[D66] Fwd: # SPINOZA /// Episode 1: The Marxian Reading of Capitalism through a Spinozist Conceptology

[Nord]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	# SPINOZA /// Episode 1: The Marxian Reading of Capitalism 
through a Spinozist Conceptology
Date: 	Mon, 25 Mar 2013 07:58:58 +0100
From: 	Nord <protocosmos at home.nl>



http://thefunambulist.net/2013/03/24/spinoza-episode-1-the-marxian-reading-of-capitalism-through-a-spinozist-conceptology/


  # SPINOZA /// Episode 1: The Marxian Reading of Capitalism through a
  Spinozist Conceptology

Posted onMarch 24, 2013 
<http://thefunambulist.net/2013/03/24/spinoza-episode-1-the-marxian-reading-of-capitalism-through-a-spinozist-conceptology/>|1 
Comment 
<http://thefunambulist.net/2013/03/24/spinoza-episode-1-the-marxian-reading-of-capitalism-through-a-spinozist-conceptology/#comments>

spinoza bill 
<http://thefunambulistdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/spinoza-bill.jpeg>

Today, I am starting a series of articles about 17th century 
Portuguese-Dutch philosopher*Baruch Spinoza*and thus dedicates to his 
work a ‘week’ like I didtwo years ago for Gilles Deleuze 
<http://thefunambulist.net/2011/06/20/deleuze-constitution-of-an-archive/>andlast 
year for Michel Foucault 
<http://thefunambulist.net/2012/06/20/foucault-episode-1-michel-foucaults-architectural-underestimation/>.

The first article of this week will attempt to examine how Spinoza can 
supply a terminology, or rather, a/conceptology/to extend the sharp 
analysis of capitalism made by Karl Marx in the 19th century to a its 
neo-liberal version we have been experiencing for the last thirty years. 
In order to do so, I would use a particular chapter from the 
book*/Capitalisme, désir et servitude: Marx et Spinoza/* 
<http://www.lafabrique.fr/catalogue.php?idArt=530>(Capitalism, desire 
and servitude, Marx and Spinoza) written by*Frédéric Lordon* 
<http://www.fredericlordon.fr/>and published by the always excellent 
publisherLa Fabrique <http://www.lafabrique.fr/>in 2010.

Through this book, F. Lordon depicts, among other things, the two 
important shifts of paradigms in capitalism that occurred since the 
publication of*Das Kapital*, in order for it to survive against the 
potentiality of a revolution prophetized by Marx when he was observing 
the continuous production of a discontented working class. The first 
shift of paradigm, often known as Fordism, occurred in the first part of 
the 20th century and consisted in a neat amplification of the production 
rhythm associated with the integration of the working class itself in 
the mass consumption of their own product. The second shift of paradigm, 
closer to us, examined how the working class (which also shifted for a 
big part of it, from the industry to the realms of services) could gain 
in productivity by integrating it to an ideology of 
“self-accomplishment” that could apparently relate to the Spinozist idea 
of/joyful affect/(for a very basic introduction to his concepts, you can 
read my textArchitectures of Joy 
<http://thefunambulist.net/2010/12/18/philosophy-architectures-of-joy-a-spinozist-reading-of-parentvirilio-and-arakawagins%E2%80%99-architecture/>from 
2010). For Spinoza, the servitude is anyway universal as all our acts 
are determined by the sum of circumstances that caused it (much more 
about that in a upcoming article), but we can nevertheless increase our 
power (/potentia/in latin, more on that soon too) by acquiring the 
knowledge of the causes of our behavior. As we know too well, strategies 
of/inducing/do not allow the subject to understand the context of his 
decisions better than an assembly line worker in the beginning of the 
20th century and therefore force it to remain within the/sad affects./

So far, I was evoking the book in its entirety but in order to be 
precise, I would like to examine more particularly a specific chapter 
entitled*/Alors le (ré)communisme!/*The neologism of/(ré)communisme/is a 
French play on word insisting on the idea of revisiting communism, but 
more importantly to oppose to the/respublica/(the public thing) the 
/rescommuna/(the common thing) as two different models of society. It is 
interesting to observe how F. Lordon is slowly introducing this new 
model: (the original French version is at the end of the article, the 
translation is mine but since the text is difficult to translate for the 
multiple meanings each important word carries, I left the word used by 
him in parenthesis)

    The starting point was the following: someone wants to do something
    that needs several people to achieve. This community of action is in
    its very essence a political community if we attribute the political
    status to any situation that composes powers (/puissance/) of action
    […]. The question is then about the constitution of this
    entrepreneurial political community. This implies the genetic
    dimension of the mechanisms for which the community emerges, as well
    as the constitutionality of the formal as the formal layouts
    (/agencements/) that rule its function once it is assembled. What
    are the desirable relationships for which a company (/entreprise/)
    can be constituted when it is conceived as an association of powers
    (/puissance)/of action?

While condemning the relationships of servitude created by capitalism, 
F. Lordon also introduces a form of doubt in the sacred equality 
enforced by communism in its orthodox version (presented as the only 
alternative to capitalism for many years). His discourse is, of course, 
mostly focused on the realms of companies; however, in order to make his 
point clearer, he uses the example of the creative process of a theater 
play (from here, I translated the ambivalent term of/entreprise/(both 
company and project as the same time) with the English word 
of/enterprise/that needs to be understood with those two simultaneous 
meanings as well):

    A playwright comes with an amazing text: who would deny that his
    contribution is not of the same nature than the one of the
    electricians and the costume designers? who would contest his status
    of power (/puissance/) authentically creative? Yet, he needs
    electricians and costume designers so that the show could occur and
    that his genius text could be transmitted to the public. The problem
    is never tackled this way as the immediate solution brought by the
    wage relationship (/rapport/) in the form of a supplied hired
    manpower made it forgotten as a problem. To find back its meaning,
    we need to achieve the thought experiment that consists in imagining
    which kind of political arrangements would emerge so that the
    collective enterprise would be withdrawn from the structure of wage
    relationship (/rapport/).
    /[...]/
    If the communist idea is essentially related to the notion of
    equality, the question is then to wonder what can be the nature of
    equality in the context of a substantial, recognized inequality of
    contributions, and how not to deny the asymmetry of these situations
    in which the strength of an initial proposition makes the other
    contributions appear as auxiliary. Here is the communist equation:
    which form of equality can we realize in the context of the division
    of work and its heaviest inheritance, the fundamental separation
    between ‘conception’ and ‘execution’?

This latter point is important as it bring back Marx’s contempt for the 
strict division of work as it was invented by the mass production of 
goods. F. Lordon later insists that, even in relatively ‘democratic’ 
working environments, it is rare to see a person sometimes in charge of 
the lights and some other times in charge of the play-writing. There is 
no real redistribution of the roles depending on the desire and 
inspiration of each person involved in the enterprise.

    If the complete solution of the communist equation consists in a
    restructuration of the division of desire that shares the chances of
    conception – and symmetrically the execution tasks too – nobody
    indicated better than Etienne Balibar its horizon (Spinozist as well
    as Marxian) : “ To be as many as possible to think the most as
    possible.”

Finally, F. Lordon introduces his model of/(ré)communisme/as an 
alternative based on the principle above. He then describes an 
enterprise that would adopt this model as a working paradigm. Such a 
description can make us recall the Argentinean /fábricas recuperadas/ 
<http://www.fabricasrecuperadas.org.ar/>, factories took over by their 
workers when their owner wanted to liquidate them after the 2001 
economical crisis. The new system set-up by the workers involves (in 
addition of a unique salary) a democratic process of decision making.

    Since they put a part of their life in an enterprise, its members
    can only exit the enrolment relationship (/rapport/), born from a
    monarchical constitution (the/imperium/of the master-desire), by
    sharing, beyond the object itself, the entire control of the
    conditions of the collective pursuit of the object, and finally by
    affirming the indisputable right to be fully associated to what they
    are affected by. What the productive enterprise has to fabricate, in
    which quantity, with which rhythm, which volume, which wage
    structure, which reattribution for the surplus, how it will
    accommodate variations to its environment: none of these things can
    escape to the common deliberation since they all have common
    consequences. The very simple recommunist (/récommuniste/) principle
    is thus that what affects everyone should be the object of everyone,
    i.e. constitutionally and equally debated by everyone.

As a conclusion, we might want to go back from where we left, the 
philosophy of Spinoza, by using its Deleuzian interpretation to explain 
the notion of freedom:/There is no freedom, only forms of liberation/. 
In other words, if we follow the writings of Spinoza absolutely (i.e. as 
diagrams we might say), one is never free as (s)he is subjected to a 
form of determinism, however (and maybe in a less orthodoxic reading) 
one can get involved in processes of liberation by participating to a 
power (/potentia/again) that is ‘bigger’ than him or her. This power is 
called God (i.e. nature or the world to put it maybe too simply) in 
Spinoza’s philosophy. However, in his political project, which is in 
complete agreement with his philosophy but founds itself on more 
pragmatic bases, this ‘bigger’ power can be more simply the harmonious 
composition of a collective enterprise. In F. Lordon’s interpretation of 
the latter, it might not be functioning in a strict equality, but rather 
in the shared association of skills and desires, the regular shift of 
roles, and the systematic access to the decision process that makes this 
enterprise exist and operate.

Original French version of the excerpts:

Frédéric Lordon, Capitalisme, désir et servitude: Marx et Spinoza, 
Paris: La Fabrique, 2010.

[…] le point de départ était ceci : quelqu’un a envie de faire quelque 
chose qui nécessite d’être plusieurs. Cette communauté d’action est/ipso 
facto/une communauté politique si on donne le nom de politique à toute 
situation de composition de puissance d’agir […]. La question est alors 
celle de la constitution de cette communauté politique d’entreprise, 
aussi bien au sens génétique des mécanismes par lesquels la communauté 
vient à se former qu’au sens « constitutionnel » des agencements formels 
qui en régissent les fonctionnements une fois assemblée. Quels sont les 
rapports désirables sous lesquels peut se constituer une entreprise 
conçue très généralement comme un concours de puissances d’agir ? P164

Un dramaturge survient porteur d’un texte inouï: qui niera que cette 
contribution-là n’est pas de même nature que celle des éclairagistes et 
des costumiers? qui lui contestera son caractère de puissance 
authentiquement créatrice ? Et pourtant il faut des éclairagistes et des 
costumiers pour que le spectacle ait lieu et que le texte génial soit 
porte à la connaissance du public. Le problème n’est jamais posé en ces 
termes car la solution « immédiate » que lui apporte le rapport salarial 
sous la forme d’une fourniture de main-d’œuvre employée a fini par le 
faire oublier comme problème. En retrouver le sens suppose l’expérience 
de pensée consistant à imaginer quels arrangements politiques devraient 
se former pour que l’entreprise collective voie le jour/retirées des 
structures du rapport salarial/. P166

Si l’idée communiste a essentiellement à voir avec l’égalité, la 
question se pose alors de savoir quelle peut être la nature de l’égalité 
accompagnant une inégalité substantielle, reconnue, des contributions, 
et qui ne nie pas l’asymétrie de ces situations où la force d’une 
proposition initiale donne objectivement aux autres contributions un 
caractère auxiliaire. Voilà donc l’équation communiste : quelle forme 
d’égalité réaliser sous le legs de la division du travail ? – et 
notamment du plus pesant de ses héritages, à savoir la séparation 
princeps de la « conception » et de l’ « exécution ». P167

Si la solution complète de l’équation communiste consiste en une 
restructuration de la division du désir qui repartage les chances de 
conception – et symétriquement redistribue les taches d’exécution […] – 
nul n’en a indiqué comme Etienne Balibar l’horizon (spinoziste autant 
que marxien) : « Etre le plus nombreux à penser le plus possible. » P168

Puisque c’est une part de leur vie qu’ils mettent en commun dans une 
entreprise, ses membres ne sortent du rapport d’enrôlement, dual par 
construction d’une constitution de type monarchique (l’/imperium/du 
désir-maitre), qu’en partageant au-delà de l’objet, l’entière maitrise 
des conditions de la poursuite collective de l’objet, et finalement en 
affirmant le droit irréfragable d’être pleinement associés à ce qui/les 
concerne/. Ce que l’entreprise (productive) doit fabriquer, en quelle 
quantité, à quelle cadence, avec quel volume d’emploi et quelle 
structure de rémunérations, sous quelle clé de réaffectation des 
surplus, comment elle accommodera les variations de son environnement : 
aucune de ces choses ne peut par principe échapper a la délibération 
commune puisqu’elles ont toutes des conséquences communes. Le 
simplissime principe récommuniste est donc que ce qui affecte tous doit 
être l’objet de tous – c’est le mot même de récommune qui le dit ! -, 
c’est-à-dire constitutionnellement et égalitairement débattu par tous. P170




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tuxtown.net/pipermail/d66/attachments/20130325/3ad35029/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 104119 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www.tuxtown.net/pipermail/d66/attachments/20130325/3ad35029/attachment-0001.jpe>