[D66] Labour in the Era of Fictitious Capital

[J.N.]

http://www.palim-psao.fr/2015/08/labour-in-the-era-of-fictitious-capital-by-norbert-trenkle.html

Labour in the Era of Fictitious Capital


Never Work Conference presentation, Cardiff, 10 July 2015

By Norbert Trenkle



1.

   It is widely understood that social production in capitalist society
takes the form of commodity production. That is why Marx quite rightly
regarded the commodity as the “elementary form” of capitalist wealth and
chose it as the analytical starting point for his critique of political
economy. Economic theory has no idea at all what to do with this
theoretical approach. It treats the notion that people mediate their
sociality through the production and exchange of commodities as an
anthropological truism. It never regards a human being as anything other
than a potential private producer who manufactures things in order to
exchange them with other private producers while always keeping his or
her own particular interests in mind. The difference between wealth
production in modern capitalist society and in traditional communities
is therefore regarded as merely one of degree, with the caveat that the
social division of labour is far more highly developed under modern
capitalism due to technological advancements and the clever insight that
people become more productive as they become more specialised.