Marx in America: Readings for the Global Economic Crisis

1. Karl Marx in America:Readings for the Current Global Economic Crisis • Joseph W.H. Lough, Ph.D. • Filozofski fakultet Tuzla • Blog: http://www.newconsensus.org/MarxInAmerica/ • Twitter: @jwhlough • email: joseph.lough@gmail.com • phone: +387 603375497

2. Review • We owe our interpretive categories – freedom/necessity, public/private, master/slave, leisure/labor – to the Greeks • Capitalism is an historical aberration, a novelty, that we owe to: • the weakness and fragmentation of western Europe • the desire of cloistered monks to regulate their prayers

3. Review • Time and work discipline did not come “naturally” to those upon whom it was imposed • Time and work discipline had to be “naturalized” • Which provokes an interesting question: Are the categories through which we interpret our experience ever natural?

4. Review • A Smith describes a world that is already fully formed; • A Smith describes a world from the vantage point of its third cycle of capital accumulation • What is GWF Hegel’s objection to the way that the British and French political economists describe the world?

5. Review • What are the preconditions to GWF Hegel’s ability to grasp the universal? • Why would grasping the universal necessarily lead to freedom? • Why does GWF Hegel’s prediction fail to fully materialize?

6. Review • If the Self-Moving Substance that is Subject is neither History nor the Industrial Proletariat, but is instead the sublime value form of the commodity, then • How might this reshape our approach to emancipatory theory and action?

7. Review • For K Marx, how are we to interpret M-C-M´? • What accounts for M´? • If we redistribute C, will this resolve the tension between value and its material form of appearance? • If we redistribute M´, will this resolve the tension between value and its material form of appearance? • If we socialize C and/or M´, will this resolve the tension between value and its material form of appearance?

8. Preview • G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century, Intro. and Chapter One (Vanja Vehabovć) • What are the mechanisms propelling the world system forward? • What role does the state play in the accumulation and expansion of capital? • Has the world system reached an absolute limit?

9. Preview • G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century, Intro. and Chapter One (Vanja Vehabović) • Why Europe? • What happened? • How are we to understand the three hegemonies of historical materialism?

10. Preview • G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century, Chapter Two (Sandra Grandic) • Northern Italy’s role in the first cycle of capital accumulation • When investors are no longer able to achieve returns investing in the production of commodities • The contribution the Genoese made to the 15th century European wars

11. Preview • G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century, Chapter Two (Sandra Grandic) • When investors are no longer able to achieve returns investing in the production of commodities • What is a hegemon? • How hegemony helps generate terminal conflicts

12. G Arrighi, Three Hegemonies • What are the mechanisms propelling the world system forward? • What role does the state play in the accumulation and expansion of capital? • Has the world system reached an absolute limit?

13. G Arrighi, Three Hegemonies • Why Europe? • What happened? • How are we to understand the three hegemonies of historical materialism?

14. G Arrighi, The Rise of Capital • What was Northern Italy’s role in the first cycle of capital accumulation? • What do investors do when investors are no longer able to achieve returns investing in the production of commodities? • What contribution did the Genoese make to the 15th century European wars?

15. G Arrighi, The Rise of Capital • What is a hegemon? • How do hegemones help generate terminal conflicts?

16. G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century • When did capitalism emerge for K Marx and what was its most salient feature? • When did capitalism emerge for G Arrighi and what is its most salient feature? • For K Marx are non-capitalist social formations more or less natural than capitalist social formations?

17. G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century • For K Marx what is the central contradiction within capitalism? • For G Arrighi what is the central contradiction within capitalism?

18. G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century • Braudel’s “material life” is “use value,” “natural life,” the “system of needs” • Braudel’s “material life” is short-hand for the “forces of production” • Braudel’s “market” is “exchange value” or simply “value,” or the “private relations of production” • Is Braudel’s “state” or “anti-market” good or bad?

19. G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century • Is there any dimension of “material life,” “market,” and “anti-market” that helps us to differentiate capitalist from non-capitalist, or capitalist from “pre-capitalist” social formations? • What for G Arrighi would distinguish a post-capitalist social formation from a capitalist social formation?

20. G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century • For K Marx, is there any moment that an item of use is not also a bearer of abstract value under capitalism? • For G Arrighi, what roles do time, labor, or abstract value play in the reproduction of the capitalist social formation? • What for G Arrighi would distinguish a post-capitalist social formation from a capitalist social formation?

21. G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century • If the state is the “anti-market” and the “market” and “material life” are features of all societies, does superseding capitalism entail anything more than redistributing the product and/or by-product (capital) of production? • Does it touch the tension between abstract value and its material form of appearance? • Does it touch capitalist production?

22. G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century • What role does the social and historical constitution of knowledge play in G Arrighi's interpretation? • Where is G Arrighi in his interpretation? • Are G Arrighi's interpretive categories immanent or transcendental?

23. Preview • G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century • The Dutch Cycle of Capital Accumulation • The British Cycle of Capital Accumulation