:32:01,440 So, long as I have the money give or take, 652 00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:02,940 given inflation and other things, 653 00:32:02,940 --> 00:32:05,750 which is another reason it should be put into circulation. 654 00:32:05,750 --> 00:32:10,259 If it's put into circulation, it can absorb inflation. 655 00:32:10,259 --> 00:32:11,879 If it's taken out of circulation 656 00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:12,900 is just sitting in the bank, 657 00:32:12,900 --> 00:32:15,003 it will deplete along with inflation. 658 00:32:17,579 --> 00:32:19,710 It has to be a store of value as well. 659 00:32:19,710 --> 00:32:21,840 These are separate functions, though they're related, 660 00:32:21,839 --> 00:32:23,519 insofar as it's a measure of value, 661 00:32:23,519 --> 00:32:24,932 it can be a store of value. 662 00:32:26,579 --> 00:32:29,163 Insofar as it's a means of circulation, 663 00:32:31,349 --> 00:32:32,639 well, really everything derives 664 00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:34,860 from it's being a measure of value. 665 00:32:34,859 --> 00:32:36,089 I wanna mention this too 666 00:32:36,089 --> 00:32:39,179 because it relates to the other aspect 667 00:32:39,180 --> 00:32:41,330 that he brackets out here, which is credit. 668 00:32:43,079 --> 00:32:45,059 Money has to be the accepted means of payment 669 00:32:45,059 --> 00:32:46,109 when you take a loan. 670 00:32:47,970 --> 00:32:49,380 If they give you a loan of your car 671 00:32:49,380 --> 00:32:51,330 and you go to pay it back in bananas, 672 00:32:51,329 --> 00:32:54,182 well, you can imagine. 673 00:32:57,210 --> 00:33:01,350 This by the way, gives you in an important set of passages 674 00:33:01,349 --> 00:33:03,389 on page 105, 675 00:33:03,390 --> 00:33:07,713 the genesis of the specific type of capitalist wealth. 676 00:33:11,940 --> 00:33:13,890 There's no wealth in capitalism, 677 00:33:13,890 --> 00:33:15,210 even though people talk about it. 678 00:33:15,210 --> 00:33:16,502 There's only capital. 679 00:33:18,299 --> 00:33:20,549 We'll see that in the next chapter. 680 00:33:20,549 --> 00:33:23,069 In so far as it's wealth, it's been taken out of circulation 681 00:33:23,069 --> 00:33:25,532 and it's steadily becoming less wealthy. 682 00:33:26,519 --> 00:33:27,603 Ask Warren Buffet. 683 00:33:28,829 --> 00:33:31,649 You gotta have it all moving, all invested, 684 00:33:31,650 --> 00:33:33,483 otherwise it loses. 685 00:33:36,299 --> 00:33:37,500 Is this the page I want? 686 00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:45,990 In so far as money stores value 687 00:33:45,990 --> 00:33:47,640 and can be a means of payment, 688 00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:49,143 it's worth accumulating. 689 00:33:51,660 --> 00:33:55,740 Also in so far as it's a future means of circulation, 690 00:33:55,740 --> 00:33:59,250 so in fact, these three go together really well. 691 00:33:59,250 --> 00:34:01,170 As a future means of circulation, 692 00:34:01,170 --> 00:34:03,660 as a store of value and as a means of payment, 693 00:34:03,660 --> 00:34:05,700 I can accumulate, but my accumulation 694 00:34:05,700 --> 00:34:07,323 is called a reserve fund. 695 00:34:09,570 --> 00:34:11,820 There's no treasure store. 696 00:34:11,820 --> 00:34:14,250 There's no dragon there sitting on its treasure 697 00:34:14,250 --> 00:34:15,780 for eons and eons. 698 00:34:15,780 --> 00:34:17,460 As it steadily goes down in value, 699 00:34:17,460 --> 00:34:20,550 people look at it and be like, what are all these trinkets? 700 00:34:20,550 --> 00:34:23,610 Imagine if you kept like all the old Marx, 701 00:34:23,610 --> 00:34:25,809 well maybe they're worth something, I dunno. 702 00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,603 The idea that money can be stored, 703 00:34:34,590 --> 00:34:36,780 value can be stored in money, 704 00:34:36,780 --> 00:34:38,400 shows you the form of wealth 705 00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:40,380 and why it's important for certain people 706 00:34:40,380 --> 00:34:42,963 to hoard under the capital system. 707 00:34:43,889 --> 00:34:45,659 It's not for their enjoyment, 708 00:34:45,659 --> 00:34:49,019 it's not for their higher purchasing power. 709 00:34:49,019 --> 00:34:50,789 Even though these super wealthy people 710 00:34:50,789 --> 00:34:52,742 are constantly buying luxury things, 711 00:34:53,670 --> 00:34:55,980 it's so that they can put it back into circulation 712 00:34:55,980 --> 00:34:58,619 and it can act as a measure of value, just to say that. 713 00:34:58,619 --> 00:35:01,019 It becomes a market power, 714 00:35:01,019 --> 00:35:04,170 not purchasing power, not private power. 715 00:35:04,170 --> 00:35:06,393 It's a means of storing market power. 716 00:35:08,369 --> 00:35:09,630 That I wanted to mention to you 717 00:35:09,630 --> 00:35:14,492 because the transformation of wealth is really important. 718 00:35:16,469 --> 00:35:18,179 Capital is not wealth, 719 00:35:18,179 --> 00:35:22,652 it is value in circulation for a purpose, 720 00:35:23,639 --> 00:35:28,639 but that value needs to be sometimes put aside as a reserve, 721 00:35:29,250 --> 00:35:32,219 never as wealth for the individual person always 722 00:35:32,219 --> 00:35:37,079 as a bet on future investments. 723 00:35:37,079 --> 00:35:38,163 Yeah, Thomas. 724 00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:41,490 - So, you say that it must always, 725 00:35:41,489 --> 00:35:45,059 any accumulation must always go back 726 00:35:45,059 --> 00:35:47,579 or at least that's what the individual must intend to, 727 00:35:47,579 --> 00:35:50,159 but in practice must actually always go back 728 00:35:50,159 --> 00:35:53,762 into circulation or can it be just accumulated? 729 00:35:56,489 --> 00:35:57,719 - Well, it can be, 730 00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:00,029 but it runs the risk of becoming worthless 731 00:36:00,030 --> 00:36:01,713 in a crisis, for example. 732 00:36:02,849 --> 00:36:04,889 If you own capital in a crisis, 733 00:36:04,889 --> 00:36:06,329 let's say you own a factory, 734 00:36:06,329 --> 00:36:09,059 it's possible that after the crisis that becomes, 735 00:36:09,059 --> 00:36:11,250 goes back up to its value. 736 00:36:11,250 --> 00:36:13,833 But in a crisis, the money you can just burn it. 737 00:36:15,389 --> 00:36:16,679 Yeah. - Yeah. 738 00:36:16,679 --> 00:36:17,882 - Yes, please. 739 00:36:19,170 --> 00:36:23,650 - I'm a bit confused because this CMC circulation 740 00:36:24,916 --> 00:36:27,420 is also possible in a pre-capitalist society 741 00:36:27,420 --> 00:36:29,010 that uses money. 742 00:36:29,010 --> 00:36:29,843 - Yes. - It's not money 743 00:36:29,842 --> 00:36:32,250 that makes the capital, right? 744 00:36:32,250 --> 00:36:37,250 - No, but this circulation by means of money as a mediator 745 00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,210 is crucial for capital. 746 00:36:39,210 --> 00:36:40,470 Capital is like a parasite. 747 00:36:40,469 --> 00:36:43,742 It takes older things and it makes them do its bidding. 748 00:36:44,847 --> 00:36:45,702 - But the process 749 00:36:45,702 --> 00:36:48,870 we're talking about is not unique to capitalism. 750 00:36:48,869 --> 00:36:50,579 - It's unique to capitalism. 751 00:36:50,579 --> 00:36:53,039 The question is, is this process unique to capitalism? 752 00:36:53,039 --> 00:36:56,163 It's unique to capitalism in its totality and scope. 753 00:36:58,019 --> 00:36:58,853 For example, 754 00:36:58,853 --> 00:37:02,400 a feudal society did have some circulation of commodities. 755 00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:03,960 There were trades people 756 00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:06,360 and there were some exchange of money, 757 00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:07,650 but there were other ways 758 00:37:07,650 --> 00:37:10,800 to get your needs fulfilled as well. 759 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:12,843 This takes over completely. 760 00:37:17,130 --> 00:37:19,530 Alright, we understand a little bit about money, 761 00:37:19,530 --> 00:37:22,980 now we have to understand money and simple circulation. 762 00:37:22,980 --> 00:37:23,909 We have to understand 763 00:37:23,909 --> 00:37:27,272 how money gets transformed into capital. 764 00:37:28,949 --> 00:37:30,509 The main thrust of this chapter, 765 00:37:30,510 --> 00:37:32,490 because this is a critique of political economy, 766 00:37:32,489 --> 00:37:36,029 is to show all the wrong opinions 767 00:37:36,030 --> 00:37:37,743 about where capital comes from. 768 00:37:38,849 --> 00:37:41,099 It does not come from circulation. 769 00:37:41,099 --> 00:37:43,710 He's gonna demonstrate this to you by showing 770 00:37:43,710 --> 00:37:46,309 that it's impossible that it comes from circulation. 771 00:37:48,869 --> 00:37:52,726 I just wanna read because I love his polemical voice. 772 00:37:58,139 --> 00:38:01,502 This is the last two pages of the chapter 148 to 149, 773 00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,070 in which he makes fun. 774 00:38:05,070 --> 00:38:07,230 Ridicules the people who think 775 00:38:07,230 --> 00:38:10,983 that profit comes from circulation. 776 00:38:12,427 --> 00:38:14,940 "The sphere of circulation or commodity exchange 777 00:38:14,940 --> 00:38:15,869 within whose limits 778 00:38:15,869 --> 00:38:18,630 the movement of buying and selling labor-power occurs, 779 00:38:18,630 --> 00:38:22,559 is in fact a veritable Eden of innate human rights. 780 00:38:22,559 --> 00:38:25,650 You can tell already since he's got religion in there 781 00:38:25,650 --> 00:38:27,300 that he's making fun of somebody. 782 00:38:28,349 --> 00:38:31,259 What reigns is exclusively freedom, equality, 783 00:38:31,260 --> 00:38:32,553 property and Bentham. 784 00:38:33,510 --> 00:38:36,000 Freedom because only the free wills of the buyer 785 00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:37,500 and seller of a commodity, 786 00:38:37,500 --> 00:38:40,980 for example, labor-power determine how these figures act. 787 00:38:40,980 --> 00:38:42,449 They enter into business dealings 788 00:38:42,449 --> 00:38:45,663 as free persons equal before the law, ha. 789 00:38:47,130 --> 00:38:48,570 The end result is the contract 790 00:38:48,570 --> 00:38:51,300 that represents a joint legal expression of their wills. 791 00:38:51,300 --> 00:38:54,360 Equality, because they interact only as commodity owners 792 00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,633 and exchange an equivalent for an equivalent, ha. 793 00:38:58,559 --> 00:39:01,320 Property, because each owner does whatever he wants 794 00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:02,643 with only what is his. 795 00:39:03,869 --> 00:39:05,190 Ha. 796 00:39:05,190 --> 00:39:06,240 Bentham. 797 00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:07,919 Bentham, poor Jeremy Bentham, 798 00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,409 because each cares only about himself. 799 00:39:10,409 --> 00:39:12,719 The only force that brings the two parties together 800 00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,419 and into a relation with each other as self concern, 801 00:39:15,420 --> 00:39:18,599 private interests, personal gain. 802 00:39:18,599 --> 00:39:22,472 This is the view of the market that he wants to knock down. 803 00:39:24,030 --> 00:39:26,160 That profit comes from the market 804 00:39:26,159 --> 00:39:30,842 that it is selfishly motivated that everyone is equal in it. 805 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:33,570 Not that they're unequal 806 00:39:33,570 --> 00:39:35,670 because if they had equal access to the market, 807 00:39:35,670 --> 00:39:36,503 they would be equal. 808 00:39:36,503 --> 00:39:38,850 But the market is inherently unequal, 809 00:39:38,849 --> 00:39:41,009 not because of the market, 810 00:39:41,010 --> 00:39:42,963 because of the way production works. 811 00:39:44,699 --> 00:39:46,919 This is where he tells us 812 00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:49,079 that we will leave together with the money owner 813 00:39:49,079 --> 00:39:53,819 and the labor-powers owner will leave the surface area 814 00:39:53,820 --> 00:39:56,880 and follow them into the hidden place of production. 815 00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,960 The rest of the book will be about the way surplus value 816 00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:02,250 is made in production 817 00:40:02,250 --> 00:40:04,952 and then the origins of the capital system. 818 00:40:07,230 --> 00:40:10,230 So, before we move on, we need to understand 819 00:40:10,230 --> 00:40:12,360 why this is not true, 820 00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:14,460 why he feels so free at the end of this chapter 821 00:40:14,460 --> 00:40:15,813 to ridicule these people. 822 00:40:17,190 --> 00:40:19,740 One simple definition of capital 823 00:40:19,739 --> 00:40:23,432 is that it is the products of labor held through time. 824 00:40:25,829 --> 00:40:27,269 The products of labor held through time. 825 00:40:27,269 --> 00:40:29,250 So, if I make something and I hold it through time, 826 00:40:29,250 --> 00:40:30,603 it becomes worth more. 827 00:40:32,699 --> 00:40:36,902 This is a funny economist's idea of capital. 828 00:40:38,070 --> 00:40:39,870 I just hold onto it. 829 00:40:39,869 --> 00:40:41,250 Maybe that happens with some things 830 00:40:41,250 --> 00:40:43,769 if they disappear off the face of the earth, 831 00:40:43,769 --> 00:40:45,210 but insofar as they're still there, 832 00:40:45,210 --> 00:40:47,639 it shouldn't change at all just by holding it. 833 00:40:47,639 --> 00:40:50,909 Of course it has to hold its value, we know that. 834 00:40:50,909 --> 00:40:52,589 But it's more than this. 835 00:40:52,590 --> 00:40:54,690 It's more than value. 836 00:40:54,690 --> 00:40:56,880 It's more than the super sensible 837 00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,640 quasi metaphysical substance 838 00:40:59,639 --> 00:41:01,559 that we've been talking about. 839 00:41:01,559 --> 00:41:04,710 In fact, he's gonna ask you to go beyond. 840 00:41:04,710 --> 00:41:07,050 First he asks you to go beyond the commodity 841 00:41:07,050 --> 00:41:09,000 and see it as double. 842 00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,670 Then he asks you to go beyond physical and useful things 843 00:41:11,670 --> 00:41:12,869 to see them as the bearers 844 00:41:12,869 --> 00:41:15,750 of quasi metaphysical objects called value. 845 00:41:15,750 --> 00:41:19,112 Then he asks you to think that labor is double, 846 00:41:19,980 --> 00:41:21,512 which he is gonna now exploit. 847 00:41:22,530 --> 00:41:23,850 Then he wants you to understand 848 00:41:23,849 --> 00:41:26,969 how commodity exchange makes money happen and this blows up 849 00:41:26,969 --> 00:41:28,799 and changes space and time 850 00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,593 and changes the identity of a simple object, 851 00:41:33,150 --> 00:41:36,003 and it has to keep going or else everyone starves. 852 00:41:36,869 --> 00:41:41,279 Now he's gonna ask you to put all that aside to overcome it 853 00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:46,019 and see where the more comes from. 854 00:41:46,019 --> 00:41:49,230 Because under capital we need constantly more 855 00:41:49,230 --> 00:41:51,393 to keep the minimum of life going. 856 00:41:54,210 --> 00:41:56,670 All of social life in the capital system 857 00:41:56,670 --> 00:41:58,983 is dedicated to making this more. 858 00:42:00,539 --> 00:42:04,500 In youth societies more comes generally from nature. 859 00:42:04,500 --> 00:42:06,269 The idea is that nature is abundant 860 00:42:06,269 --> 00:42:07,829 and we can just take some more, 861 00:42:07,829 --> 00:42:12,032 which is also perhaps now clearly a pernicious idea, 862 00:42:13,019 --> 00:42:14,550 but it's nature's repetitions 863 00:42:14,550 --> 00:42:16,230 that give more in a youth society. 864 00:42:16,230 --> 00:42:19,949 It gives more humans, it gives more crops, 865 00:42:19,949 --> 00:42:22,649 it gives more air and water, 866 00:42:22,650 --> 00:42:23,730 and there's also a sense 867 00:42:23,730 --> 00:42:26,880 that there's a cycle there where we're giving back our water 868 00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,300 and food in a certain form and our bodies in the end. 869 00:42:30,300 --> 00:42:31,133 This is an idea. 870 00:42:31,132 --> 00:42:32,069 This is not the only way, 871 00:42:32,070 --> 00:42:34,230 you have to think about the exchange 872 00:42:34,230 --> 00:42:35,610 between humans and nature, 873 00:42:35,610 --> 00:42:38,789 but it has a kind of virtuous cycle. 874 00:42:38,789 --> 00:42:40,949 And Marx makes this as an assumption 875 00:42:40,949 --> 00:42:42,689 that there is a virtuous cycle 876 00:42:42,690 --> 00:42:44,389 and then there is a vicious cycle. 877 00:42:48,235 --> 00:42:51,090 (clears throat) 878 00:42:51,090 --> 00:42:53,430 How do we explain this different kind of more 879 00:42:53,429 --> 00:42:55,319 that is capital. 880 00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:57,843 Boswell, economists explain it from circulation. 881 00:43:00,869 --> 00:43:03,719 We look at the capital system and we see circulation. 882 00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:06,599 We say, you know, I can sell to Alan my computer, 883 00:43:06,599 --> 00:43:10,529 and I'm like $3,500, 884 00:43:10,530 --> 00:43:11,363 why not? 885 00:43:11,362 --> 00:43:14,072 And he's gullible and he'll say, sure. 886 00:43:14,909 --> 00:43:17,609 But then when Alan goes to buy lunch, 887 00:43:17,610 --> 00:43:21,780 he's gonna be about, I don't know, $2,000 in the hole. 888 00:43:21,780 --> 00:43:22,800 Where's it gonna come from? 889 00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:24,810 It has to come from someone else. 890 00:43:24,809 --> 00:43:26,190 This is Marx's argument. 891 00:43:26,190 --> 00:43:28,679 He's gonna then pay that much less for a car 892 00:43:28,679 --> 00:43:30,569 or that much less for his lunch, 893 00:43:30,570 --> 00:43:32,039 or his poor partner is gonna be like, 894 00:43:32,039 --> 00:43:34,139 where's or where's all the money gone Alan? 895 00:43:34,139 --> 00:43:35,519 We needed to redo the roof 896 00:43:35,519 --> 00:43:39,210 on our beautiful 18th century house. 897 00:43:39,210 --> 00:43:40,043 Yeah. 898 00:43:42,659 --> 00:43:44,250 All of the extra that you could get 899 00:43:44,250 --> 00:43:48,179 from circulation Marx argues, gets passed on. 900 00:43:48,179 --> 00:43:50,669 Someone will pay it and it comes out to the same, 901 00:43:50,670 --> 00:43:52,110 because the circulation system 902 00:43:52,110 --> 00:43:54,720 is an exchange of equivalence. 903 00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:56,669 You can't get more out of the same. 904 00:43:56,670 --> 00:43:59,019 But they're saying we get more out of the same. 905 00:44:01,469 --> 00:44:03,062 There is, he says, 906 00:44:04,769 --> 00:44:06,219 a formal difference 907 00:44:07,358 --> 00:44:09,025 between CMC and MCM. 908 00:44:16,260 --> 00:44:20,550 We still don't know how you get more out of the same, 909 00:44:20,550 --> 00:44:22,110 but he's gonna tell us 910 00:44:22,110 --> 00:44:25,090 that there's a certain kind of circulation 911 00:44:26,610 --> 00:44:28,320 that is necessary for it. 912 00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:29,613 Now if you look at this, 913 00:44:33,150 --> 00:44:34,710 they're embedded in one another. 914 00:44:34,710 --> 00:44:37,889 Obviously this is an infinite series, 915 00:44:37,889 --> 00:44:39,719 so what's the difference? 916 00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:42,122 It turns out if you cut this series here, 917 00:44:43,409 --> 00:44:48,059 it's totally different than if you cut this series here, 918 00:44:52,889 --> 00:44:54,719 which you're an initial starting point 919 00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:58,109 is determines whether you're in a capitalist system 920 00:44:58,110 --> 00:45:01,323 or a commodity exchange system. 921 00:45:02,670 --> 00:45:05,010 There is a difference in content lurking 922 00:45:05,010 --> 00:45:06,123 in the form, he says. 923 00:45:07,889 --> 00:45:10,139 Okay, let's just give you the outline 924 00:45:10,139 --> 00:45:12,000 and then we'll fill in the details next time. 925 00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:13,949 'Cause we have only a little time left. 926 00:45:15,539 --> 00:45:18,179 The commodity circulation system starts with production 927 00:45:18,179 --> 00:45:19,480 and ends with consumption. 928 00:45:21,869 --> 00:45:24,029 It is only about use values 929 00:45:24,030 --> 00:45:25,590 and in a system where use values 930 00:45:25,590 --> 00:45:28,590 are all that we're concerned with, you can't get any profit. 931 00:45:29,969 --> 00:45:33,572 The extra will be passed on one way or the other. 932 00:45:35,909 --> 00:45:39,480 In this system, the commodity exchange system, 933 00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,659 the same piece of money changes place twice. 934 00:45:42,659 --> 00:45:44,730 I give to Alan 10 bucks 935 00:45:44,730 --> 00:45:49,019 and Alan gives 10 bucks to Samuel. 936 00:45:49,019 --> 00:45:51,619 I won't use you in as an example forever, I promise, 937 00:45:53,670 --> 00:45:55,170 to get something else. 938 00:45:55,170 --> 00:45:57,782 The money changes hands twice. 939 00:46:00,150 --> 00:46:02,369 Money moves in this eccentric fashion 940 00:46:02,369 --> 00:46:06,059 because I have a need and Alan has a need 941 00:46:06,059 --> 00:46:07,619 and Samuel has a thing that he wants 942 00:46:07,619 --> 00:46:09,539 and I have a thing that Alan wants. 943 00:46:09,539 --> 00:46:11,670 You can see where the money goes just to exemplify it. 944 00:46:11,670 --> 00:46:13,559 Marx says this, it's pretty clear, 945 00:46:13,559 --> 00:46:15,692 the money goes from me to Alan to Samuel. 946 00:46:16,829 --> 00:46:18,389 That's not capitalism. 947 00:46:18,389 --> 00:46:20,252 The money has to be back to me. 948 00:46:22,704 --> 00:46:25,980 (clears throat) 949 00:46:25,980 --> 00:46:30,030 And this produces a certain kind of disposition 950 00:46:30,030 --> 00:46:31,650 in the buyer. 951 00:46:31,650 --> 00:46:34,260 The buyer says it's fine to give money away 952 00:46:34,260 --> 00:46:35,553 if I get what I want. 953 00:46:37,019 --> 00:46:39,630 I don't need to see that money back. 954 00:46:39,630 --> 00:46:42,840 Everyone is this kind of buyer fundamentally, 955 00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:43,742 Marx would say. 956 00:46:45,449 --> 00:46:48,210 Our capitalist economy, our high capitalist economy 957 00:46:48,210 --> 00:46:51,119 is still a commodity circulation system. 958 00:46:51,119 --> 00:46:52,529 We still need to get our needs 959 00:46:52,530 --> 00:46:54,153 and they're in some way primary, 960 00:46:55,590 --> 00:46:58,140 but not for the capitalists. 961 00:46:58,139 --> 00:46:59,762 There's two primaries here. 962 00:47:01,860 --> 00:47:04,200 And again, the ultimate purpose is consumption 963 00:47:04,199 --> 00:47:06,299 and Marx says this is an end outside 964 00:47:06,300 --> 00:47:08,519 of the circulation system. 965 00:47:08,519 --> 00:47:10,619 You take your thing outside, you devour it, 966 00:47:10,619 --> 00:47:13,529 you sleep with it, you watch it on TV, 967 00:47:13,530 --> 00:47:15,033 it doesn't get traded again. 968 00:47:18,300 --> 00:47:21,600 The MCM circuit starting with money, totally different. 969 00:47:21,599 --> 00:47:25,353 Obviously your disposition is, Hey, gimme that money back. 970 00:47:26,519 --> 00:47:28,199 What are you gonna get if you give your money away 971 00:47:28,199 --> 00:47:31,052 for a commodity that you don't need? 972 00:47:32,730 --> 00:47:34,230 You need to get money out of that. 973 00:47:34,230 --> 00:47:35,829 You need to get your money back. 974 00:47:37,739 --> 00:47:41,489 In this version, the same commodity changes place twice. 975 00:47:41,489 --> 00:47:45,929 I give money to Alan for his commodity 976 00:47:45,929 --> 00:47:48,002 and then what happens? 977 00:47:49,764 --> 00:47:50,702 - And you sell it? 978 00:47:50,702 --> 00:47:52,472 - Then I sell the commodity. 979 00:47:55,396 --> 00:47:56,230 - To get more money. 980 00:47:56,230 --> 00:47:58,050 - To get money, to get more money, exactly. 981 00:47:58,050 --> 00:47:59,640 That's right, okay, sorry. 982 00:47:59,639 --> 00:48:00,569 I'm not an economist, 983 00:48:00,570 --> 00:48:03,900 so all this stuff is like, why should I waste my time? 984 00:48:03,900 --> 00:48:05,340 Sorry. 985 00:48:05,340 --> 00:48:06,630 That's right, exactly. 986 00:48:06,630 --> 00:48:09,480 Then I get my money back by selling it on, by selling it on. 987 00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,090 So, the commodity has an eccentric movement, 988 00:48:12,090 --> 00:48:13,050 because I don't need it. 989 00:48:13,050 --> 00:48:14,789 What I need is money. 990 00:48:14,789 --> 00:48:17,670 This is a beautiful illustration of the switch of values, 991 00:48:17,670 --> 00:48:18,840 what nature would call 992 00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,753 the transvaluation of values under capital. 993 00:48:22,829 --> 00:48:25,829 You can see this is not just a technical or formal switch. 994 00:48:25,829 --> 00:48:28,949 This is a switch in psychology, in valuing, 995 00:48:28,949 --> 00:48:32,042 in everything that's gonna be important in the society. 996 00:48:33,119 --> 00:48:35,909 When money flows back to its starting point, 997 00:48:35,909 --> 00:48:39,000 it is a circuit that has to be completed. 998 00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,250 If I buy something from Alan, 999 00:48:41,250 --> 00:48:42,083 and he has the money, 1000 00:48:42,083 --> 00:48:44,579 there's no reason he has to buy anything. 1001 00:48:44,579 --> 00:48:46,259 If he's satisfied, he can just, I don't know, 1002 00:48:46,260 --> 00:48:49,920 burn the money in his fireplace if he wants. 1003 00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:54,663 That's not the case for a money circuit. 1004 00:48:55,679 --> 00:48:57,269 The ultimate purpose for the money 1005 00:48:57,269 --> 00:48:58,860 is that it returns to its starting point. 1006 00:48:58,860 --> 00:49:00,210 So, money has a different purpose. 1007 00:49:00,210 --> 00:49:02,010 It's not to satisfy wants and needs. 1008 00:49:03,630 --> 00:49:05,579 Oddly though, the buyer ends up 1009 00:49:05,579 --> 00:49:07,382 with exactly what they started with. 1010 00:49:08,789 --> 00:49:10,949 It seems like nothing happened, 1011 00:49:10,949 --> 00:49:15,152 and this is where this formula is not sufficient, 1012 00:49:26,670 --> 00:49:28,990 and we need to discover 1013 00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:36,920 where this mysterious change delta comes from, 1014 00:49:37,019 --> 00:49:38,820 and we'll talk about that next time. 1015 00:49:40,965 --> 00:49:43,465 (tense music)