{"id":2969,"date":"2020-05-01T18:19:05","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T23:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/?p=2969"},"modified":"2021-11-18T13:56:30","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T18:56:30","slug":"capital-and-labor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/?p=2969","title":{"rendered":"Capital and labor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chris Cutrone <\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Platypus Review 126<\/a> | May 2020<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ACCORDING TO MARX, capitalism is the contradiction of bourgeois social relations and industrial forces of production.[1]<\/sup><\/a> The effect of this self-contradiction of bourgeois society in industrial production is the division of capital and labor. It is from this division that the opposed classes of capitalists and workers derive. The class struggle between workers and capitalists is a phenomenon \u2014 the phenomenal expression \u2014 of the self-contradiction of capitalism. It expresses labor\u2019s contradiction with itself \u2014 which is also capital\u2019s contradiction with itself. When referring to \u201ccapital and labor\u201d there are actually just two forms of capital \u2014 Marx called these \u201cvariable and constant\u201d as well as \u201cfixed and circulating\u201d capital \u2014 and both refer to labor \u2014 Marx called capital \u201calienated labor.\u201d Labor and capital are two aspects of the same thing in capitalism. The bourgeois social relations of production are the social relations of labor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The usual oppositions posed by the labor\nmovement and by socialism, such as profit vs. human needs (and the needs of the\nnatural world beyond humanity), are expressions of this self-contradiction of\nsociety in capitalism, the needs of capital as opposed to the needs of labor. The\ncontradiction of capital is not external but internal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marx described capitalism as \u201cfalse\nnecessity.\u201d What he meant by this was not simply wrong necessity, but rather self-contradictory\nnecessity. For the needs of capital and the needs of labor are the same. In\nbecoming opposed in capitalism, there is the conflict of labor with itself as\nwell as of capital with itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In capitalist politics, there is another\nphenomenon \u2014 expression \u2014 of capital\u2019s self-contradiction, namely, the disputes\namong capitalist politicians over government policy, which can also express\nconflicting interests of different capitalists, including different sectors of\nindustry, between different capitalist nation-states, etc. Workers employed in\ndifferent occupations as well as in industries can thus have different and\nconflicting interests, competing over the priorities of social investment in\ncapital. The opposed aspects of capital \u2014 and of labor \u2014 are inseparable. Labor\ncannot be extricated from capital any more than capital can be from labor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal of socialism is to realize capital\nas well as labor \u2014 to negate labor as well as capital. It is to realize as well\nas negate \u2014 overcome \u2014 capitalist necessity. What would such Aufhebung<\/em> [sublation] mean? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discontents in capitalism take various\ndifferent and even opposed forms. The history of socialism itself as well as\nthe history of capitalism expresses self-contradictory desires and goals. At\ndifferent moments in the history of capitalism, the goals of socialism have\ntaken various different and indeed opposed forms. For instance, socialism has\nvariously regarded its goals as realizing the potential of capitalist\nproduction as opposed to abolishing capitalist production: achieving\nhyper-industrialism versus returning to subsistence primitivism[2]<\/sup><\/a>\nhave both found home at one time or place or another in the struggle for\nsocialism. Socialism could be defined as both and neither of the opposed\nalternatives that capitalism generates as its own positive goals and its own\nself-negations. All the various opposed demands arising from the discontents in\ncapitalism will be both fulfilled and negated \u2014 overcome \u2014 in socialism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Capital seeks to abolish labor and labor\nseeks to abolish capital \u2014 but more importantly in capitalism capital seeks to\nabolish itself and labor seeks to abolish itself. By making labor more\nproductive it becomes less necessary; by producing excess capital it becomes\nmore superfluous \u2014 less a real measure of social value. Labor seeks to abolish\nitself in capitalism, and thus to abolish capital, tasking socialism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only by encompassing the wide variety of\ndiscontents within the working class and across the history of its developments\nin capitalism could the political movement for socialist revolution to overcome\ncapitalism become adequate to its task and mission, by becoming conscious of it.\nSince capital is the product of labor and labor the product of capital, this\nwould mean encompassing the divisions among the capitalists as well as within\ncapitalism itself as a total movement of society. The achievement of socialist\nrevolution would be when the working class can take responsibility politically\nfor capitalism as a whole. In so doing, the working class would confront the\nchoices posed by the contradictions of capitalism that are otherwise expressed\nby the conflicts between the different capitalists and thus among workers of\nthe world. All the conflicts exhibited in the world must be grasped as\nexpressions and various forms of the self-contradiction of capitalism. Such\nconflicts are necessary \u2014 to be\novercome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The false necessity of capitalism as\nself-contradictory but opposed real needs can only be truly engaged and\novercome from the standpoint of universal world history.[3]<\/sup><\/a>\nThis can only take place from within the social antagonisms of capitalism, and\nnot from partial, single-sided aspects of its contradictory totality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cworkers of the world must unite\u201d\nbecause the world is united in its self-contradiction and crisis in capitalism.\nThe laborers must themselves take up and overcome the social relations of labor\nin crisis in capitalism by assuming the socialist political responsibility for\ncapital that is eluded by capitalist politics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise, the social conflicts in capitalism \u2014 between and among its capitalists and workers \u2014 will reproduce its contradictions forever. | P<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a> Please see my prior articles on \u201cRobots and sweatshops,\u201d Platypus Review <\/em>#123 (February 2020), available online at: <https:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2020\/02\/01\/robots-and-sweatshops\/<\/a>>; and \u201cJobs and free stuff,\u201d PR<\/em> #124 (March 2020), available online at: <https:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2020\/03\/01\/jobs-and-free-stuff\/<\/a>>, of which this is meant to be the third and final entry in the series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> See the articles in the Platypus Review<\/em> issue #125 (April 2020) published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first observation of Earth Day, April 22 (the same date as Lenin\u2019s birthday), in 1970 (thus on the 100th anniversary of Lenin\u2019s birth in 1870), available online at: <https:\/\/platypus1917.org\/category\/pr\/issue-125\/<\/a>>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> See my \u201cCapital in history: The need for a Marxian philosophy of history of the Left,\u201d Platypus Review<\/em> #7 (October 2008), available online at: <https:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2008\/10\/01\/capital-in-history-the-need-for-a-marxian-philosophy-of-history-of-the-left\/<\/a>>. <\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Cutrone Platypus Review 126 | May 2020 ACCORDING TO MARX, capitalism is the contradiction of bourgeois social relations and industrial forces of production.[1] The effect of this self-contradiction of bourgeois society in industrial production is the division of capital and labor. It is from this division that the opposed classes of capitalists and workers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,16,43],"class_list":["post-2969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-45","tag-marxism","tag-trump-era"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2969"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2972,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969\/revisions\/2972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}