English subtitles for clip: File:Class 01 Reading Marx's Capital Vol I with David Harvey.webm

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» NEIL SMITH: Well, you're in for a treat today.

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We're going to be talking
with David Harvey on

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the lectures that he's been giving

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now for almost forty years, I think,

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on Capital. My name is Neil Smith.

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I teach in Anthropology and Geography at the
City University of New York

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and David has been a colleague of mine
since he came here

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but before that, a long time before that,
more than thirty years

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I was a student of David's at Johns
Hopkins in Baltimore, and that's where

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I first became

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not aware of Capital as a book, but
that's where I first read through it and

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did so indeed with David.
David what inspired you

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to start to want to read Capital back,
presumably, in the

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very early 1970s?

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» DAVID HARVEY: It was one of those

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historical moments where

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it seemed right to do it.

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I arrived from England,

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fresh off the boat in the summer of '69.

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I arrived into the city, Baltimore where

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in 1968 there had been a tremendous
eruption of violence in the city in

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the wake of the
assassination of Martin Luther King,

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the civil rights questions in the city were

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blatant, the racism in the city was blatant,

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the Vietnam War was on,

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and all the war protests

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were hotting up,

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and it was a very, very confused time…

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And I remember in,

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I think, December of '69

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Fred Hampton got assassinated in Chicago,

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a Black Panther leader,

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and shortly after that,

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in May '70, there were

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the killings at Kent State.

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Huge student strike, millions of
students all over the country

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just went on strike. And then after that
there were killings at Jackson State.

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So this was this was a very, very,
very upset time.

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And I think,

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for me, anyway, there was also a sense
that we didn't quite know how to handle, or

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how to explain this.

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And I've been trained as a sort of social scientist,
thinking about things, and I couldn't find a framework
that would

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really encompass all that was going on.

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So I said to a few graduate students:
'Hey why don't we just read Capital?

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Since it's a book we haven't read,

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maybe there's something in there

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that would work.'

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And so a few of us sat down and
we ran a reading group on it.

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And that's how it all began. And then
having done it once and completely

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misunderstood the book,

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completely misunderstood it.
Now I look back,

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I'd be embarrassed to listen to what we
were saying about this book in the first year.

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You know, it was the blind leading the blind through
this enormous text, you know.

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And we didn't know what we were doing
and then we thought: 'Well we've done it once,

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we better do it again because we obviously
haven't got this quite right.'

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But one thing that I did learn
at that point,

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from that was: you only really begin to
understand Capital when you get to the end.

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It's very hard to start off with a…

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» NEIL SMITH: Yeah.

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» DAVID HARVEY: …sort of clear kind of understanding.

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So the second year we decided
to have another go at it,

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and we had another go at it.

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And I thought to myself: Well,

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this is interesting, now, I began to see a
framework emerging

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that could help me explain what was going on.
So I thought: Well, I should keep at it.

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And there were people around,

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like me, who kind of felt they needed
a framework and so,

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step by step

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I started to say:
well, I'll do this every year.

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And of course one of the things that
happens when you do that, is

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that you suddenly find
yourself called a Marxist.

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I had no idea what a Marxist was,
and I really didn't

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care too much initially, but suddenly,
just because you're reading the book

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and taking it seriously,

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and you want to know more about how to
understand the world through these

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lenses, you suddenly find yourself in this
political corner. And after a bit you say:

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I guess if that's who I am, then
that's who I am, you know. So..

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» NEIL SMITH: Well, I think it might be useful,
since the

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lectures are coming,

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if you give us a bit of an overview,

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a bit of a discussion

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of what you think are the high points of
the chapters in Volume 1 of Capital.

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» DAVID HARVEY: One of the things that
I think is really good to do,

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and one of the reasons

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I've got a great deal of pleasure out of
teaching this course in this way,

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is that many people have taken courses
where they've done a little bit of Marx,

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a little bit of Weber, Durkheim, this kind of stuff,
they've read excerpts from Marx or something like that,

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but they've never actually read it as a book,

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and it's a fantastic literary construction.
So, one of the things that I really want

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to highlight is

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what a good read it is!

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Once you get past the difficulties of the
language and grappling with all these kinds of

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concepts and so on, it's a really, really
dynamic piece, it flows very well.

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And it flows from the beginning point
which is just about a simple idea of a commodity.

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You go into a supermarket, you find a commodity,
you buy the commodity, you take it home, you eat it,

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or wear it, or whatever, and,

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and just beginning with that thing, which we
all know about, it takes you step by step by step

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right the way through,

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unraveling how a capitalist economy works.

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And then it builds around that sort of
insights, stunning insights, as to why we have

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unemployment, or why there is a struggle over

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time, why is it that

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capitalists are always trying to

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snatch time away from you,

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why do we live a life where our world

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is kind of

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orchestrated around a
certain kind of concept of temporality,

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and what the oppressions are
which exist with all of that. So, I think it's

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incredibly revelatory in what it does.

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So, the aim of this course is to

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get you to read this book,

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and to do it as well as
you can in Marx's own terms,

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which may sound a bit ridiculous because,

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since you haven't read the book,

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you won't know exactly what his

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terms are.

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But one of his terms is that you read,

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and therefore you'll get a lot
more out of this class

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if you read the assigned readings

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before you come to class,
than if you just come along and listen.

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There's another reason
for that, which is that

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You have to struggle, always,

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with understanding something.

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And in struggling with it yourself

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you can come to your own

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understanding of what Marx stands for

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and what it means to you. So it's an
engagement between you and this book,

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you and this text,

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that I want

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to encourage.

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In doing that, however,

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there is a complication
which arises from the fact that

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it's very hard to approach this without
some preconceived ideas. Everybody has

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heard of Karl Marx

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and everybody knows the
term Marxism and Marxist,

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and there all kinds of connotations that go

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with those words.

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So, what I have to ask you at the
beginning is to try to lay aside a lot of those

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preconceptions, a lot of those

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things you think you know about
Marx and just try to read the text,

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to find out what it really
was he was trying to say.

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And that, of course,

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is not easy for a bunch
of other reasons, which

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I want to talk about by way of introduction.

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One of the other preconceptions
with which we tend to

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approach a text of this kind is

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out of our particular kind of
intellectual history, and our own particular

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intellectual formation,

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and for people who are
graduate students, for example,

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this intellectual formation is very often
governed by disciplinary apparatuses,

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disciplinary considerations,

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disciplinary concerns.

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And so the tendency is

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to sort of read it from
your disciplinary standpoint.

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Well, one of the great things about Marx is
he would never have got tenure in any discipline,

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and if you want to read him right, then
you've got to forget about getting tenure

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in your discipline;

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not in the long run of course but at
least for the purposes of this course.

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You have to think about

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what it is

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that he is saying, independent of

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the disciplinary apparatus with
which you start to think about things.

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Now, the other reason for saying that
is actually this turns out to be an astonishingly rich

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book in terms of its references.

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References to Shakespeare,
to the Greeks, to Balzac,

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references to all of the the
political economists, to philosophers,

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to anthropologists and all
the rest of it. In other words,

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Marx draws upon

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an immense array of sources,

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and as he does so it might be really
exciting for you to kind of figure out

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what some of those sources are,

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and actually some of them quite hard to track
down, and I've been looking at this for a long time.

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But it really is kind of
very exciting when you start to see

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some of the

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connections. For instance, when I first
started reading this, I had not read many

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of Balzac's novels, then I'm reading
Balzac's novels and I say to myself:

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'Oh that's where Marx got it from!'

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and then you kind of suddenly see all the
ways in which he's drawing upon a whole

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experiential world,

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full of Goethe, full of
Shakespeare, you know, all the rest of it.

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So, it's a very

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rich text in that kind of way,
and you start to appreciate it,

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I think, more

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if you stop saying to yourself: 'Well,

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who is he referring to in history?', or 'Which

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economist is he talking about?' and so on.

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And the other thing that will come
across, if you read it that way, is you'll

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actually find this a very interesting book.

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It's a fascinating book,

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and here of course we come across
another set of preconceptions, because

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many of you will already have encountered

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some of Marx in your reading.

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Maybe you read the Communist
Manifesto in high school.

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Maybe you went through one of those
wonderful courses which is called

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'Introduction to social theory',
where you spent two weeks on Marx,

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you know, two weeks on Weber, a few
weeks on Durkheim and all the other kind of characters.

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And maybe you read
some excerpts from Capital.

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But reading excerpts from Capital is
entirely different from reading it as a book,

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because you start to see these bits and
pieces that are excerpts as, somehow or other,

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playing into a much grander
and broader narrative, and what I think

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I'd like you to really try to
get out of this, is some sense

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of what that grander narrative is, and what that
grander conception is, because that is, if you like,

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how Marx, I think, would
want to be read. He would hate it

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if somebody said:

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'Hey, you've got to excerpt this chapter',
or 'You've got to do this chapter', and you can

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understand Marx that way.

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And he would certainly hate it if he knew he
was being given three weeks in an introduction

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to social theory class.

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And I think you should hate that, too,

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because you get a certain
conception of Marx from that,

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which is radically different

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from the kind of
conception you get from reading

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a book like Marx's Capital.

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Now the other thing that happens,
of course, from the disciplinary standpoint

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is that very often people
start to re-orchestrate their understandings

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around that disciplinary
standpoint. That is, you say:

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'Well, I'm not a good economist, I don't
get the economics in here at all, so I'm not

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going to be bothered to
follow the economic argument,

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I'm just going to follow

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the philosophical argument'.

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And actually,

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it's very interesting reading

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Marx in that perspective.

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Now, I've taught this course
now every year since 1971,

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except one.

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Some years I've taught it twice,
some years I even taught it three times.

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And in the early years I
used to teach it to all kinds of

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different groups.

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One year it was

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the whole philosophy department
from what was called Morgan State

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College at the time, Morgan
State University. Another time

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it was all of the graduate students in
the English program at Johns Hopkins.

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Another year

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it was economists, and this kind of thing.
And actually, what was fascinating to me was,

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each time you read it with a different
group, they saw different things in it.

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And actually, I learned a great deal about
the text from going through it with these

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very different disciplinary groups.

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Sometimes it drove me
crazy, but I learned a great deal.

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00:12:52,068 --> 00:12:54,110
One year, for example,

240
00:12:55,001 --> 00:13:00,084
I ran it with a group of people from
the comparative literature program at Johns Hopkins,

241
00:13:00,093 --> 00:13:02,100
about seven of them.

242
00:13:03,063 --> 00:13:06,129
And we got onto chapter one,

243
00:13:07,029 --> 00:13:10,104
and we spent the whole semester on chapter one.

244
00:13:11,004 --> 00:13:14,071
It drove me nuts. I was saying: 'Look, we've got
to get onto the working day', you know, and things like

245
00:13:14,071 --> 00:13:16,390
that, very important issues
of this kind, and they'd say:

246
00:13:17,029 --> 00:13:20,690
'No, no, we've got to get this right, we've got
to get this right', you know. 'What does he

247
00:13:20,069 --> 00:13:23,087
actually mean by value? What is
actually this money commodity? What

248
00:13:23,087 --> 00:13:25,089
is fetish about? What is this really all about?'

249
00:13:26,007 --> 00:13:27,009
And it turned out…

250
00:13:27,027 --> 00:13:30,083
I said: 'Why are you doing all of this?'
They said: 'Well, we're working very much in the

251
00:13:30,083 --> 00:13:32,932
tradition of…' somebody I'd never
heard of at the time, and thought

252
00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:37,430
was obviously an idiot, because
he was producing this kind of thing,

253
00:13:37,043 --> 00:13:39,098
a man called Jacques Derrida,

254
00:13:39,098 --> 00:13:43,124
who spent a lot of time at
Hopkins during the late 1960s, early

255
00:13:44,024 --> 00:13:47,046
1970s. And so actually

256
00:13:47,046 --> 00:13:50,089
was very influential in the
comparative literature program.

257
00:13:50,089 --> 00:13:52,110
Now, one of the things I actually afterwards

258
00:13:53,001 --> 00:13:55,006
thought about this was…

259
00:13:55,015 --> 00:13:59,108
What they taught me was to pay
very careful attention to Marx's language;

260
00:14:00,008 --> 00:14:04,104
what he says, and how he says it, and what
he means, and maybe what he's missing out,

261
00:14:05,004 --> 00:14:08,016
and that is also terribly important.

262
00:14:08,016 --> 00:14:12,080
And so, actually, I learned…
and I'm very grateful to that group now,

263
00:14:12,008 --> 00:14:15,081
apart from the fact that I no longer
sound myself like an idiot for saying I don't…

264
00:14:16,053 --> 00:14:18,127
I've never heard of Jacques Derrida, you know.

265
00:14:19,027 --> 00:14:23,038
So it was just very influential

266
00:14:23,038 --> 00:14:27,117
to have a group of that kind sort of take
me through just chapter one

267
00:14:28,017 --> 00:14:29,110
with a fine-toothed comb,

268
00:14:30,001 --> 00:14:33,027
going through almost every word,
every sentence, every connection with the

269
00:14:33,036 --> 00:14:34,091
sentences, and so on.

270
00:14:34,091 --> 00:14:37,186
Yes, indeed, I want to get you to the
working day. Yes, indeed, I want to get

271
00:14:38,086 --> 00:14:40,855
you through the volume, so we're
not going to spend all of the time

272
00:14:41,629 --> 00:14:43,090
on chapter one, but

273
00:14:43,009 --> 00:14:46,058
this is the kind of thing that different
disciplinary perspectives can open up.

274
00:14:46,058 --> 00:14:50,130
Because Marx actually wrote this text

275
00:14:51,003 --> 00:14:55,062
from those many different
standpoints that I've indicated.

276
00:14:55,089 --> 00:14:55,161
And I think that

277
00:14:56,061 --> 00:14:57,128
we have to recognize

278
00:14:58,028 --> 00:15:03,033
how those different standpoints
intersect within the text.

279
00:15:03,033 --> 00:15:05,041
There are in fact three major

280
00:15:06,013 --> 00:15:08,016
areas of inspiration

281
00:15:08,043 --> 00:15:10,055
for this work,

282
00:15:10,055 --> 00:15:13,079
and they're all powered forward by

283
00:15:13,079 --> 00:15:18,094
a deep commitment, in Marx's case, to

284
00:15:18,094 --> 00:15:21,100
critical theory, to a critical analysis.

285
00:15:22,054 --> 00:15:27,089
When he was relatively young he wrote a little
piece to one of his sort of editorial colleagues

286
00:15:27,089 --> 00:15:29,107
at a German journal.

287
00:15:30,007 --> 00:15:35,036
The title of the piece is :
'For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing'.

288
00:15:35,036 --> 00:15:40,044
A very modest piece, and I
suggest that you actually go read it,

289
00:15:40,044 --> 00:15:42,078
because it's fascinating.

290
00:15:42,078 --> 00:15:44,164
What he does there is, he doesn't say

291
00:15:45,064 --> 00:15:46,068
everybody

292
00:15:46,068 --> 00:15:50,080
is stupid, I'm going to trash everybody,
I'm going to criticize everybody out of

293
00:15:50,008 --> 00:15:50,107
existence. No.

294
00:15:51,079 --> 00:15:52,176
What he says is,

295
00:15:53,076 --> 00:15:56,105
there are a lot of serious people
who really thought about the world

296
00:15:57,005 --> 00:15:58,076
very hard.

297
00:15:58,076 --> 00:16:04,083
And they've seen certain things about
the world, and what they have seen is our resource.

298
00:16:04,083 --> 00:16:08,154
What the critical method does
is to take what they have seen, and

299
00:16:09,054 --> 00:16:14,108
to work on it and to transform
it into something different.

300
00:16:15,008 --> 00:16:18,020
And one of the things he later said,
which I think captures his method

301
00:16:18,002 --> 00:16:19,057
admirably, is:

302
00:16:19,075 --> 00:16:23,122
he says the way in which you
do that transformation is you take

303
00:16:24,022 --> 00:16:26,501
radically different conceptual blocks

304
00:16:26,699 --> 00:16:32,370
and you rub them together,
and you make revolutionary fire.

305
00:16:32,037 --> 00:16:36,079
And that is in effect what he's doing.
He is taking very, very different traditions,

306
00:16:36,079 --> 00:16:37,134
pushing them together,

307
00:16:38,034 --> 00:16:39,080
rubbing them together,

308
00:16:39,008 --> 00:16:43,024
and creating a completely
new framework of knowledge.

309
00:16:43,096 --> 00:16:46,179
And as he says in one of his introductory

310
00:16:49,067 --> 00:16:51,135
prefaces, he says: if you're trying to
create a new system of knowledge, then

311
00:16:52,035 --> 00:16:55,079
you've got to reshape the whole conceptual apparatus.

312
00:16:55,079 --> 00:16:59,087
You've got to reshape the whole method of inquiry.

313
00:17:00,059 --> 00:17:04,408
Now, the three conceptual blocks
that he rubs together in Capital

314
00:17:04,939 --> 00:17:07,110
are really these:

315
00:17:07,011 --> 00:17:09,480
First there is the conceptual block

316
00:17:09,579 --> 00:17:12,180
of political economy.

317
00:17:12,018 --> 00:17:17,064
Eighteenth century, early
nineteenth century political economy.

318
00:17:17,064 --> 00:17:19,101
This is mainly English.

319
00:17:20,001 --> 00:17:22,060
Not solely English, but it's

320
00:17:22,006 --> 00:17:27,053
from Locke and Hobbes and Hume to, of
course, Adam Smith and Ricardo and Malthus.

321
00:17:28,007 --> 00:17:32,018
And a host of other figures,
like Steuart, and minor figures.

322
00:17:32,018 --> 00:17:35,025
And he subjected all of these people

323
00:17:35,088 --> 00:17:38,173
to a deep, deep criticism, in

324
00:17:39,073 --> 00:17:44,104
three volumes called 'Theories of Surplus Value'.

325
00:17:45,004 --> 00:17:48,006
He didn't have a photocopying machine
and he didn't have the web and all those kinds

326
00:17:48,024 --> 00:17:51,024
of things, so he
laboriously copied out by hand

327
00:17:51,024 --> 00:17:52,098
long passages from Adam Smith,

328
00:17:52,098 --> 00:17:53,177
and then wrote a commentary on them.

329
00:17:54,077 --> 00:17:58,129
Long passages from Steuart,

330
00:17:59,029 --> 00:18:03,030
again, long sort of commentaries on them.

331
00:18:03,039 --> 00:18:07,045
In fact what he was doing there
was what we now call deconstruction.

332
00:18:07,099 --> 00:18:09,121
And one of the things I learned

333
00:18:10,021 --> 00:18:12,095
from going through 'Theories of Surplus Value' was

334
00:18:12,095 --> 00:18:15,117
how to deconstruct arguments this way.

335
00:18:16,017 --> 00:18:18,034
In effect, what he does is to say:

336
00:18:18,034 --> 00:18:19,673
'Adam Smith makes this argument.

337
00:18:19,979 --> 00:18:22,770
What is he missing out?

338
00:18:22,077 --> 00:18:24,103
What is the absence? What is the missing

339
00:18:25,003 --> 00:18:26,040
piece in this,

340
00:18:26,004 --> 00:18:27,903
that really helps pin it all together,

341
00:18:28,299 --> 00:18:32,390
and when we put it in there,
transforms the argument?'

342
00:18:32,039 --> 00:18:34,047
So political economy

343
00:18:34,047 --> 00:18:37,075
is really quite strong

344
00:18:37,075 --> 00:18:37,154
as one of the..

345
00:18:38,054 --> 00:18:42,076
…one of the pieces in the story.

346
00:18:42,076 --> 00:18:45,745
Now, I know political economy pretty well.
I've read a lot of that stuff and I feel

347
00:18:46,429 --> 00:18:50,140
fairly familiar with it. Maybe it's
because I come out of the English

348
00:18:50,014 --> 00:18:53,026
tradition and all the rest of it,
that I feel fairly comfortable with it.

349
00:18:53,026 --> 00:18:55,108
And so when we're going through,

350
00:18:56,008 --> 00:18:58,096
I'll give you quite a bit of

351
00:18:58,096 --> 00:18:59,185
the materials coming
out of that, in terms of

352
00:19:00,085 --> 00:19:02,096
where Marx is getting his inspiration from,

353
00:19:02,096 --> 00:19:04,124
because he doesn't always cite it in Capital.

354
00:19:05,024 --> 00:19:06,573
An idea comes up,

355
00:19:06,789 --> 00:19:08,830
which is clearly taken from one place,

356
00:19:08,083 --> 00:19:09,140
and is very significant,

357
00:19:10,004 --> 00:19:14,005
but Marx doesn't always cite it.

358
00:19:14,041 --> 00:19:15,082
There are, of course,

359
00:19:15,082 --> 00:19:20,088
also some other theorists, even in
the United States, but primarily French.

360
00:19:21,042 --> 00:19:24,123
So there was a French tradition of
political economy, too, rather different.

361
00:19:25,023 --> 00:19:29,037
Marx makes reference to that, but that
is one, if you like, one of the big areas

362
00:19:29,037 --> 00:19:32,092
of his…of his discussion.

363
00:19:32,092 --> 00:19:35,146
The second area

364
00:19:36,046 --> 00:19:39,077
is German classical critical philosophy,

365
00:19:39,077 --> 00:19:41,078
which stretches back to the Greeks.

366
00:19:41,087 --> 00:19:44,166
Now, Marx wrote his dissertation

367
00:19:45,066 --> 00:19:49,104
on Epicurus, so he was very, very
familiar with Greek thought,

368
00:19:50,004 --> 00:19:52,075
and of course the
way in which Greek thought

369
00:19:52,075 --> 00:19:55,123
came into the German
philosophical critical tradition,

370
00:19:56,023 --> 00:20:01,034
Spinoza, Leibniz, and of course Hegel,

371
00:20:01,034 --> 00:20:04,039
and many others,

372
00:20:04,039 --> 00:20:08,047
that kind of tradition
is also extremely significant,

373
00:20:08,047 --> 00:20:12,139
and so in many ways he's using
the German critical philosophical tradition

374
00:20:13,039 --> 00:20:16,131
in relationship to political
economy. He's putting them together.

375
00:20:17,031 --> 00:20:18,120
And he also drew heavily,

376
00:20:19,002 --> 00:20:21,080
in lots of ways, upon Kant.

377
00:20:21,098 --> 00:20:22,176
So that tradition

378
00:20:23,076 --> 00:20:26,085
is also very significant. I'm not

379
00:20:27,066 --> 00:20:30,132
very familiar with that tradition. I'm not
deeply trained in that tradition, so those

380
00:20:31,032 --> 00:20:32,059
of you who

381
00:20:32,059 --> 00:20:36,062
have a deeper training in that tradition than I do,
will probably spot things that I'm going to miss.

382
00:20:36,062 --> 00:20:38,097
This is one of the things I learned when I

383
00:20:38,097 --> 00:20:40,190
worked with a group of philosophers who were

384
00:20:41,009 --> 00:20:44,016
steeped in Hegel, and all that
kind of stuff, so I got a very Hegelian kind

385
00:20:45,006 --> 00:20:49,018
of view, of how Marx is
proceeding. I know some of it, but I'm not

386
00:20:49,072 --> 00:20:50,087
so strong on it

387
00:20:50,087 --> 00:20:52,114
as I would want to be.

388
00:20:53,014 --> 00:20:57,017
And I have to say, early
on I had some sympathy with the

389
00:20:57,017 --> 00:21:00,070
British economist Joan Robinson when
she said she really objected to the way in

390
00:21:00,007 --> 00:21:06,025
which Hegel was putting his nose
in between her and Ricardo in Marx's work.

391
00:21:06,088 --> 00:21:08,113
I had sympathy with…

392
00:21:09,013 --> 00:21:11,087
…with that, and so some of the…

393
00:21:11,087 --> 00:21:15,146
…the problems I have with sort of
becoming familiar with Hegel, I kind of have,

394
00:21:15,929 --> 00:21:19,340
I have some sympathy with.

395
00:21:19,034 --> 00:21:23,076
In fact, I jokingly say, and I probably shouldn't
say it, and I'll upset all the Hegelians around,

396
00:21:23,076 --> 00:21:26,153
actually, one of the best things
about reading Hegel before you read Marx,

397
00:21:27,053 --> 00:21:32,055
is it makes reading Marx pretty easy.

398
00:21:32,073 --> 00:21:36,127
So get yourself a dose of Hegel before
you do Marx and everything will be okay.

399
00:21:37,027 --> 00:21:38,099
The third tradition

400
00:21:38,099 --> 00:21:40,175
that he uses, and appeals to a lot,

401
00:21:41,075 --> 00:21:45,107
is the utopian socialist tradition.

402
00:21:46,007 --> 00:21:48,012
Now, this is primarily French,

403
00:21:48,057 --> 00:21:51,146
although there's Robert Owen, and some of the
British, and of course Thomas More, in the

404
00:21:52,046 --> 00:21:53,110
British tradition,

405
00:21:54,001 --> 00:21:57,048
who crops up every now
and again in the text,

406
00:21:57,057 --> 00:21:59,090
but the big socialist thinkers - there was

407
00:21:59,009 --> 00:22:09,037
this tremendous burst of utopian
thinking in the 1830s and 1840s in France.

408
00:22:10,018 --> 00:22:15,051
People like Etienne Cabet, who created a
group called the Icarians, who came here and settled

409
00:22:15,051 --> 00:22:18,105
in the United States after 1848.

410
00:22:19,005 --> 00:22:25,049
Proudhon. Saint-Simon. Fourier.

411
00:22:25,049 --> 00:22:28,081
Marx was very, very familiar -
he spent some time in Paris -

412
00:22:28,081 --> 00:22:29,440
very familiar with their works,

413
00:22:30,169 --> 00:22:37,210
and if you read the Communist Manifesto,
you find that he's a bit frustrated with their works.

414
00:22:37,021 --> 00:22:40,078
He doesn't like the way in which

415
00:22:40,078 --> 00:22:46,080
the utopians are actually configuring some
ideal society over there, without any idea

416
00:22:46,008 --> 00:22:50,036
of how to get from here to there.

417
00:22:51,008 --> 00:22:54,081
For Marx, what he wants
to do is to try to convert

418
00:22:54,081 --> 00:22:57,127
the socialist project
from an utopian socialist project

419
00:22:58,027 --> 00:23:02,093
into a scientific socialist project.

420
00:23:02,093 --> 00:23:05,122
But in order to do that,
he just can't take

421
00:23:06,022 --> 00:23:09,049
English empiricism, English
political economy, those kinds of things.

422
00:23:09,049 --> 00:23:14,076
He has to recreate, reconfigure

423
00:23:14,076 --> 00:23:17,087
what scientific method is all about.

424
00:23:17,087 --> 00:23:21,088
And his scientific method is therefore

425
00:23:21,097 --> 00:23:24,178
predicated very much on this

426
00:23:25,078 --> 00:23:28,149
interrogation of, if you like,
the mainly English

427
00:23:29,049 --> 00:23:31,056
tradition of classical political economy,

428
00:23:32,019 --> 00:23:35,100
with the mainly German
tradition of critical philosophy,

429
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,005
with, if you like,
the utopian impulse,

430
00:23:39,005 --> 00:23:42,064
asking: what is communism?
What is a socialist society?

431
00:23:42,559 --> 00:23:44,970
How can we critique capitalism?

432
00:23:44,097 --> 00:23:48,166
as, if you like, the third
strain which is impelling him forward.

433
00:23:49,066 --> 00:23:52,071
I'm pretty familiar with

434
00:23:52,071 --> 00:23:55,910
the French socialist tradition,
particularly of that period, of the utopian

435
00:23:56,549 --> 00:23:58,440
tradition of that period,

436
00:23:58,044 --> 00:24:02,056
and have even written about it so, so… You know,
I've read a lot of those people, like Fourier,

437
00:24:02,056 --> 00:24:08,055
Saint-Simon, and, and Proudhon,
in particular, and I think, actually,

438
00:24:08,559 --> 00:24:14,280
what happens is that Marx often draws
from them more than he wants to acknowledge,

439
00:24:14,028 --> 00:24:18,094
since he kind of wanted
to distance himself

440
00:24:18,094 --> 00:24:21,103
from that overt utopian tradition

441
00:24:22,003 --> 00:24:25,044
that was there in the 1830s and
1840s, in which he, in many

442
00:24:25,044 --> 00:24:30,133
ways, saw as part of a chronic
failure of the revolution of 1848 in Paris.

443
00:24:31,033 --> 00:24:35,033
Since he wanted to distance himself
from all of that, what he did was to say:

444
00:24:35,033 --> 00:24:39,082
'Okay, I'm not going to acknowledge them very
much at all', but in fact he makes a great

445
00:24:39,082 --> 00:24:43,311
deal of use,
particularly of Saint-Simon,

446
00:24:44,049 --> 00:24:50,390
but also, by negation, Fourier.
In fact, a lot of his ideas

447
00:24:50,039 --> 00:24:52,040
are kind of the negative of Fourier.

448
00:24:52,049 --> 00:24:55,082
So you can't really understand him
without understanding who he's negating,

449
00:24:55,082 --> 00:24:57,085
and he's negating Fourier, in the same way

450
00:24:57,085 --> 00:24:58,157
that he negates

451
00:24:59,057 --> 00:25:02,066
several of the political economists kind
of outright, particularly Malthus, who

452
00:25:03,047 --> 00:25:04,122
he had a particularly

453
00:25:05,022 --> 00:25:09,074
hard time accepting.

454
00:25:09,074 --> 00:25:15,076
So, those are, if you like, some of the main
threads that come together in this book

455
00:25:15,094 --> 00:25:17,161
I suggested however
that we should be reading it

456
00:25:18,061 --> 00:25:22,155
in Marx's own terms but that also poses

457
00:25:23,055 --> 00:25:27,122
a whole set of difficulties and Marx
himself was aware of this.

458
00:25:28,022 --> 00:25:31,051
He interestingly commented

459
00:25:31,051 --> 00:25:33,085
in one of his prefaces,

460
00:25:33,085 --> 00:25:41,090
particularly the preface to the French edition,

461
00:25:41,009 --> 00:25:45,138
when there was a suggestion that the
French edition should be brought out

462
00:25:46,029 --> 00:25:51,140
as a serial - you know the French
like to publish things as feuilletons,

463
00:25:51,014 --> 00:25:55,017
that's sort of - a paper comes out
and it's the first two chapters…

464
00:25:55,017 --> 00:26:00,019
and the next week…sort of a serialized kind of publication.

465
00:26:00,037 --> 00:26:03,122
And what Marx writes (this is in 1872),

466
00:26:04,022 --> 00:26:08,027
(He) says, "…I applaud your idea of publishing
the translation of Capital as a serial…

467
00:26:08,027 --> 00:26:11,030
…In this form the book will be more
accessible to the working class…

468
00:26:11,057 --> 00:26:16,154
…a consideration which to
me outweighs everything else.

469
00:26:17,054 --> 00:26:19,146
That is the good side of your suggestion.

470
00:26:20,046 --> 00:26:22,094
But here is the reverse of the medal.

471
00:26:22,094 --> 00:26:25,112
The method of analysis which I have employed…

472
00:26:26,012 --> 00:26:29,691
…and which had not previously been
applied to economic subjects…

473
00:26:29,799 --> 00:26:31,960
makes the reading of the first chapters

474
00:26:31,096 --> 00:26:36,131
rather arduous and it is
to be feared that the French public…"

475
00:26:37,031 --> 00:26:38,077
(and that will include you)

476
00:26:38,077 --> 00:26:41,169
"…always impatient to come to a conclusion,
eager to know the connection between

477
00:26:42,069 --> 00:26:43,111
general principles

478
00:26:44,011 --> 00:26:46,104
and the immediate questions
that have aroused their passions

479
00:26:47,004 --> 00:26:51,087
may be disheartened because they will
be unable to move on at once.

480
00:26:51,087 --> 00:26:53,876
That is a disadvantage I am
powerless to overcome,

481
00:26:54,659 --> 00:26:57,840
unless it be by forewarning and forearming

482
00:26:57,084 --> 00:27:00,085
those readers who zealously seek the truth.

483
00:27:00,085 --> 00:27:03,149
There is no royal road to science and only
those who do not dread the fatiguing

484
00:27:04,049 --> 00:27:06,318
climb of its steep paths

485
00:27:06,759 --> 00:27:08,150
have a chance of gaining

486
00:27:08,015 --> 00:27:12,071
its luminous summits."

487
00:27:12,071 --> 00:27:14,760
So since you're all here zealously concerned

488
00:27:15,399 --> 00:27:17,830
to pursue the truth,

489
00:27:17,083 --> 00:27:19,272
I have to warn you, yeah, indeed

490
00:27:20,019 --> 00:27:25,870
the reading of the first few chapters is
particularly arduous. It's particularly difficult.

491
00:27:25,087 --> 00:27:27,174
And there are a number of reasons for that.

492
00:27:28,074 --> 00:27:31,132
One of the reasons is his method,
which we'll talk about in a minute.

493
00:27:32,032 --> 00:27:35,064
The other reason has to do

494
00:27:35,064 --> 00:27:39,101
with the particular way in
which he's setting up his project.

495
00:27:40,001 --> 00:27:42,070
His project is to understand

496
00:27:42,007 --> 00:27:47,102
how a capitalist mode of production works.

497
00:27:48,065 --> 00:27:54,574
And he has in mind that this
is going to be a huge, huge project.

498
00:27:55,159 --> 00:27:59,290
In order to get that project underway,

499
00:27:59,029 --> 00:28:05,085
he has to develop a conceptual
apparatus which is going to help him understand

500
00:28:05,085 --> 00:28:11,086
all the complexity that exists under capitalism.

501
00:28:11,086 --> 00:28:16,090
And, again, in one of his introductions he talks about

502
00:28:16,009 --> 00:28:19,024
how he's going to go about that.

503
00:28:20,005 --> 00:28:28,032
He says: "The method of presentation",

504
00:28:28,032 --> 00:28:31,061
and we're now dealing
with the method of presentation,

505
00:28:31,061 --> 00:28:33,145
this is in the post-face
to the second edition,

506
00:28:34,045 --> 00:28:39,120
"The method of presentation must
differ in form from that of inquiry.

507
00:28:40,002 --> 00:28:43,005
"The latter", that is,
the process of inquiry,

508
00:28:43,023 --> 00:28:46,121
"has to appropriate the material in
detail to analyze these different forms of

509
00:28:47,021 --> 00:28:52,024
development, and to track
down their inner connection.

510
00:28:52,051 --> 00:28:57,058
Only after this work has been done can
the real movement be appropriately presented.

511
00:28:57,058 --> 00:28:59,095
If this is done successfully,

512
00:28:59,095 --> 00:29:00,190
if the life of the subject matter",

513
00:29:01,009 --> 00:29:03,057
that is, the capitalist mode of production,

514
00:29:04,038 --> 00:29:07,109
"is now reflected back in the
ideas then it may appear as if we have

515
00:29:08,009 --> 00:29:13,091
before us an a priori construction."

516
00:29:13,091 --> 00:29:14,990
What Marx is talking about here

517
00:29:15,809 --> 00:29:21,120
is his method of inquiry is
different from his method of presentation.

518
00:29:21,012 --> 00:29:26,044
His method of inquiry starts with
everything that exists- everything that's going on.

519
00:29:26,044 --> 00:29:28,773
You start with reality
as you experience it,

520
00:29:29,169 --> 00:29:31,500
as you see it, as you feel it.

521
00:29:31,005 --> 00:29:33,021
You start with all of that.

522
00:29:33,066 --> 00:29:35,144
You start with descriptions of the reality

523
00:29:36,044 --> 00:29:40,273
by the political economists,
by novelists, by everybody.

524
00:29:40,669 --> 00:29:42,694
You start with all that material

525
00:29:42,919 --> 00:29:45,983
and then you search in that material

526
00:29:46,559 --> 00:29:49,020
for some simple concepts.

527
00:29:49,002 --> 00:29:51,038
This is what he calls
the 'method of descent.'

528
00:29:51,038 --> 00:29:52,104
The method of descent from

529
00:29:53,004 --> 00:29:54,098
the reality which you find,

530
00:29:54,098 --> 00:29:56,102
going down, looking for

531
00:29:57,002 --> 00:30:00,044
some foundational, fundamental concepts.

532
00:30:00,044 --> 00:30:05,106
And once you've uncovered and
discovered those fundamental concepts,

533
00:30:06,006 --> 00:30:09,097
you then come back to the surface

534
00:30:09,097 --> 00:30:12,106
and you look at what's going
on around in the surface and you see

535
00:30:13,006 --> 00:30:16,098
that behind the world of
appearance that you started out with

536
00:30:16,098 --> 00:30:21,167
there is another way to
interpret what's going on.

537
00:30:22,067 --> 00:30:25,071
In effect Marx is a
pioneer in a method which if you,

538
00:30:26,007 --> 00:30:30,086
you know, if you're familiar with
psychoanalysis you would also, I think, understand.

539
00:30:30,086 --> 00:30:33,149
That you start with surface behaviors
and you look for some,

540
00:30:34,049 --> 00:30:36,138
you look for conceptual
apparatus like Freud did.

541
00:30:37,038 --> 00:30:40,071
You come up with a conceptual apparatus
and then it brings you back and you could

542
00:30:40,071 --> 00:30:45,076
explain, 'Ah! That person is acting that
way and it looks like this but in fact it's a

543
00:30:46,021 --> 00:30:47,110
representation of that.'

544
00:30:48,001 --> 00:30:51,450
Marx is doing the same sort of
thing. In fact Marx is pioneering

545
00:30:51,549 --> 00:30:54,510
this method in social science:

546
00:30:54,051 --> 00:30:57,112
Start with the surface appearance;
find the deep concepts.

547
00:30:58,012 --> 00:31:03,033
In Capital he's going to start with
the deep concepts. He's going to start

548
00:31:03,033 --> 00:31:07,095
with the conclusions of his inquiries.

549
00:31:07,095 --> 00:31:10,158
'What are my basic concepts?'

550
00:31:11,058 --> 00:31:13,067
And he lays these basic concepts out,

551
00:31:14,048 --> 00:31:17,597
very simply, very directly,

552
00:31:18,029 --> 00:31:21,860
and indeed it looks like an a priori
construction. When you first read it

553
00:31:21,086 --> 00:31:22,101
you say,

554
00:31:23,001 --> 00:31:25,054
'Where is all this stuff coming from?'

555
00:31:25,054 --> 00:31:29,072
'Where'd he get it from?
Why is he doing that?'

556
00:31:29,072 --> 00:31:35,088
And half the time you have no idea what
he's talking about with these concepts.

557
00:31:35,088 --> 00:31:36,097
But then bit by bit,

558
00:31:37,078 --> 00:31:43,134
as you move on, you start to see how these
concepts are illuminating things going on around us.

559
00:31:44,034 --> 00:31:46,125
So after a while you start to say, 'Ah!

560
00:31:47,025 --> 00:31:49,534
'So that's what 'value theory' really means.'

561
00:31:49,759 --> 00:31:52,390
'That's what the value argument is all about.'

562
00:31:52,039 --> 00:31:56,448
'Ah! That is what this
fetish is all really all about.'

563
00:31:56,799 --> 00:31:57,720
'That is what these

564
00:31:57,072 --> 00:31:59,144
concepts are doing for me.'

565
00:32:00,044 --> 00:32:03,111
But in effect you only
understand how these concepts work

566
00:32:04,011 --> 00:32:08,025
by the time you get
to the end of the book.

567
00:32:08,025 --> 00:32:10,046
Now that's a very unfamiliar strategy.

568
00:32:10,046 --> 00:32:13,105
I mean, we're familiar with strategies
where people people hammer into you:

569
00:32:14,005 --> 00:32:17,060
'Get the concept straight and then you go
on to the next one.' It's like you build

570
00:32:17,006 --> 00:32:20,070
brick by brick by brick by brick.

571
00:32:21,024 --> 00:32:23,025
Marx is more like,

572
00:32:23,025 --> 00:32:26,054
you know, dissecting an onion.
I use this metaphor and it's an unfortunate one

573
00:32:26,054 --> 00:32:27,096
because as somebody pointed out,

574
00:32:27,096 --> 00:32:30,153
you know, when you dissect an
onion it usually reduces you to tears.

575
00:32:31,053 --> 00:32:34,132
But what he does in effect is
to start from the outside of the onion,

576
00:32:35,032 --> 00:32:38,061
go to the center of the onion, find
out what makes the onion grow, and then

577
00:32:38,061 --> 00:32:40,067
come back to the surface.

578
00:32:41,021 --> 00:32:44,102
So you only understand, at
the end of the day, what he's about,

579
00:32:45,002 --> 00:32:48,038
when he comes back to the surface.

580
00:32:48,038 --> 00:32:51,131
And his argument about what makes it
grow… when you start from the

581
00:32:52,031 --> 00:32:54,088
inner and you work outwards
in these sort of layers…

582
00:32:54,088 --> 00:32:57,092
and that's what you do.
You perpetually enrich the concepts.

583
00:32:58,028 --> 00:32:59,091
Something that seems like

584
00:32:59,091 --> 00:33:02,210
a very stark and very abstract concept

585
00:33:03,029 --> 00:33:06,780
gradually gets richer and
richer and richer as you go on.

586
00:33:06,078 --> 00:33:08,089
It's an expansion

587
00:33:08,089 --> 00:33:10,143
of these concepts.

588
00:33:11,043 --> 00:33:14,129
It's not a brick by brick approach at
all, and most of us are not used to that, so

589
00:33:15,029 --> 00:33:19,052
one of the things you've got to
get used to is that this is what's going on.

590
00:33:19,052 --> 00:33:21,077
What that means for you is

591
00:33:21,077 --> 00:33:24,154
you've got to hang on like crazy
for the first three chapters, at least,

592
00:33:25,054 --> 00:33:29,058
because you probably won't really get the
sense of what it's all about very well

593
00:33:29,094 --> 00:33:30,193
until you get

594
00:33:31,039 --> 00:33:33,790
further on down into the text,
and then you start to see

595
00:33:33,079 --> 00:33:34,095
how these concepts

596
00:33:34,095 --> 00:33:36,157
are working, and how they… and then,

597
00:33:37,057 --> 00:33:38,616
if you like, the proof of

598
00:33:39,129 --> 00:33:42,550
the pudding is in the eating,
that by the time you start to actually

599
00:33:42,055 --> 00:33:44,144
derive some of the consequences

600
00:33:45,044 --> 00:33:48,115
that Marx lays out then, of course,

601
00:33:49,015 --> 00:33:54,016
you get somewhere.

602
00:33:54,025 --> 00:33:57,027
Included in this is his
choice of starting point.

603
00:33:57,027 --> 00:33:59,386
As you will see, he starts
from the standpoint…

604
00:33:59,629 --> 00:34:04,040
from the concept of the commodity.

605
00:34:04,004 --> 00:34:07,068
Now, this is a very
strange starting point. I mean

606
00:34:07,068 --> 00:34:10,097
most of you, when you think of Marx,
will think of phrases like 'all history is the

607
00:34:10,097 --> 00:34:12,216
history of class struggle'.

608
00:34:13,089 --> 00:34:17,130
So you think: 'Well, Capital
should start with class struggle'.

609
00:34:17,499 --> 00:34:21,528
I don't know, it takes to about page 300
before you get to any class struggle in Capital.

610
00:34:21,789 --> 00:34:23,797
Very frustrating for those
of you kind of really want to

611
00:34:24,589 --> 00:34:27,592
get in there and think about the class struggle.

612
00:34:27,889 --> 00:34:29,898
Why doesn't he start with money?

613
00:34:30,789 --> 00:34:32,845
Actually, in his early
preparatory investigations, he

614
00:34:33,349 --> 00:34:35,423
wanted to start with money,

615
00:34:36,089 --> 00:34:40,161
but then he found it was more
and more impossible to start with money.

616
00:34:40,809 --> 00:34:43,855
Why didn't he start with labour?

617
00:34:44,269 --> 00:34:47,316
You know, he could have started in all
kinds of different places, but he decides

618
00:34:47,739 --> 00:34:48,776
to start with the commodity.

619
00:34:49,109 --> 00:34:54,134
And if you go back and you read his preparatory
writings, you see there was a long period,

620
00:34:54,359 --> 00:34:57,375
about 20 or 30 years, where he
was struggling with the question.

621
00:34:57,519 --> 00:34:58,553
What's the best starting point

622
00:34:58,859 --> 00:34:59,921
to really go after this?

623
00:35:00,479 --> 00:35:02,575
What's at the centre of this
onion, if you want to call it that,

624
00:35:03,439 --> 00:35:05,190
when I analyze it,

625
00:35:05,019 --> 00:35:06,278
it really allows me

626
00:35:06,449 --> 00:35:09,462
to understand how the whole thing works?

627
00:35:09,579 --> 00:35:11,640
And he decided to start with the commodity.

628
00:35:11,064 --> 00:35:13,283
It's an arbitrary starting point.

629
00:35:13,859 --> 00:35:16,898
You don't get its logic. He doesn't
explain it. He doesn't even bother to

630
00:35:17,249 --> 00:35:19,302
try and persuade you about it.
He just says:

631
00:35:19,779 --> 00:35:22,865
'This is where I start. This is how I
start to think about it. These are the concepts

632
00:35:23,639 --> 00:35:26,700
I'm going to use.'

633
00:35:27,249 --> 00:35:31,322
Very cryptic kind of beginning to the whole
thing. He doesn't attempt any kind of persuasion at all.

634
00:35:31,979 --> 00:35:35,043
At that point you kind of say: 'Well, you know, if
there's no justification for this, why don't I

635
00:35:35,619 --> 00:35:36,664
lay the text aside?'

636
00:35:37,069 --> 00:35:39,420
Then the thing starts to
get a little complicated.

637
00:35:39,042 --> 00:35:43,831
By the time you get to chapter three, which
is where most people who read Capital stop reading it,

638
00:35:44,209 --> 00:35:46,230
if they're trying to read it on their own,

639
00:35:46,023 --> 00:35:49,097
by the time you get to chapter three,
you kind of say: 'This is impossible. This is not

640
00:35:49,097 --> 00:35:50,036
going anywhere.'

641
00:35:50,909 --> 00:35:54,942
So it's really hard,
for those kinds of reasons.

642
00:35:55,239 --> 00:36:00,246
The other reason it's hard is because,

643
00:36:00,309 --> 00:36:03,396
as I suggested, the
conceptual apparatus is meant

644
00:36:04,179 --> 00:36:06,265
not just to deal with Capital Volume 1.

645
00:36:07,039 --> 00:36:08,090
It's meant to

646
00:36:08,549 --> 00:36:12,646
take him all the way, in terms of all the
other things he wanted to think about.

647
00:36:13,519 --> 00:36:17,568
Now, you'll be distressed to know
that there are three volumes of Capital.

648
00:36:18,009 --> 00:36:21,027
So if you really want to
understand the capitalist mode of production,

649
00:36:21,189 --> 00:36:23,281
you have to read the three volumes of Capital.

650
00:36:24,109 --> 00:36:28,121
Volume 1 is just one particular perspective on

651
00:36:28,229 --> 00:36:29,326
the capitalist mode of production,

652
00:36:30,199 --> 00:36:35,281
but even worse, the three volumes of Capital
are only about an eighth of what he had in mind.

653
00:36:36,019 --> 00:36:39,102
Here's what he wrote in
a text called the Grundrisse,

654
00:36:39,849 --> 00:36:43,903
which is a preparatory text, where
he's setting out various designs for Capital.

655
00:36:44,389 --> 00:36:45,415
He says: 'Okay,

656
00:36:45,649 --> 00:36:49,707
what I'm going to do is to go through

657
00:36:50,229 --> 00:36:51,278
the analysis as follows:

658
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,747
We're going to deal with: "1) The general
abstract determinants which obtain more

659
00:36:55,999 --> 00:37:01,004
or less in all forms of society.

660
00:37:01,049 --> 00:37:04,104
2) The categories which make up the
inner structure of bourgeois society,

661
00:37:04,599 --> 00:37:07,647
and on which the fundamental
classes rest: capital,

662
00:37:08,079 --> 00:37:12,161
wage labour, landed property, their interrelation.

663
00:37:12,899 --> 00:37:13,976
Town and Country.

664
00:37:14,669 --> 00:37:16,743
The three great social classes;

665
00:37:17,409 --> 00:37:18,498
exchange between them.

666
00:37:19,299 --> 00:37:20,321
Circulation.

667
00:37:20,519 --> 00:37:22,527
The credit system."

668
00:37:22,599 --> 00:37:23,688
Good topic right now.

669
00:37:24,489 --> 00:37:27,516
"Private.

670
00:37:27,759 --> 00:37:31,650
3) Concentration of bourgeois society in
the form of the state,

671
00:37:31,065 --> 00:37:33,664
viewed in relation to itself.

672
00:37:34,249 --> 00:37:36,315
The unproductive classes.

673
00:37:36,909 --> 00:37:38,160
Taxes,

674
00:37:38,016 --> 00:37:39,355
State debt.

675
00:37:39,499 --> 00:37:40,555
Public credit.

676
00:37:41,059 --> 00:37:42,124
The population.

677
00:37:42,709 --> 00:37:44,180
The colonies.

678
00:37:44,018 --> 00:37:47,537
Emigration.

679
00:37:47,699 --> 00:37:50,726
4) The international relations of
production,

680
00:37:50,969 --> 00:37:51,978
international division of labour,

681
00:37:52,869 --> 00:37:53,941
international exchange,

682
00:37:54,589 --> 00:37:55,634
export and import,

683
00:37:56,039 --> 00:37:57,230
rate of exchange,"

684
00:37:57,023 --> 00:38:01,152
another good topic.

685
00:38:01,359 --> 00:38:01,444
"Fifth," excellent topic,

686
00:38:02,209 --> 00:38:07,264
"The world market and crises.'"

687
00:38:07,759 --> 00:38:08,440
So this is, if you like,

688
00:38:08,044 --> 00:38:11,133
the panorama he laid out in the
Grundrisse of what it was he wanted to do.

689
00:38:12,033 --> 00:38:14,502
This is what he had in mind,

690
00:38:14,799 --> 00:38:16,897
that he was going to do,

691
00:38:17,779 --> 00:38:19,850
when he wrote Capital.

692
00:38:20,489 --> 00:38:21,568
He never finished it.

693
00:38:22,279 --> 00:38:23,377
He never took up

694
00:38:24,259 --> 00:38:26,390
most of those topics.

695
00:38:26,039 --> 00:38:27,094
So what you have in Capital

696
00:38:27,094 --> 00:38:29,153
is the beginning

697
00:38:29,999 --> 00:38:33,044
of this massive kind of project,

698
00:38:33,449 --> 00:38:35,468
a massive project which

699
00:38:35,639 --> 00:38:37,360
he hinted at in lots

700
00:38:37,036 --> 00:38:41,095
of places about, you know, how to
understand the state, how to understand

701
00:38:41,095 --> 00:38:45,994
civil society, how to understand
emigration, how to understand

702
00:38:46,849 --> 00:38:51,940
currency exchanges, and things like that.

703
00:38:52,759 --> 00:38:56,781
So, here too, we have to understand both that

704
00:38:56,979 --> 00:38:59,992
the conceptual apparatus

705
00:39:00,109 --> 00:39:02,110
at the beginning, is…

706
00:39:02,119 --> 00:39:06,178
he's really trying to design it in such
a way that it bears the burden of all of that,

707
00:39:06,709 --> 00:39:08,890
but in fact, what it then does,

708
00:39:08,089 --> 00:39:11,898
is it provides the
framework within which Volume 1

709
00:39:12,699 --> 00:39:14,020
operates, and Volume 1

710
00:39:14,002 --> 00:39:17,551
is just one single piece of this whole

711
00:39:17,569 --> 00:39:19,584
puzzle that he's laid out.

712
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,770
Volume 1 is really essentially
looking at the capitalist mode of production

713
00:39:24,229 --> 00:39:27,290
from the standpoint of production,

714
00:39:27,839 --> 00:39:28,921
not of the market,

715
00:39:29,659 --> 00:39:33,721
not of global trade, but
the standpoint of production.

716
00:39:34,279 --> 00:39:36,366
So you're going to have to recognize
that what you're going to get out of this

717
00:39:37,149 --> 00:39:41,190
course is an analysis, by Marx,

718
00:39:41,019 --> 00:39:46,778
of a capitalist mode of
production from the perspective of production.

719
00:39:46,949 --> 00:39:50,000
Volume 2 does the perspective of exchange.

720
00:39:50,459 --> 00:39:54,523
Volume 3 does materials about crisis formation,

721
00:39:55,099 --> 00:39:59,185
and also rules of distribution,

722
00:39:59,959 --> 00:40:02,046
interest, rent, taxes,

723
00:40:02,829 --> 00:40:07,888
those kinds of issues.

724
00:40:08,419 --> 00:40:10,470
But then comes the method,

725
00:40:10,929 --> 00:40:12,020
the other part of the method,

726
00:40:12,839 --> 00:40:17,881
which is very important in terms of the
method of presentation and the method of inquiry.

727
00:40:18,259 --> 00:40:23,314
And that is Marx's use of dialectics.

728
00:40:23,809 --> 00:40:27,828
What he says, again in his preface,

729
00:40:27,999 --> 00:40:32,190
is that in dialectics we find

730
00:40:32,019 --> 00:40:34,828
a completely different

731
00:40:34,999 --> 00:40:38,018
concept of analysis.

732
00:40:38,189 --> 00:40:45,189
You'll find hardly any causal language
in Marx. Marx doesn't say, 'This causes that.'

733
00:40:45,219 --> 00:40:46,228
He nearly always says that

734
00:40:47,119 --> 00:40:51,175
'This is dialectically related to that.'

735
00:40:51,679 --> 00:40:54,723
And a dialectical relation

736
00:40:55,119 --> 00:40:56,160
is an inner relation,

737
00:40:56,529 --> 00:41:00,583
not a causative external
relation. It's an inner relation.

738
00:41:01,069 --> 00:41:05,088
And he talks about this dialectical method

739
00:41:05,259 --> 00:41:09,284
again in the postface
to the second edition.

740
00:41:09,509 --> 00:41:11,520
He says: 'Okay,

741
00:41:11,619 --> 00:41:20,678
I took up some ideas from Hegel.

742
00:41:21,209 --> 00:41:24,900
"But," he says, "my dialectical
method is, in its foundations, not only

743
00:41:24,009 --> 00:41:28,588
different from the Hegelian,
but exactly opposite to it."

744
00:41:29,479 --> 00:41:30,534
There are ways in which, I think,

745
00:41:31,029 --> 00:41:34,084
we're going to find that's not exactly true.

746
00:41:34,579 --> 00:41:37,632
That, in fact, Marx revolutionized

747
00:41:38,109 --> 00:41:42,125
the dialectical method;
he didn't simply invert it,

748
00:41:42,269 --> 00:41:44,361
as is sometimes said.

749
00:41:45,189 --> 00:41:48,277
He then goes on to say this: "I criticized
the mystificatory side of the Hegelian

750
00:41:49,069 --> 00:41:53,160
dialectic nearly thirty years ago."

751
00:41:53,016 --> 00:41:58,545
What Marx is referring to here is

752
00:41:58,689 --> 00:42:01,692
his tract called A Critique
of Hegel's Philosophy of Law,

753
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,763
Critique of Hegel's Philosophy
of Right, whichever the title is,

754
00:42:05,159 --> 00:42:06,242
and I think that that critique

755
00:42:06,989 --> 00:42:09,990
played a very foundational

756
00:42:09,999 --> 00:42:12,081
moment in which Marx

757
00:42:12,819 --> 00:42:16,854
defined his relationship to the Hegelian dialectic.

758
00:42:17,169 --> 00:42:19,248
So he goes on talking about

759
00:42:19,959 --> 00:42:22,044
this mystificatory aspect.

760
00:42:22,809 --> 00:42:26,902
And the way in which this
mystified form of the dialectic

761
00:42:27,739 --> 00:42:29,744
as purveyed by Hegel,

762
00:42:29,789 --> 00:42:33,883
became the fashion in Germany,

763
00:42:34,729 --> 00:42:39,732
and why it was that he had to reform it

764
00:42:39,759 --> 00:42:42,845
in such a way as so it could take account

765
00:42:43,619 --> 00:42:50,619
of every historical developed
form as being in a fluid state, in motion.

766
00:42:51,039 --> 00:42:53,113
He had to re-figure it
so that it could grasp

767
00:42:53,779 --> 00:42:59,910
the transient aspects of
a society as well.

768
00:42:59,091 --> 00:43:04,040
And he then goes on to
talk about this as being,

769
00:43:04,859 --> 00:43:08,883
"This dialectical method does not
let itself be impressed by anything, being

770
00:43:09,099 --> 00:43:14,164
in it's very essence critical and revolutionary."

771
00:43:14,749 --> 00:43:18,774
Now, what he's talking about here is,

772
00:43:18,999 --> 00:43:22,063
he's going to use a
version of dialectical method

773
00:43:22,639 --> 00:43:27,643
to establish relations between

774
00:43:27,679 --> 00:43:29,682
elements within his system.

775
00:43:29,979 --> 00:43:31,984
but he is going to do it in such a way

776
00:43:32,479 --> 00:43:36,561
as to capture fluidity and motion.

777
00:43:37,299 --> 00:43:41,365
Marx above all is incredibly, incredibly

778
00:43:41,959 --> 00:43:44,005
impressed with the fluidity

779
00:43:44,419 --> 00:43:48,451
and the dynamics of capitalism.

780
00:43:48,739 --> 00:43:51,741
Now this is very weird,
because Marx is often

781
00:43:51,939 --> 00:43:53,941
talked about as if he is a

782
00:43:53,959 --> 00:43:57,961
static, structural analyst.

783
00:43:57,979 --> 00:44:03,012
The weird thing is, when you read Capital,
you realize he sees the motion.

784
00:44:03,309 --> 00:44:06,315
He sees the movement all of the time.

785
00:44:06,369 --> 00:44:09,393
He is constantly talking about

786
00:44:09,609 --> 00:44:14,642
that movement and that
movement is a dialectical movement.

787
00:44:14,939 --> 00:44:16,710
So one of the ways in which

788
00:44:16,071 --> 00:44:22,090
also you have to read Marx in Marx's
own terms is to try to grapple with

789
00:44:22,729 --> 00:44:25,768
what he means by dialectics.

790
00:44:26,119 --> 00:44:28,166
Because the problem is he never wrote

791
00:44:28,589 --> 00:44:31,624
a tract on dialectics.

792
00:44:31,939 --> 00:44:32,971
He never said:

793
00:44:33,259 --> 00:44:35,283
'Okay, this is my dialectical method'.

794
00:44:35,499 --> 00:44:36,630
There are hints of it.

795
00:44:36,063 --> 00:44:38,080
If you really want to
understand his dialectical method,

796
00:44:38,008 --> 00:44:41,467
you read Capital.

797
00:44:42,259 --> 00:44:45,307
That's the best place to get it.

798
00:44:45,739 --> 00:44:48,812
And when you've read
Capital very carefully you will come out

799
00:44:49,469 --> 00:44:53,140
with a sense of how dialectical method works.

800
00:44:53,014 --> 00:44:56,643
But again, this is going
to be a bit confusing because

801
00:44:56,769 --> 00:45:00,817
you're probably not yet used
to dialectical reasoning, and the curious thing about

802
00:45:01,249 --> 00:45:03,325
academia is that the more
well trained you are in a discipline,

803
00:45:04,009 --> 00:45:06,063
probably less used you are

804
00:45:06,549 --> 00:45:08,280
to dialectical method.

805
00:45:08,028 --> 00:45:10,077
In fact young children are very dialectical.

806
00:45:10,329 --> 00:45:12,341
They see everything in motion.

807
00:45:12,449 --> 00:45:15,475
They see contradiction everywhere
and they are quite contradictory about everything.

808
00:45:15,709 --> 00:45:17,718
Every contradiction goes
into everything else and

809
00:45:18,609 --> 00:45:19,613
your kids say all kinds of

810
00:45:19,649 --> 00:45:21,731
wondrous contradictory things to you.

811
00:45:22,469 --> 00:45:25,504
And you kind of say 'Now you stop
thinking about that. You have to think rationally'.

812
00:45:25,819 --> 00:45:27,827
So, actually, we train people

813
00:45:28,619 --> 00:45:33,460
out of being good
dialecticians almost from day two.

814
00:45:33,046 --> 00:45:38,105
But in fact dialectical method
is intuitively very, very powerful.

815
00:45:38,519 --> 00:45:41,616
And in a sense what
Marx is doing is recovering

816
00:45:42,489 --> 00:45:47,547
that incredibly intuitive
dialectical method and putting it to work,

817
00:45:48,069 --> 00:45:51,400
both in terms of an
analytic schema, as we will see,

818
00:45:51,004 --> 00:45:53,009
but also in terms of understanding

819
00:45:53,009 --> 00:45:55,063
that everything is in process.

820
00:45:56,044 --> 00:45:58,363
Everything is in motion.

821
00:45:58,759 --> 00:46:01,772
Everything is defined in those terms.

822
00:46:01,889 --> 00:46:02,988
He doesn't talk about labour.

823
00:46:03,879 --> 00:46:07,900
He talks about the labour process.

824
00:46:07,009 --> 00:46:08,398
Capital is not a thing;

825
00:46:09,289 --> 00:46:13,315
it is a process; it is in motion.

826
00:46:13,549 --> 00:46:17,615
Value does not exist unless it is in motion.

827
00:46:18,209 --> 00:46:22,247
When things stop, value disappears,

828
00:46:22,589 --> 00:46:26,657
and the whole system comes tumbling down.

829
00:46:27,269 --> 00:46:28,274
And those of you who

830
00:46:28,769 --> 00:46:32,410
remember very well what
happened in the aftermath of 9/11.

831
00:46:32,041 --> 00:46:38,250
Most things stopped. Motion stopped.

832
00:46:38,619 --> 00:46:41,644
Planes stopped flying. You
couldn't get through the bridges,

833
00:46:41,869 --> 00:46:43,770
everything, and then in three days

834
00:46:43,077 --> 00:46:46,406
suddenly everybody realized that
capitalism would collapse

835
00:46:47,099 --> 00:46:50,420
if things didn't get in motion again,
so suddenly, you know, Giuliani

836
00:46:50,042 --> 00:46:50,721
comes on and says:

837
00:46:51,099 --> 00:46:54,101
'For god's sake, get out
your credit cards and go shop.

838
00:46:54,299 --> 00:46:57,371
Go back to Broadway. Go back
and do this kind of stuff; go back.'

839
00:46:58,019 --> 00:47:01,077
Bush even appeared on a TV
ad for the airline industry, saying:

840
00:47:01,599 --> 00:47:03,690
'Get back and start flying.

841
00:47:04,509 --> 00:47:07,530
Get back in motion.' You know.

842
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:12,721
In other words, capitalism is, as
Jack Kerouac would say, 'perpetually on the road.'

843
00:47:12,919 --> 00:47:16,934
And if it's not always
on the road, then it's nothing.

844
00:47:17,069 --> 00:47:21,650
So Marx is incredibly
appreciative of that. And it's very

845
00:47:21,065 --> 00:47:24,974
strange to find him so
often depicted as this static

846
00:47:25,559 --> 00:47:29,615
figure who's got it all worked out.
No, it's in motion and it's changing,

847
00:47:30,119 --> 00:47:33,200
perpetually in motion.

848
00:47:33,929 --> 00:47:34,997
So here, I think, too,

849
00:47:35,609 --> 00:47:39,618
what Marx is trying to do
is to find a conceptual apparatus

850
00:47:39,699 --> 00:47:44,640
that would help you to understand that motion.

851
00:47:44,064 --> 00:47:46,753
And so, some of his concepts

852
00:47:47,329 --> 00:47:49,350
are formulated in such a way

853
00:47:49,539 --> 00:47:55,450
that they're about relations;
they're about transformative activity.

854
00:47:55,045 --> 00:48:00,054
This is like this at this moment;
and it's like that in the next moment.

855
00:48:00,459 --> 00:48:02,550
And this can get quite confusing,

856
00:48:03,369 --> 00:48:06,392
but what he's trying to do is to get
behind the confusion, come up with a

857
00:48:06,599 --> 00:48:08,130
conceptual apparatus,

858
00:48:08,013 --> 00:48:09,972
a deep structure, if you like,

859
00:48:10,089 --> 00:48:12,180
which is going to help you understand

860
00:48:12,018 --> 00:48:15,797
all of that motion which
is going on around us perpetually.

861
00:48:15,959 --> 00:48:19,966
And, particularly, the way in which motion is

862
00:48:20,029 --> 00:48:27,029
actually instantiated within a
capitalist mode of production.

863
00:48:27,569 --> 00:48:29,570
So, one of the ways
in which I think you have to

864
00:48:29,579 --> 00:48:32,633
try to understand Marx is by appreciating

865
00:48:33,119 --> 00:48:37,128
his dialectical method.

866
00:48:37,209 --> 00:48:43,295
Now there are a lot of people, including
many Marxists, who really don't like his dialectics.

867
00:48:44,069 --> 00:48:45,430
There is a whole sphere

868
00:48:45,043 --> 00:48:47,802
called 'analytical Marxism,' for example,

869
00:48:48,189 --> 00:48:50,252
which kind of says:
'You know, all of that dialectics…'

870
00:48:50,819 --> 00:48:51,907
They actually like to call themselves

871
00:48:52,699 --> 00:48:54,777
'no bullshit Marxists,'

872
00:48:55,479 --> 00:49:02,491
because they just basically say:
'All that dialectics is just B.S.'

873
00:49:02,599 --> 00:49:04,030
And then there are actually

874
00:49:04,003 --> 00:49:09,039
other people who want to somehow or other
take something that's very dialectical and turn it into

875
00:49:09,039 --> 00:49:12,458
a causative structure.

876
00:49:12,809 --> 00:49:19,903
And in fact there's a whole positivist version
of what Marx says; that is, strip away the dialectics.

877
00:49:20,749 --> 00:49:23,770
Now, this may be perfectly correct; I mean,
I'm not making an argument, saying, you know,

878
00:49:23,959 --> 00:49:27,021
the analytical Marxists are wrong.

879
00:49:27,579 --> 00:49:30,626
I'm not going to make an argument,
saying that people who turn it into

880
00:49:31,049 --> 00:49:34,055
a positivist mathematical model are wrong.

881
00:49:34,109 --> 00:49:36,176
Maybe they're right.

882
00:49:36,779 --> 00:49:40,804
But what you have to do if you're
going to understand Marx's text in Marx's terms:

883
00:49:41,029 --> 00:49:45,102
you're going to have to
grapple with the dialectic.

884
00:49:45,759 --> 00:49:48,797
And it's fine afterwards
if you want to say 'Marx is wrong

885
00:49:49,139 --> 00:49:52,140
the dialectic is wrong, I don't like it,
it doesn't work', this kind of thing.

886
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:53,246
That's fine.

887
00:49:53,309 --> 00:49:57,340
But before you say that you've got to
understand what it is and how it is working.

888
00:49:57,619 --> 00:50:01,410
So part of what we want to do

889
00:50:01,041 --> 00:50:04,860
is to spend some time

890
00:50:05,229 --> 00:50:08,272
recognizing that dialectical aspect of Marx,

891
00:50:08,659 --> 00:50:13,720
and seeing how it works.

892
00:50:14,269 --> 00:50:15,361
Now there is one

893
00:50:16,189 --> 00:50:19,196
final point before we get to the break.

894
00:50:19,259 --> 00:50:25,304
I asked to try to read Marx in
Marx's own terms but obviously I am your guide.

895
00:50:25,709 --> 00:50:26,764
And so you going to read it

896
00:50:27,259 --> 00:50:31,345
with my help and my terms
are going to be very important.

897
00:50:32,119 --> 00:50:37,174
So one of the things I want to
say here is that of course my interest

898
00:50:37,669 --> 00:50:40,736
in urbanisation, in uneven
geographical development, imperialism

899
00:50:41,339 --> 00:50:43,411
and all those kinds of things,

900
00:50:44,059 --> 00:50:48,108
that my interests have actually

901
00:50:48,549 --> 00:50:52,647
become very, very important in terms of

902
00:50:53,529 --> 00:50:55,542
affecting the way in
which I read this text.

903
00:50:55,659 --> 00:50:55,748
In other words,

904
00:50:56,549 --> 00:51:00,647
I've been through 30 odd years
of dialogue between me and this text.

905
00:51:01,529 --> 00:51:04,571
And one of the reasons
I like to teach it every year is:

906
00:51:04,949 --> 00:51:08,985
every year I ask to myself: 'How I'm
going to read it differently this year?

907
00:51:09,309 --> 00:51:15,333
What about will strike me
that I didn't notice before?'

908
00:51:15,549 --> 00:51:18,638
And new things strike me because
new events crop up, that is history

909
00:51:19,439 --> 00:51:22,910
and geography change.

910
00:51:22,091 --> 00:51:26,290
And so, there are certain things which arise,
and I can come back and I can look at Marx and say:

911
00:51:27,109 --> 00:51:30,400
'Well, does he have anything to say about this?',
and sometimes you find something really acute

912
00:51:30,004 --> 00:51:31,973
which he has to say about it,

913
00:51:32,369 --> 00:51:34,456
sometimes not at all.

914
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:38,244
So, I have been through a long dialogue

915
00:51:38,289 --> 00:51:41,345
and I used this way of thinking

916
00:51:41,849 --> 00:51:47,850
many of these conceptional
apparatuses all of the time in the work I do.

917
00:51:47,949 --> 00:51:53,970
And in the process, of course, I changed
the way in which I understand the text.

918
00:51:54,159 --> 00:51:57,251
I suspect that if you could
get a recording of this class

919
00:51:58,079 --> 00:51:59,147
from twenty five years ago,

920
00:51:59,759 --> 00:52:01,130
you would find me saying

921
00:52:01,013 --> 00:52:05,262
very different things
from what I'm saying now.

922
00:52:05,379 --> 00:52:07,383
For a variety of reasons both

923
00:52:07,419 --> 00:52:10,503
the historical climate has changed,
the intellectual climate has changed.

924
00:52:11,259 --> 00:52:14,344
All sorts of issues have cropped
up which didn't exist before. Therefore,

925
00:52:15,109 --> 00:52:17,127
you read it in a different way.

926
00:52:17,289 --> 00:52:18,380
Interesting point:

927
00:52:19,199 --> 00:52:23,244
in one of the prefaces Marx talks
about that process,

928
00:52:23,649 --> 00:52:25,890
about how bourgeois theory

929
00:52:25,089 --> 00:52:28,758
understood the world in a certain way
and then history moved on to make that

930
00:52:29,559 --> 00:52:31,950
theoretical formulation redundant,

931
00:52:31,095 --> 00:52:33,714
and that therefore ideas had to change

932
00:52:34,569 --> 00:52:39,571
as circumstances change.

933
00:52:39,769 --> 00:52:42,810
Or ideas had to be reconfigured.

934
00:52:43,179 --> 00:52:44,690
So you're going to get

935
00:52:44,069 --> 00:52:46,648
some of my reading in it, too.

936
00:52:47,269 --> 00:52:49,370
And there's no way you
can avoid that, but

937
00:52:49,037 --> 00:52:50,516
at the end of the day,

938
00:52:50,849 --> 00:52:53,931
what I want you to do, is to come
to your own reading of it,

939
00:52:54,669 --> 00:52:59,698
that is, engage with the text in
terms of your experience, both intellectual,

940
00:52:59,959 --> 00:53:02,982
social, political,

941
00:53:03,189 --> 00:53:05,230
and have a good time talking to the text,

942
00:53:05,599 --> 00:53:08,130
and letting the text talk to you,

943
00:53:08,013 --> 00:53:11,034
and appreciating the way
in which Marx tries

944
00:53:11,034 --> 00:53:12,193
to understand the world.

945
00:53:12,499 --> 00:53:17,020
Because above all I think this text is a
wonderful, wonderful exercise

946
00:53:17,002 --> 00:53:19,131
in seeking to understand

947
00:53:19,149 --> 00:53:21,164
what appears almost

948
00:53:21,299 --> 00:53:23,373
impossible to understand.

949
00:53:24,039 --> 00:53:25,900
So from this standpoint

950
00:53:25,009 --> 00:53:30,028
you have to engage with the text.
And okay I'm going to be in your way a little of the time,

951
00:53:30,919 --> 00:53:32,941
but I hope not too much
because at the end of the day

952
00:53:33,139 --> 00:53:37,212
it is your business to really translate

953
00:53:37,869 --> 00:53:39,891
what's going on in this text into

954
00:53:40,089 --> 00:53:42,110
meaning in your own life.

955
00:53:42,299 --> 00:53:43,490
That's what this book

956
00:53:43,049 --> 00:53:46,049
is so great at. I think it will
speak to you in some way. Probably not in the

957
00:53:46,049 --> 00:53:48,888
same way to you as it does to me.

958
00:53:49,329 --> 00:53:51,418
And that is perfectly valid

959
00:53:52,219 --> 00:53:54,420
and perfectly reasonable.
And I'd like therefore for you

960
00:53:54,042 --> 00:53:58,171
to confront it in that kind of spirit.

961
00:53:58,549 --> 00:54:03,574
Okay that's all I want to
say by way of introduction.

962
00:54:03,799 --> 00:54:06,814
What I thought would be very useful
to do is just to read through this first

963
00:54:06,949 --> 00:54:10,012
section with you and
try to give you an idea

964
00:54:10,579 --> 00:54:17,602
what I mean about method and all the rest of it.

965
00:54:17,809 --> 00:54:19,818
Okay, he starts off simply saying:

966
00:54:20,709 --> 00:54:23,737
"The wealth of societies in which
the capitalist mode of production prevails

967
00:54:23,989 --> 00:54:27,020
appears as an immense
collection of commodities;

968
00:54:27,299 --> 00:54:28,343
(…)individual commodity(…)"

969
00:54:28,739 --> 00:54:29,773
(…)elementary form.

970
00:54:30,079 --> 00:54:31,141
Our analysis therefore begins

971
00:54:31,699 --> 00:54:33,763
with the commodity."

972
00:54:34,339 --> 00:54:35,415
Okay, this is the a priori

973
00:54:36,099 --> 00:54:38,178
beginning point which
we've already mentioned.

974
00:54:38,889 --> 00:54:39,898
But notice something

975
00:54:40,789 --> 00:54:43,790
about the language: "appears".

976
00:54:43,889 --> 00:54:47,955
Always watch out when
Marx uses the word "appear".

977
00:54:48,549 --> 00:54:50,557
"Appears" is not "is",

978
00:54:51,349 --> 00:54:53,403
"appears" means that
something else is going on,

979
00:54:53,889 --> 00:54:58,410
and you better watch out and figure
out what that "something else" is.

980
00:54:58,041 --> 00:55:02,530
And notice also that

981
00:55:02,899 --> 00:55:04,935
he is exclusively concerned with

982
00:55:05,259 --> 00:55:08,317
the "capitalist mode of production".

983
00:55:08,839 --> 00:55:11,845
He's not concerned with ancient
modes of production or socialist

984
00:55:12,439 --> 00:55:13,448
modes of production or

985
00:55:14,339 --> 00:55:18,361
even hybrid modes of production.
He's going to be concerned with

986
00:55:18,559 --> 00:55:19,636
a capitalist mode of production

987
00:55:20,329 --> 00:55:23,355
in a pretty pure form.

988
00:55:23,589 --> 00:55:26,670
And I think that is a very important

989
00:55:26,067 --> 00:55:31,676
thing to remember when
we're reading through this text.

990
00:55:32,279 --> 00:55:34,303
So this is a beginning point.

991
00:55:34,519 --> 00:55:36,525
Now, when you think about it,

992
00:55:36,579 --> 00:55:44,579
it's actually a very good beginning point.

993
00:55:44,709 --> 00:55:45,714
Why? …How many of us

994
00:55:46,209 --> 00:55:52,294
in this room have never had
any experience of a commodity?

995
00:55:53,059 --> 00:55:56,148
Everybody has experiences of commodities.

996
00:55:56,949 --> 00:55:59,005
Did you see one today?

997
00:55:59,509 --> 00:56:01,516
Did you see one yesterday?

998
00:56:01,579 --> 00:56:08,603
Are you constantly shopping for them?
Are you constantly wandering around looking at them?

999
00:56:08,819 --> 00:56:12,890
The thing there is that
of what he's done is to really choose

1000
00:56:13,529 --> 00:56:15,627
a common denominator,

1001
00:56:16,509 --> 00:56:18,515
something that is common to us all,

1002
00:56:18,569 --> 00:56:20,574
something we know about.

1003
00:56:20,619 --> 00:56:23,625
We go into the shop, we buy it

1004
00:56:24,219 --> 00:56:27,261
and it's absolutely
necessary for our existence.

1005
00:56:27,639 --> 00:56:30,645
We can't live without consuming commodities.

1006
00:56:31,239 --> 00:56:34,332
We have to buy
commodities in order to live.

1007
00:56:35,169 --> 00:56:38,195
It's a simple relation as that,
so we start with that, and the other great

1008
00:56:38,429 --> 00:56:40,517
thing about it is,

1009
00:56:41,309 --> 00:56:44,322
and again I'll probably get
some flack for saying this, is:

1010
00:56:44,439 --> 00:56:47,507
it doesn't matter whether you're a man
or a woman or a Japanese or an ethnic

1011
00:56:48,119 --> 00:56:51,176
or a religious or
whatever it is, in other words:

1012
00:56:51,689 --> 00:56:52,690
this just very

1013
00:56:52,699 --> 00:56:56,791
simple kind of economic
transaction which you are looking at.

1014
00:56:57,619 --> 00:57:00,652
And then he says: Well, what kind of
economic transaction is it?

1015
00:57:00,949 --> 00:57:02,027
Well, the commodity is

1016
00:57:02,729 --> 00:57:07,776
something, he says,

1017
00:57:08,199 --> 00:57:11,264
which meets a human want or need.

1018
00:57:11,849 --> 00:57:13,200
and he says: I'm not

1019
00:57:13,002 --> 00:57:17,401
interested… and this is the cryptic
form of that … he says in the next paragraph…

1020
00:57:17,599 --> 00:57:19,651
OK, something external to us

1021
00:57:20,119 --> 00:57:24,920
which we then make ours in a way.

1022
00:57:24,092 --> 00:57:27,901
And it "satisfies human needs of whatever
kind. The nature of these needs whether

1023
00:57:28,729 --> 00:57:33,824
they arise, for example from the
stomach, or from the imagination, makes no difference."

1024
00:57:34,679 --> 00:57:37,727
In other words: he is not really interested in
psychologizing about it, he's laying it all aside.

1025
00:57:38,159 --> 00:57:42,187
Saying: I'm not really interested

1026
00:57:42,439 --> 00:57:46,522
in why people buy commodities.
They can buy it because

1027
00:57:47,269 --> 00:57:50,285
they want it, they need it, they desire it.

1028
00:57:50,429 --> 00:57:53,465
I can buy it for fun or
out of necessity or whatever. I'm not

1029
00:57:53,789 --> 00:57:56,900
interested in talking about all of that.
All I'm interested in is the very fact

1030
00:57:56,009 --> 00:58:00,708
of simply somebody buying a commodity.

1031
00:58:01,599 --> 00:58:03,667
And he then goes on and says: Well look at this.

1032
00:58:04,279 --> 00:58:08,367
How many commodities are there in the world?

1033
00:58:09,159 --> 00:58:12,170
Well, there are millions of them,
all made up of different qualities,

1034
00:58:12,269 --> 00:58:16,316
and we all kind of assess them in
terms of different quantitative measures.

1035
00:58:16,739 --> 00:58:19,820
And he again shunts this aside
and says: "The discovery of these ways

1036
00:58:20,549 --> 00:58:26,614
and hence of the manifold uses
of things is the work of history.

1037
00:58:27,199 --> 00:58:30,248
So also is the invention of socially
recognized standards of measurement for the

1038
00:58:30,689 --> 00:58:32,784
quantities of these useful objects.

1039
00:58:33,639 --> 00:58:36,650
The diversity of the measures for commodities

1040
00:58:36,749 --> 00:58:42,798
arises in part from the diverse nature of
the objects to the measured, and in part from convention.

1041
00:58:43,239 --> 00:58:46,257
The usefulness of a
thing makes it a use-value."

1042
00:58:46,419 --> 00:58:51,432
First big concept: use-value.

1043
00:58:51,549 --> 00:58:54,555
It's useful to you. I'm not interested in
discussing how it's useful to you. I'm not

1044
00:58:55,149 --> 00:58:59,150
interested in discussing
the history of use-values

1045
00:58:59,249 --> 00:59:02,291
or anything of that kind, or the way in which they
measure this kind of thing. All I'm interested in

1046
00:59:02,669 --> 00:59:03,745
is the concept of use-value.

1047
00:59:04,429 --> 00:59:10,478
Notice how he's abstracting very fast.

1048
00:59:10,919 --> 00:59:14,966
And he talks in one of the prefaces about

1049
00:59:15,389 --> 00:59:19,397
the problem for a social scientist, like himself,

1050
00:59:19,469 --> 00:59:24,501
is that you can't go into a labouratory
and isolate things and run experiments.

1051
00:59:24,789 --> 00:59:27,815
So what you have to do
in order to run an experiment

1052
00:59:28,049 --> 00:59:31,094
is to use what he calls:
'The power of abstraction.'

1053
00:59:31,499 --> 00:59:33,528
And you see immediately:

1054
00:59:33,789 --> 00:59:36,789
the commodity is central.

1055
00:59:36,789 --> 00:59:40,856
I'm abstracting from human
wants, needs and desires.

1056
00:59:41,459 --> 00:59:44,535
I'm abstracting from any
consideration of this specific

1057
00:59:45,219 --> 00:59:46,285
properties of things.

1058
00:59:46,879 --> 00:59:48,886
I'm just going to home in on the fact that

1059
00:59:48,949 --> 00:59:50,974
in some sense this commodity

1060
00:59:51,199 --> 00:59:58,199
has something called a use-value.

1061
00:59:59,018 --> 01:00:02,115
And this then immediately leads him into,

1062
01:00:03,015 --> 01:00:05,144
by the middle of

1063
01:00:05,279 --> 01:00:07,344
page hundred and twenty-six,

1064
01:00:07,929 --> 01:00:11,620
he says: "In the form of society
to be considered here" - i.e.

1065
01:00:11,062 --> 01:00:15,111
within a capitalist mode of production -

1066
01:00:15,669 --> 01:00:21,672
"they are also the material
bearers of exchange-value."

1067
01:00:21,699 --> 01:00:24,722
Again… watch this word "bearers",

1068
01:00:24,929 --> 01:00:26,991
a commodity is a bearer of something.

1069
01:00:27,549 --> 01:00:29,647
It's not to say: it "is" something.

1070
01:00:30,529 --> 01:00:35,602
It is a bearer of something

1071
01:00:36,259 --> 01:00:38,315
which we have yet to define.

1072
01:00:38,819 --> 01:00:40,854
And how do we think about it?

1073
01:00:41,169 --> 01:00:43,150
Well, when we look at exchange

1074
01:00:43,015 --> 01:00:48,804
processes, geographically, temporally,

1075
01:00:48,939 --> 01:00:52,013
what we find is an enormous kind of

1076
01:00:52,679 --> 01:00:55,770
process of exchange, of market exchange.

1077
01:00:56,589 --> 01:00:58,682
We see different ratios occurring

1078
01:00:59,519 --> 01:01:02,616
between shirts and shoes depending
upon the time, depending upon the place.

1079
01:01:03,489 --> 01:01:10,493
We see different quantitative
relations between bushels of wheat and

1080
01:01:10,529 --> 01:01:13,584
pairs of shoes and tons of
steel and that kind of thing.

1081
01:01:14,079 --> 01:01:19,156
So the first sight, what
we see in the world of exchange

1082
01:01:19,849 --> 01:01:25,935
is exchange-values which are
incoherent, they're all over the place.

1083
01:01:26,709 --> 01:01:30,400
As he says: "exchange-value

1084
01:01:30,004 --> 01:01:35,173
appears to be something
accidental and purely relative,

1085
01:01:35,569 --> 01:01:39,620
and consequently an intrinsic
value, i.e. an exchange-value that is

1086
01:01:40,079 --> 01:01:42,125
inseparably connected with the commodity,

1087
01:01:42,539 --> 01:01:50,890
inherent in it, seems to be a contradiction in terms."

1088
01:01:55,159 --> 01:01:56,212
We noticed something

1089
01:01:56,689 --> 01:01:58,990
about this world of exchange. That everything

1090
01:01:58,099 --> 01:02:03,978
is in principle exchangeable
with everything else.

1091
01:02:04,869 --> 01:02:10,891
And what this immediately implies,
as he says at page hundred and twenty-seven,

1092
01:02:11,089 --> 01:02:14,126
is that you are always in a position
having exchanged something for something else to

1093
01:02:14,459 --> 01:02:17,520
then exchange what you've
just got for something else.

1094
01:02:18,069 --> 01:02:19,083
In other words: You can just

1095
01:02:19,209 --> 01:02:21,211
keep on exchanging.

1096
01:02:21,409 --> 01:02:24,452
So a thing can keep on moving.

1097
01:02:24,839 --> 01:02:28,883
So it can be exchanged for all
the other commodities at some point.

1098
01:02:29,279 --> 01:02:32,316
And if that's the case, he then says

1099
01:02:32,649 --> 01:02:34,653
on hundred and twenty-seven,

1100
01:02:35,049 --> 01:02:40,049
"It follows from this that, firstly,
the valid exchange-values of a particular commodity

1101
01:02:40,049 --> 01:02:43,630
express something equal

1102
01:02:43,063 --> 01:02:47,102
and secondly, exchange-value cannot
be anything other than the mode of expression,

1103
01:02:47,669 --> 01:02:53,682
the form of appearance of
a content distinguishable from it."

1104
01:02:53,799 --> 01:02:55,854
That is: if I have a commodity in my hand,

1105
01:02:56,349 --> 01:02:58,370
I can't dissect it

1106
01:02:58,559 --> 01:03:02,650
and find out that element
inside of it that makes it exchangeable.

1107
01:03:03,469 --> 01:03:07,501
It's something else.

1108
01:03:07,789 --> 01:03:10,816
No. It is exchangeable for something else
and I can't find out what makes it exchangeable

1109
01:03:11,059 --> 01:03:13,072
just by looking at the commodity.

1110
01:03:13,189 --> 01:03:15,150
I have to look at the commodity

1111
01:03:15,015 --> 01:03:20,964
in motion. This is where
we start to get in motion, in movement.

1112
01:03:21,099 --> 01:03:23,192
I have to look at it.

1113
01:03:24,029 --> 01:03:24,112
And as it moves,

1114
01:03:24,859 --> 01:03:27,864
it is obviously expressing something

1115
01:03:27,909 --> 01:03:29,180
about exchangeability,

1116
01:03:29,018 --> 01:03:32,977
a commensurability in exchange.

1117
01:03:33,139 --> 01:03:36,173
It means that all things
are commensurable in exchange.

1118
01:03:36,479 --> 01:03:40,640
Why are they commensurable?
And what is that commensurability

1119
01:03:40,064 --> 01:03:41,883
made up of?

1120
01:03:42,459 --> 01:03:44,480
Where does it come from?

1121
01:03:44,669 --> 01:03:46,734
How is it defined?

1122
01:03:47,319 --> 01:03:51,372
And the commodity is the
bearer of that something.

1123
01:03:51,849 --> 01:03:53,905
But it is not inside of the commodity.

1124
01:03:54,409 --> 01:03:57,390
It is borne by the commodity.

1125
01:03:57,039 --> 01:03:58,087
It's a relation

1126
01:03:58,087 --> 01:03:59,596
inside of the commodity,

1127
01:04:00,379 --> 01:04:03,381
not a material thing.

1128
01:04:03,399 --> 01:04:06,416
He then goes through corn and iron

1129
01:04:06,569 --> 01:04:11,604
and gets into one of his geometrical examples,

1130
01:04:11,919 --> 01:04:14,360
but says crucially right
by the middle of the page:

1131
01:04:14,036 --> 01:04:18,445
"Each of them, so far as it is exchange-value,

1132
01:04:18,769 --> 01:04:24,771
must therefore be reducible to
this third thing," whatever it is.

1133
01:04:24,789 --> 01:04:28,791
And "this common element cannot
be a geometrical, physical, chemical or other

1134
01:04:28,809 --> 01:04:32,885
natural property of commodities,"
he says further down the page.

1135
01:04:33,569 --> 01:04:36,572
We're hitting something
here that is rather significant.

1136
01:04:36,869 --> 01:04:38,410
Marx is often

1137
01:04:38,041 --> 01:04:42,870
depicted as some sort of grubby materialist.
You know: Everything has to be material.

1138
01:04:43,239 --> 01:04:50,306
But here what we're seeing immediately: he's not
talking about the materiality of the thing at all.

1139
01:04:50,909 --> 01:04:53,947
You can inspect the materiality of the
commodity all you like, and you won't

1140
01:04:54,289 --> 01:04:55,333
find out the secret of its

1141
01:04:55,729 --> 01:04:58,190
commensurability and its exchangeability.

1142
01:04:58,019 --> 01:05:04,378
You won't find it.

1143
01:05:04,549 --> 01:05:08,581
And then he goes on to the
next page, hundred twenty-eight, to say:

1144
01:05:08,869 --> 01:05:11,951
"As use-values,

1145
01:05:12,689 --> 01:05:15,380
commodities differ above all in quality,

1146
01:05:15,038 --> 01:05:18,113
while as exchange-values they
can only differ in quantity,"

1147
01:05:19,013 --> 01:05:22,662
that is: how much of this
exchanges for how much of that,

1148
01:05:22,779 --> 01:05:27,795
"and therefore do not
contain an atom of use-value."

1149
01:05:27,939 --> 01:05:33,016
The commensurability that
he's talking about is not constituted

1150
01:05:33,709 --> 01:05:38,757
out of the utility of something.

1151
01:05:39,189 --> 01:05:42,270
Then he goes on to say: "If then we
disregard the use-value of commodities, only one

1152
01:05:42,999 --> 01:05:46,086
property remains…" and here
we're going to have another a priori leap.

1153
01:05:46,869 --> 01:05:47,920
What's the property?

1154
01:05:48,379 --> 01:05:51,386
They are all products of human labour.

1155
01:05:52,079 --> 01:05:55,163
That is what they have in common

1156
01:05:55,919 --> 01:06:03,964
and what exchange- and use-values
are bearers of is that quality

1157
01:06:04,369 --> 01:06:08,455
of being products of human labour.

1158
01:06:09,229 --> 01:06:11,266
But, he then immediately goes on to say:

1159
01:06:11,599 --> 01:06:13,655
What kind of labour is it?

1160
01:06:14,159 --> 01:06:16,233
Well, it can't be

1161
01:06:16,899 --> 01:06:19,906
based on the fact that
if I'm lazy and I take,

1162
01:06:20,599 --> 01:06:24,663
you know, fifteen days to make a shirt,
then indeed, you should pay, you know, the equivalent…

1163
01:06:25,239 --> 01:06:27,294
should be fifteen days of your labour,

1164
01:06:27,789 --> 01:06:31,818
when I can go and find somebody who has made a
shirt in three days, you know, I would exchange it

1165
01:06:32,079 --> 01:06:34,900
with somebody for 3 days of labour.

1166
01:06:34,009 --> 01:06:36,448
So he says on the bottom of that passage:

1167
01:06:37,339 --> 01:06:40,339
"They can no longer be distinguished,

1168
01:06:40,339 --> 01:06:43,405
but are all together
reduced to the same kind of labour,

1169
01:06:43,999 --> 01:06:46,073
human labour in the abstract."

1170
01:06:46,739 --> 01:06:49,821
Well, this is moving very fast, very cryptic.

1171
01:06:50,559 --> 01:06:50,638
Use-value,

1172
01:06:51,349 --> 01:06:52,380
exchange-value,

1173
01:06:52,659 --> 01:06:54,682
human labour in the abstract.

1174
01:06:54,889 --> 01:06:55,977
And here it comes:

1175
01:06:56,769 --> 01:06:59,660
"Let us now I look at the residue of the
products of labour. There is nothing left

1176
01:06:59,066 --> 01:07:00,100
of them in each case

1177
01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:03,999
but the same phantom-like objectivity;"

1178
01:07:03,999 --> 01:07:06,060
Marx loves all this stuff about phantoms and

1179
01:07:06,609 --> 01:07:09,613
werewolves and all that kind of
stuff. So you're gonna get a lot of that.

1180
01:07:10,009 --> 01:07:13,105
He's a great admirer of Shelley and
Frankenstein and all the rest of it,

1181
01:07:13,969 --> 01:07:16,050
so you'll get a lot of
that kind of language. It's great.

1182
01:07:16,779 --> 01:07:21,865
"they are merely congealed
quantities of homogeneous human labour,

1183
01:07:22,639 --> 01:07:25,721
human labour-power expended without
regard to the form of its expenditure.

1184
01:07:26,459 --> 01:07:29,512
(…)As crystals of this
social substance which is common to them all,

1185
01:07:29,989 --> 01:07:39,027
they are values, commodity values."

1186
01:07:39,369 --> 01:07:45,420
Okay, he's taken four pages to lay out

1187
01:07:45,042 --> 01:07:46,581
three fundamental concepts.

1188
01:07:46,959 --> 01:07:53,025
Use-value, exchange-value, value.

1189
01:07:53,619 --> 01:07:55,619
Value is what is passed on

1190
01:07:55,619 --> 01:07:58,648
in the process of commodity exchange.

1191
01:07:58,909 --> 01:08:04,981
It's the hidden element in a commodity that makes

1192
01:08:05,629 --> 01:08:13,648
all commodities in principle
exchangeable with each other.

1193
01:08:13,819 --> 01:08:18,868
So he then goes on to say:
Well, having abstracted from use-value

1194
01:08:19,309 --> 01:08:22,378
then we go back and
look again at exchange-value.

1195
01:08:22,999 --> 01:08:26,092
We then see exchange-value, as he says,
on the bottom of page hundred and twenty-eight,

1196
01:08:26,929 --> 01:08:28,965
"as the necessary mode of expression,

1197
01:08:29,289 --> 01:08:33,382
or form of appearance, of value."

1198
01:08:34,219 --> 01:08:37,650
Appearance, form of appearance; but
this time you're looking at it the other way.

1199
01:08:37,065 --> 01:08:41,464
That is there is something mysterious about
the exchangeability of all of those commodities.

1200
01:08:42,049 --> 01:08:47,120
There is something mysterious
about the way in which

1201
01:08:47,759 --> 01:08:51,847
all of those commodities could
be commensurable with each other.

1202
01:08:52,639 --> 01:08:55,714
And the mystery is that they're values,

1203
01:08:56,389 --> 01:08:58,560
But values are represented now

1204
01:08:58,056 --> 01:09:00,133
by exchange-value, so exchange-value,

1205
01:09:01,033 --> 01:09:02,772
i.e. how much you are actually get for

1206
01:09:03,069 --> 01:09:04,117
the product in the market,

1207
01:09:04,549 --> 01:09:06,250
is a representation of value,

1208
01:09:06,025 --> 01:09:10,524
is a representation of labour.

1209
01:09:10,749 --> 01:09:13,765
Now, when you go to the supermarket,

1210
01:09:13,909 --> 01:09:17,004
can you see the labour in the commodity?

1211
01:09:17,859 --> 01:09:20,945
But it has an exchange-value, right?

1212
01:09:21,719 --> 01:09:22,733
Again, Marx's point is:

1213
01:09:22,859 --> 01:09:26,870
Yeah, they are products of
labour but you can't see the labour,

1214
01:09:26,969 --> 01:09:29,022
you can't see the labour on the commodity.

1215
01:09:29,499 --> 01:09:34,544
But you get a sense of what it is
because it is represented by its price.

1216
01:09:34,949 --> 01:09:36,020
So that is, if you like,

1217
01:09:36,659 --> 01:09:41,720
exchange-value is a
representation of something else.

1218
01:09:42,269 --> 01:09:47,670
Now again: to say something is a
representation of something is not to say "is".

1219
01:09:47,067 --> 01:09:48,083
Because, as anybody would

1220
01:09:48,083 --> 01:09:51,117
quickly tell you, the difference
between the representation and what

1221
01:09:52,017 --> 01:09:55,071
actually something is, there can be quite a gap.
And Marx is going to spend quite a bit of

1222
01:09:55,071 --> 01:09:58,140
time talking about the nature of that gap between

1223
01:09:59,004 --> 01:10:06,004
value and its representation.

1224
01:10:08,659 --> 01:10:11,726
On hundred twenty-nine he says:

1225
01:10:12,329 --> 01:10:15,362
"A use-value, or useful article,

1226
01:10:15,659 --> 01:10:19,662
therefore, has value only because
abstract human labour is objectified

1227
01:10:19,959 --> 01:10:26,959
or materialized in it."

1228
01:10:26,959 --> 01:10:30,910
Objectified - a very important kind of concept.

1229
01:10:30,091 --> 01:10:36,800
A process, in fact a labour process,
becomes objectified in a thing.

1230
01:10:37,619 --> 01:10:42,630
This is an idea that's going to
become very important in Marx.

1231
01:10:42,063 --> 01:10:44,092
You have a thing

1232
01:10:44,659 --> 01:10:46,659
and then there is a labour process.

1233
01:10:46,659 --> 01:10:48,360
What's the relationship then

1234
01:10:48,036 --> 01:10:51,037
between the process and the thing?
This is going to come up

1235
01:10:51,037 --> 01:10:56,476
again and again and again in the text.

1236
01:10:56,809 --> 01:10:59,250
Processes and things,

1237
01:10:59,025 --> 01:11:05,184
the thing is a representation of the process.

1238
01:11:05,409 --> 01:11:07,453
You want a simple example of that?

1239
01:11:07,849 --> 01:11:09,901
If I set an examination right now,

1240
01:11:10,369 --> 01:11:13,423
I made you write out little
paper about what these concepts mean.

1241
01:11:13,909 --> 01:11:14,935
And then I graded you.

1242
01:11:15,169 --> 01:11:19,030
I'll be grading you on the thing.

1243
01:11:19,003 --> 01:11:23,079
What would it have to do with the
process that's going on in here?

1244
01:11:23,079 --> 01:11:27,115
I mean you might feel very, very outraged

1245
01:11:28,015 --> 01:11:33,714
when I graded you C or D or F, or something
like that, because you haven't quite got it yet.

1246
01:11:33,849 --> 01:11:36,852
When in fact you're struggling in the process,

1247
01:11:37,149 --> 01:11:41,225
the intellectual labour-process of trying
to command on what the hell is going on in this text.

1248
01:11:41,909 --> 01:11:43,914
It's a very important thing.

1249
01:11:43,959 --> 01:11:48,035
But if I try to test it as a thing…and actually,

1250
01:11:48,719 --> 01:11:51,723
education is full of this kind of problem.

1251
01:11:52,119 --> 01:11:54,132
Education is about a process,

1252
01:11:54,249 --> 01:11:58,284
it's about people learning things,
it's about process, thinking, all this kind of stuff.

1253
01:11:58,599 --> 01:12:01,654
And we are constantly testing how good
people are in terms of that process by the

1254
01:12:02,149 --> 01:12:03,237
things they make.

1255
01:12:04,029 --> 01:12:09,360
Dissertations, essays, papers,

1256
01:12:09,036 --> 01:12:12,345
multiple choice questions, all the rest of it.

1257
01:12:12,669 --> 01:12:16,320
So what Marx is doing here
is to say: Well, the representation,

1258
01:12:16,032 --> 01:12:18,181
i.e. the exchange-value,

1259
01:12:18,469 --> 01:12:21,960
is something which you can
really see, but it is

1260
01:12:21,096 --> 01:12:24,555
representing something which is value.

1261
01:12:25,419 --> 01:12:31,516
And as we will see, value is always in motion.

1262
01:12:32,389 --> 01:12:37,900
And that means that a
process is objectified in a thing.

1263
01:12:37,009 --> 01:12:40,017
A labour process, a potter making a pot

1264
01:12:40,098 --> 01:12:43,115
is finally objectified in a thing. And
it's the thing which is sold in the

1265
01:12:44,015 --> 01:12:46,100
market, not the process.

1266
01:12:47,000 --> 01:12:51,119
But the thing would not
exist without the process.

1267
01:12:51,119 --> 01:12:54,155
So the process has to be objectified.

1268
01:12:54,479 --> 01:12:57,537
There are some people who would
love to write a dissertation without ever

1269
01:12:58,059 --> 01:13:01,260
actually producing the thing.

1270
01:13:01,026 --> 01:13:03,215
You may come an say: Oh the process is great!

1271
01:13:03,449 --> 01:13:06,522
…Ah, yeah okay, PhD immediately…

1272
01:13:07,179 --> 01:13:09,560
…but of course, no, you've got to objectify it…

1273
01:13:09,056 --> 01:13:11,155
And as everybody knows who's
gone through this to some degree,

1274
01:13:12,055 --> 01:13:15,394
you can have great ideas and think it is
fantastic, and when you try to objectify it on paper

1275
01:13:15,889 --> 01:13:20,780
you say:
good god, what nonsense this is!

1276
01:13:20,078 --> 01:13:21,115
And so, you've got to…

1277
01:13:22,015 --> 01:13:24,113
so Marx is talking about that relationship.

1278
01:13:25,013 --> 01:13:26,042
That's right in…

1279
01:13:26,159 --> 01:13:27,242
that's implied in this, immediately in this

1280
01:13:27,989 --> 01:13:30,280
notion of objectification.

1281
01:13:30,028 --> 01:13:34,447
Human labour is objectified, materialized in

1282
01:13:34,699 --> 01:13:37,728
this thing called a commodity.

1283
01:13:37,989 --> 01:13:41,075
But then inside of that thing, the quantity

1284
01:13:41,849 --> 01:13:47,849
is measured by the duration
of the labour which is put into the thing. But…

1285
01:13:47,849 --> 01:13:51,861
And that itself has measures, which he said…

1286
01:13:51,969 --> 01:13:56,994
scale of hours, days etc.

1287
01:13:57,219 --> 01:13:58,317
Again, there's a reference here,

1288
01:13:59,199 --> 01:14:02,214
a coded reference,
if you like, to the the way in which

1289
01:14:02,349 --> 01:14:07,830
capitalist mode of production
sets up a certain notion of temporality.

1290
01:14:07,083 --> 01:14:13,157
Time, how does the capitalist mode
of production structure time?

1291
01:14:14,057 --> 01:14:17,106
And Marx is going to make an argument,
saying: you've got to understand that

1292
01:14:18,006 --> 01:14:24,028
a lot of it has to do with
the fact that time is money.

1293
01:14:24,028 --> 01:14:27,042
Time is connected to value in
a certain kind of way, and therefore even our

1294
01:14:27,042 --> 01:14:30,071
measures of time start to take on

1295
01:14:30,071 --> 01:14:33,095
a certain kind of allure, simply

1296
01:14:33,095 --> 01:14:40,095
because of the way in
which it capitalist mode of production works.

1297
01:14:43,063 --> 01:14:49,522
He then comes, down this paragraph, to say this:

1298
01:14:50,089 --> 01:14:55,184
"I'm really looking at
the total labour power of society

1299
01:14:56,039 --> 01:15:03,039
which is manifested in
the values of the world of commodities."

1300
01:15:03,729 --> 01:15:10,729
Now, where does this society exist,
and where does this world of commodities prevail?

1301
01:15:11,469 --> 01:15:12,850
Here you're not looking at

1302
01:15:12,085 --> 01:15:18,754
just one particular place, you're
actually looking at a global situation.

1303
01:15:19,519 --> 01:15:21,610
The world of commodities,

1304
01:15:22,429 --> 01:15:25,475
where is the world
of commodities right now?

1305
01:15:25,889 --> 01:15:29,690
It's in China, it's in Mexico, it's in Japan,

1306
01:15:29,069 --> 01:15:31,074
it's in Russia…

1307
01:15:32,019 --> 01:15:34,788
It's a global thing.

1308
01:15:34,959 --> 01:15:36,780
And he's looking at

1309
01:15:36,078 --> 01:15:38,727
society, in a sense,

1310
01:15:39,429 --> 01:15:42,820
the whole of the capitalist world.

1311
01:15:42,082 --> 01:15:46,941
So he's looking at the notion of labour,

1312
01:15:47,679 --> 01:15:49,775
and the measure of value,
if you like, is going to be

1313
01:15:50,639 --> 01:15:56,110
judged against that whole world,
it's not the specific

1314
01:15:56,011 --> 01:16:02,058
activity of a particular labour in a
particular place and time, now it's a whole world.

1315
01:16:02,058 --> 01:16:05,457
A global situation, even at this point,

1316
01:16:05,979 --> 01:16:08,031
and actually, there's a brilliant

1317
01:16:08,499 --> 01:16:11,521
sort of description of globalization, if
you want to call it that, in the

1318
01:16:11,719 --> 01:16:13,734
Communist Manifesto.

1319
01:16:13,869 --> 01:16:16,942
Where Marx talks about the impulsions
of the Bourgeoisie to create the world market

1320
01:16:17,599 --> 01:16:19,678
and the consequence of making that,

1321
01:16:20,389 --> 01:16:24,391
in which old industries get destroyed,
new ones get created, there's tremendous

1322
01:16:24,589 --> 01:16:25,595
kind of fluidity.

1323
01:16:26,189 --> 01:16:31,217
Marx was writing this in a context
where the world was opening very fast-

1324
01:16:31,469 --> 01:16:34,537
through the steamship and
the railways and all this kind of stuff

1325
01:16:35,149 --> 01:16:39,152
to a global economy.

1326
01:16:39,449 --> 01:16:42,520
And he understood very well the
consequences of that, which meant that

1327
01:16:43,159 --> 01:16:45,168
value was not something that was
determined in our backyard, but was

1328
01:16:46,059 --> 01:16:51,157
something which was determined
in the world of commodities.

1329
01:16:52,039 --> 01:16:55,043
And the result of that
is that we end up as he says:

1330
01:16:55,439 --> 01:16:58,340
"Each of these units,"

1331
01:16:58,034 --> 01:17:03,078
that is of homogenous labour-power,

1332
01:17:03,078 --> 01:17:06,587
"each of these units is the same as any
other to the extent that it has the

1333
01:17:07,289 --> 01:17:09,390
character of a socially average unit

1334
01:17:09,039 --> 01:17:12,758
of labour-power and acts as such(…)"

1335
01:17:13,109 --> 01:17:16,600
And here comes the crucial definition:

1336
01:17:16,006 --> 01:17:18,051
"Socially necessary labour-time

1337
01:17:19,005 --> 01:17:22,069
is the labour-time required to produce

1338
01:17:22,069 --> 01:17:26,588
any use-value under the conditions
of production normal for a given society and

1339
01:17:27,209 --> 01:17:32,245
with the average degree of skill and
intensity of labour prevalent in that society."

1340
01:17:32,569 --> 01:17:35,626
This is his first cut definition of value.

1341
01:17:36,139 --> 01:17:43,139
Value is socially necessary labour-time.

1342
01:17:44,027 --> 01:17:48,064
One of the reasons, I think, Marx thought
he could get away with this very cryptic presentation

1343
01:17:48,064 --> 01:17:51,673
of use-value, exchange-value and value

1344
01:17:52,249 --> 01:17:55,313
was because anybody who read Ricardo

1345
01:17:55,889 --> 01:17:59,941
would say: 'Yeah, this is pure Ricardo.'

1346
01:18:00,409 --> 01:18:08,418
And it is pure Ricardo, with however
one exceptional insertion.

1347
01:18:08,499 --> 01:18:14,551
Ricardo used the concept
of labour-time as value.

1348
01:18:15,019 --> 01:18:21,840
Marx uses the concept
of socially necessary labour-time.

1349
01:18:21,084 --> 01:18:24,142
And you should immediately
ask yourself the question:

1350
01:18:25,042 --> 01:18:28,042
What is 'socially necessary'?

1351
01:18:28,042 --> 01:18:31,321
How is that established?

1352
01:18:31,699 --> 01:18:34,550
He doesn't give any answer to it here.

1353
01:18:34,055 --> 01:18:37,934
And you only begin to get the
sense of the answer of that, when you are way on

1354
01:18:38,429 --> 01:18:40,483
the way through Capital.

1355
01:18:40,969 --> 01:18:43,011
In other words, what Marx has done

1356
01:18:43,389 --> 01:18:48,422
here, is simply set up the
Ricardian conceptual apparatus.

1357
01:18:48,719 --> 01:18:55,730
Repeat it, and in a sense say:
'Ricardo missed something out.'

1358
01:18:55,829 --> 01:19:02,850
It is not adequate the call value labour-time.

1359
01:19:03,039 --> 01:19:05,360
We have to insert that question mark:

1360
01:19:05,036 --> 01:19:07,435
What is socially necessary labour-time?

1361
01:19:07,759 --> 01:19:10,853
How is it determined? Who determines it?

1362
01:19:11,699 --> 01:19:13,787
And that is the big issue.

1363
01:19:14,579 --> 01:19:19,210
And I would submit it actually continues to
be the big issue in global capitalism,

1364
01:19:19,021 --> 01:19:24,090
who and how is value established?

1365
01:19:24,279 --> 01:19:27,324
I mean we all like to think we have our
own values and this kind of stuff, and everybody likes

1366
01:19:27,729 --> 01:19:30,808
to go on talking about values.

1367
01:19:31,519 --> 01:19:35,533
But Marx is kind of saying: 'Look,
there is a value which is being determined

1368
01:19:35,659 --> 01:19:37,740
by a process that we do not understand.'

1369
01:19:38,469 --> 01:19:41,090
And it's not our choice,

1370
01:19:41,009 --> 01:19:44,608
it's something that is happening to us.

1371
01:19:44,689 --> 01:19:46,210
And how it is happening

1372
01:19:46,021 --> 01:19:49,310
has to be unpacked. If you
want to understand who you are,

1373
01:19:49,499 --> 01:19:52,523
and where you stand in this maelstrom of

1374
01:19:52,739 --> 01:19:54,806
churning values and everything.
What you've got to do

1375
01:19:55,409 --> 01:19:58,270
is to understand how value gets created,

1376
01:19:58,027 --> 01:20:02,036
how it gets produced and with what consequences,

1377
01:20:02,036 --> 01:20:06,085
socially, environmentally, all the rest of it.

1378
01:20:06,409 --> 01:20:07,422
And if you think

1379
01:20:07,539 --> 01:20:10,780
you can solve the environmental
question of global warming and all that

1380
01:20:10,078 --> 01:20:12,144
kind of stuff without actually confronting

1381
01:20:13,044 --> 01:20:16,076
the whole kind of question of
who determines the value structure

1382
01:20:16,076 --> 01:20:19,135
and how is it determined by these processes,

1383
01:20:19,819 --> 01:20:22,980
then you got to be kidding yourself.

1384
01:20:22,098 --> 01:20:23,179
So what Marx in effect is saying:

1385
01:20:24,079 --> 01:20:27,988
You got to understand
what social necessity is.

1386
01:20:28,699 --> 01:20:30,550
And we've got to spend a lot of time

1387
01:20:30,055 --> 01:20:34,584
looking at what is socially necessary.

1388
01:20:35,079 --> 01:20:39,125
He immediately points out however

1389
01:20:39,539 --> 01:20:41,634
that value is not fixed.

1390
01:20:42,489 --> 01:20:46,280
I've mentioned already, he's
always on about the fluidity of things.

1391
01:20:46,028 --> 01:20:47,987
He says:

1392
01:20:48,239 --> 01:20:53,314
Of course value changes with productivity.

1393
01:20:53,989 --> 01:20:57,420
"The introduction of
power-looms into England, for example,

1394
01:20:57,042 --> 01:21:00,078
probably reduced by one half the
labour required to convert a given

1395
01:21:00,078 --> 01:21:03,787
quantity of yarn into woven fabric.

1396
01:21:04,489 --> 01:21:07,538
In order to do this, the
English hand-loom weaver needed

1397
01:21:07,979 --> 01:21:10,760
the the same amount of
labour-time as before;

1398
01:21:10,076 --> 01:21:13,153
but the product of his individual
hour of labour now only represented

1399
01:21:14,053 --> 01:21:15,128
half an hour of social labour,

1400
01:21:16,028 --> 01:21:17,066
and consequently fell

1401
01:21:17,066 --> 01:21:21,515
to one half of its former value."

1402
01:21:22,109 --> 01:21:27,690
Okay, so value is in
the first instance extremely

1403
01:21:27,069 --> 01:21:31,162
sensitive to revolutions in technology,

1404
01:21:32,062 --> 01:21:33,931
revolutions in productivity.

1405
01:21:34,489 --> 01:21:37,580
And much of Capital is going to
be taken up with the discussion

1406
01:21:38,399 --> 01:21:40,488
of those revolutions in productivity,

1407
01:21:41,289 --> 01:21:47,312
those revolutions in value-relations.

1408
01:21:47,519 --> 01:21:49,290
This leads into the conclusion then,

1409
01:21:49,029 --> 01:21:51,052
on the bottom of one twenty nine:

1410
01:21:51,052 --> 01:21:55,401
"What exclusively determines the
magnitude of the value of any article

1411
01:21:55,869 --> 01:21:58,910
is therefore the amount
of labour socially necessary,

1412
01:21:59,279 --> 01:22:02,288
or the labour time
socially necessary for its production."

1413
01:22:03,179 --> 01:22:06,182
There's your definition.

1414
01:22:06,479 --> 01:22:11,548
"The individual commodity counts
here only as an average sample of its kind."

1415
01:22:12,169 --> 01:22:13,233
Then he re-iterates.

1416
01:22:13,809 --> 01:22:16,843
You often find Marx doing this, by the way.

1417
01:22:17,149 --> 01:22:19,150
He repeats himself.

1418
01:22:19,249 --> 01:22:22,265
He kind of…figures if you didn't get the

1419
01:22:22,409 --> 01:22:23,466
hand-loom, the power-loom

1420
01:22:23,979 --> 01:22:27,260
example, so he is going to

1421
01:22:27,026 --> 01:22:30,365
hammer it home by pointing out

1422
01:22:30,599 --> 01:22:34,674
that the value of the commodity does
not remain constant, he says on hundred and thirty:

1423
01:22:35,349 --> 01:22:38,445
"…if the labour-time required for its
production also remained constant.

1424
01:22:39,309 --> 01:22:42,348
But the latter changes with every variation
in the productivity of labour." He then goes

1425
01:22:42,699 --> 01:22:46,480
on to talk about this. But, notice:

1426
01:22:46,048 --> 01:22:51,053
"This is determined by a
wide range of circumstances;

1427
01:22:51,053 --> 01:22:57,056
it is determined amongst other things by
the workers average degree of skill,

1428
01:22:57,056 --> 01:23:01,355
the level of development of
science and its technological application,…"

1429
01:23:01,859 --> 01:23:09,872
Marx is very hot on the significance of
technology and science to capitalism.

1430
01:23:09,989 --> 01:23:13,015
"…the social organization
of the process of production,

1431
01:23:13,249 --> 01:23:16,307
the extent and effectiveness of the means
of production, and the conditions found in

1432
01:23:16,829 --> 01:23:22,900
the natural environment."

1433
01:23:23,539 --> 01:23:30,320
Vast array of elements
which can impinge upon value.

1434
01:23:30,032 --> 01:23:34,851
Transformations in the natural
environment mean revolutions in value.

1435
01:23:35,139 --> 01:23:36,620
Technology and science,

1436
01:23:36,062 --> 01:23:38,601
social organization of production,

1437
01:23:39,159 --> 01:23:41,780
technologies, all the rest of it…

1438
01:23:41,078 --> 01:23:43,127
So, in fact, we've got

1439
01:23:43,829 --> 01:23:47,835
value which is subject to a powerful
array of forces, and he's not

1440
01:23:48,429 --> 01:23:51,498
here attempting a definitive categorization
of all of them, he just simply wants to

1441
01:23:52,119 --> 01:23:58,212
alert us, that this thing we're
calling value is not constant.

1442
01:23:59,049 --> 01:24:07,106
It is subject to perpetual
revolutionary transformations.

1443
01:24:08,006 --> 01:24:11,015
But then a peculiar thing happens.

1444
01:24:12,005 --> 01:24:16,164
Right in the last paragraph
on hundred and thirty one

1445
01:24:16,659 --> 01:24:19,678
he suddenly says:

1446
01:24:19,849 --> 01:24:22,610
"A thing can be a
use-value without being a value."

1447
01:24:22,061 --> 01:24:25,430
Okay, we can all agree on that.

1448
01:24:25,979 --> 01:24:29,520
We breathe air and so far we
haven't managed to bottle it, although,

1449
01:24:29,052 --> 01:24:35,981
we're beginning to, I guess, so…

1450
01:24:36,449 --> 01:24:41,526
A thing can be useful and
a product of human labour without being a commodity.

1451
01:24:42,219 --> 01:24:45,301
I grow tomatoes in my
backyard and I eat them…

1452
01:24:46,039 --> 01:24:48,110
Lots of people, even within capitalism, actually

1453
01:24:48,749 --> 01:24:52,749
produce a lot of things for themselves.

1454
01:24:52,749 --> 01:24:57,757
With a little help
from DIY and all the rest of it.

1455
01:24:57,829 --> 01:25:00,280
"In order to produce the latter,"

1456
01:25:00,028 --> 01:25:02,367
that is commodities,

1457
01:25:02,619 --> 01:25:03,638
"he must not only produce use-values,

1458
01:25:03,809 --> 01:25:08,530
but use-values for others."

1459
01:25:08,053 --> 01:25:12,105
Furthermore, just not simply
use-values for the lord, as a serf would do,

1460
01:25:13,005 --> 01:25:18,314
but use-values which are going
to go to others through the market.

1461
01:25:18,359 --> 01:25:20,460
So it's use-values

1462
01:25:20,046 --> 01:25:27,046
which you are producing,
which are going to be sent to market.

1463
01:25:27,499 --> 01:25:32,960
"Finally", he says, "nothing can
be a value without being an object of utility.

1464
01:25:32,096 --> 01:25:35,140
If the thing is useless, so is the labour
contained in it; the labour does not count

1465
01:25:36,004 --> 01:25:42,283
as labour, and therefore creates no value."

1466
01:25:42,679 --> 01:25:47,685
Now he seems to dismiss
and abstract from use-value earlier on.

1467
01:25:47,739 --> 01:25:48,980
Saying: 'I'm not concerned

1468
01:25:48,098 --> 01:25:52,105
with use-values, I'm not
interested in them, etcetera.

1469
01:25:53,005 --> 01:25:56,034
I abstract from them, I get to
exchange-value, and that gets me to

1470
01:25:56,079 --> 01:25:59,104
value. But now I've got
value, but now I'm saying:

1471
01:25:59,329 --> 01:26:02,425
it doesn't matter what kind of labour went
into something, if somebody doesn't want it

1472
01:26:03,289 --> 01:26:08,090
if it doesn't meet a human
want, need or desire, then it ain't value.'

1473
01:26:08,009 --> 01:26:10,868
So value is also dependent
upon it being a use-value,

1474
01:26:10,949 --> 01:26:12,985
for somebody, somewhere.

1475
01:26:13,309 --> 01:26:18,361
You have to be able to sell it.
So what he has done

1476
01:26:18,829 --> 01:26:25,829
is to suddenly bring
back use-value into the idea of value.

1477
01:26:27,059 --> 01:26:29,918
Now, there's a very interesting

1478
01:26:30,449 --> 01:26:31,980
kind of a structure that

1479
01:26:31,098 --> 01:26:33,153
goes on here. Goes like this:

1480
01:26:34,053 --> 01:26:39,432
And this is what I would like you to do: at
the end of almost every section you read

1481
01:26:39,909 --> 01:26:44,920
think about how the conceptional
apparatus is constructed,

1482
01:26:45,019 --> 01:26:47,117
and how it hangs together.

1483
01:26:47,999 --> 01:26:52,380
What we've got here is
something that goes like this:

1484
01:26:52,038 --> 01:27:00,337
We've got the commodity.

1485
01:27:00,679 --> 01:27:01,960
And we said, actually,

1486
01:27:01,096 --> 01:27:04,345
the commodity has a dual character.

1487
01:27:05,209 --> 01:27:13,210
It has a use-value.

1488
01:27:13,061 --> 01:27:20,061
It also has an exchange-value.

1489
01:27:24,989 --> 01:27:27,078
exchange-value is a
representation of something.

1490
01:27:27,879 --> 01:27:29,943
What is it a representation of?

1491
01:27:30,519 --> 01:27:36,541
It's a representation of value.

1492
01:27:36,739 --> 01:27:40,827
But value doesn't mean anything

1493
01:27:41,619 --> 01:27:46,681
unless it connects back to use-value.

1494
01:27:47,239 --> 01:27:50,314
What is value?

1495
01:27:50,989 --> 01:27:57,989
Socially necessary labour-time.

1496
01:28:08,329 --> 01:28:16,820
Now, if you own a house, are you more
interested in its use-value or its exchange-value?

1497
01:28:16,082 --> 01:28:23,082
Yeah, you're interested in both,
you'd like to have your cake and eat it.

1498
01:28:27,469 --> 01:28:28,492
Right?

1499
01:28:28,699 --> 01:28:34,702
This is sort of opposition here. If you want
to realize the exchange-value of something,

1500
01:28:34,999 --> 01:28:37,003
you can't have the use-value of it.

1501
01:28:37,399 --> 01:28:40,820
If you have the use-value of it then
it's difficult to get the exchange-value, unless you do

1502
01:28:40,082 --> 01:28:42,791
a reverse mortgage, or, you know,
all those kinds of things that people did

1503
01:28:43,529 --> 01:28:47,570
over the last few years.

1504
01:28:47,939 --> 01:28:50,830
But notice the structure:

1505
01:28:50,083 --> 01:28:52,972
Commodity, a singular concept

1506
01:28:53,719 --> 01:28:54,807
which has two aspects.

1507
01:28:55,599 --> 01:28:57,750
Now when you look at a commodity,

1508
01:28:57,075 --> 01:29:02,904
can you actually divide it in half and say:
that's the exchange-value and that's the use-value?

1509
01:29:03,579 --> 01:29:05,581
No, there's a unity.

1510
01:29:05,599 --> 01:29:09,260
But within that unity
there is a dual aspect.

1511
01:29:09,026 --> 01:29:10,845
And that dual aspect

1512
01:29:11,079 --> 01:29:15,171
allows us to define something, called
value, as socially necessary labour-time.

1513
01:29:15,999 --> 01:29:21,260
Which is what the use-value of a
commodity is a bearer of.

1514
01:29:21,026 --> 01:29:26,805
That's what it is a bearer of.

1515
01:29:27,039 --> 01:29:31,041
But, in order to be a value,
it has to be useful.

1516
01:29:31,059 --> 01:29:33,160
And of course, on this link

1517
01:29:33,016 --> 01:29:38,055
we'll see all kinds of
issues arising about supply and demand.

1518
01:29:38,199 --> 01:29:43,240
If the supply is too great, the value will go
down, if the supply is too little, the value will go up.

1519
01:29:43,609 --> 01:29:47,610
So there is an element here of
supply and demand involved.

1520
01:29:47,619 --> 01:29:51,320
Marx is actually not
terribly interested in that.

1521
01:29:51,032 --> 01:29:55,431
As he will say at various points, as he goes on,

1522
01:29:55,719 --> 01:29:59,170
what I'm interested in is, what happens when

1523
01:29:59,017 --> 01:30:04,446
supply and demand are in equilibrium.

1524
01:30:04,599 --> 01:30:07,634
When they are in equilibrium
I have to have a different kind of analysis

1525
01:30:07,949 --> 01:30:10,290
and the value of the commodities is fixed

1526
01:30:10,029 --> 01:30:13,608
by this socially necessary
labour-time, whatever that

1527
01:30:13,869 --> 01:30:20,610
social necessity is. So what you've got here

1528
01:30:20,061 --> 01:30:23,390
is something of this form,
which then allows us to talk about

1529
01:30:23,939 --> 01:30:27,030
the value of a commodity.

1530
01:30:27,849 --> 01:30:30,933
We can talk about commodity values.

1531
01:30:31,689 --> 01:30:33,420
We've got to the point where we understand:

1532
01:30:33,042 --> 01:30:36,042
commodity values are constituted

1533
01:30:36,042 --> 01:30:40,781
as socially necessary labour-time.

1534
01:30:41,159 --> 01:30:48,230
Now this is partly, what I would suggest,

1535
01:30:48,023 --> 01:30:53,372
is Marx's dialectical method working here.

1536
01:30:53,579 --> 01:30:58,675
Would you say that exchange-values cause value?

1537
01:30:59,539 --> 01:31:01,520
Would you say exchange-values

1538
01:31:01,052 --> 01:31:05,001
cause use-value, or use-value
is caused, or anything is caused by anything else?

1539
01:31:05,469 --> 01:31:09,530
This is an analysis which is not causal.

1540
01:31:09,053 --> 01:31:15,202
It's about relations, about dialectical relations.

1541
01:31:15,679 --> 01:31:20,723
Can you talk about exchange-value
without talking about use-value?

1542
01:31:21,119 --> 01:31:24,154
No you can't.

1543
01:31:24,469 --> 01:31:29,050
Can you talk about value without
talking about use-value? No you can't.

1544
01:31:29,005 --> 01:31:32,010
In other words, you can't talk about any
one of these concepts without talking

1545
01:31:32,055 --> 01:31:35,082
about all of the others.

1546
01:31:35,082 --> 01:31:38,169
This is what I mean about, you know,
beginning to sort of work through

1547
01:31:39,069 --> 01:31:42,498
the conceptual apparatus of the onion.

1548
01:31:43,119 --> 01:31:51,156
It's an organic, hanging together,
a set of relations, between these concepts.

1549
01:31:51,489 --> 01:31:54,525
But we've also seen, that we'll be

1550
01:31:54,849 --> 01:31:58,901
going to be talking about motion, about movement,

1551
01:31:59,369 --> 01:32:02,396
about the making of things, about labour processes,

1552
01:32:02,639 --> 01:32:07,676
which become objectified in use-values,

1553
01:32:08,009 --> 01:32:13,035
and which become represented by exchange-value.

1554
01:32:13,269 --> 01:32:16,360
So we've got a very interesting

1555
01:32:17,179 --> 01:32:21,270
kind of conceptual framework here,
which is not about causality at all.

1556
01:32:21,027 --> 01:32:23,063
It's about inner relations.

1557
01:32:23,063 --> 01:32:24,159
And by understanding

1558
01:32:25,059 --> 01:32:29,588
then we start to see also
certain tensions I've already mentioned.

1559
01:32:30,119 --> 01:32:31,201
That yes, it'd be very nice

1560
01:32:31,939 --> 01:32:36,015
to have use-value and
exchange-value at the same time.

1561
01:32:36,699 --> 01:32:39,745
But a lot of time we
are faced with a difficult choice.

1562
01:32:40,159 --> 01:32:43,380
Do I have the use-value, or do I

1563
01:32:43,038 --> 01:32:45,038
realize the exchange-value?

1564
01:32:45,038 --> 01:32:49,907
Or do I give up the
exchange-value and get the use-value?

1565
01:32:50,249 --> 01:32:54,285
And those are the daily decisions we
have to make when we go into the market, right?

1566
01:32:54,609 --> 01:32:55,611
Do I give up

1567
01:32:55,629 --> 01:32:58,960
the exchange-value…
money for this or do I not..?

1568
01:32:58,096 --> 01:33:00,173
Do I hang on to the money or what do I do?

1569
01:33:01,073 --> 01:33:07,582
So Marx has set up something,
that is explaining something, OK, already.

1570
01:33:08,239 --> 01:33:14,530
And even as he explains however,
he is not saying: this causes that.

1571
01:33:14,053 --> 01:33:16,125
So it's not a causal analysis.

1572
01:33:17,025 --> 01:33:18,234
This is where I'm beginning to…
what I want you to start to think about,

1573
01:33:18,459 --> 01:33:23,517
is a dialectical mode of argument.

1574
01:33:24,039 --> 01:33:26,980
Which is already revealing something about

1575
01:33:26,098 --> 01:33:30,132
the kinds of choices you
make when you go into the supermarket.

1576
01:33:31,032 --> 01:33:34,141
And the kinds of things
you see in the supermarket.

1577
01:33:34,429 --> 01:33:37,450
You're going to get a representation of
human labour in the supermarket. You're not

1578
01:33:37,639 --> 01:33:40,687
going to see the human labour.
You're going to get a representation.

1579
01:33:41,119 --> 01:33:45,590
You're gonna have to to deal with the
representation as it is objectified,

1580
01:33:45,059 --> 01:33:47,063
and as its value is represented,

1581
01:33:47,099 --> 01:33:51,126
and then you have to make a
decision about use- and exchange-value.

1582
01:33:52,026 --> 01:33:58,028
So this is a way of situating
what people do on a daily basis.

1583
01:33:58,046 --> 01:34:01,097
And you can see that
this apparatus, although Marx

1584
01:34:01,097 --> 01:34:04,806
doesn't take it in the
way that I'm taking it,

1585
01:34:05,679 --> 01:34:09,731
but if you think about it you see
immediately what this can help you understand.

1586
01:34:10,199 --> 01:34:14,201
So you just don't learn it as a formal abstraction.

1587
01:34:14,219 --> 01:34:15,284
You try to put sort of

1588
01:34:15,869 --> 01:34:18,963
meat on the bones of this,
by sort of thinking through.

1589
01:34:19,809 --> 01:34:23,260
Well, what does that actually mean?

1590
01:34:23,026 --> 01:34:28,084
How does that help me
understand things that are going on around me?

1591
01:34:28,084 --> 01:34:33,173
This is the kind of crucial sort of question

1592
01:34:33,929 --> 01:34:37,900
which this form of analysis sets up.

1593
01:34:37,009 --> 01:34:39,030
So my purpose reading through

1594
01:34:40,011 --> 01:34:43,840
this first section is
to give you some idea about,

1595
01:34:43,939 --> 01:34:47,540
if you like, create a model of
how you should try to read this.

1596
01:34:47,054 --> 01:34:48,147
It won't always work for you. But

1597
01:34:49,047 --> 01:34:53,156
what you should do at the end of every
section is: draw back, say: all right,

1598
01:34:53,579 --> 01:34:56,625
what kind of relationships
was he talking about here?

1599
01:34:57,039 --> 01:34:59,400
What do those relationships tell me

1600
01:34:59,004 --> 01:35:04,953
both about all of this stuff,
but also tell me about what's going on?

1601
01:35:05,349 --> 01:35:08,431
In my daily life, in other people's daily life,
what's going on in the market and all the

1602
01:35:09,169 --> 01:35:12,070
rest of it? What does it tell me?

1603
01:35:12,007 --> 01:35:14,088
Is it telling me anything?

1604
01:35:14,088 --> 01:35:17,130
And initially it will be very
hard to see what it might tell you, as you go on

1605
01:35:18,003 --> 01:35:21,202
Marx will start to tell
stories coming out of these relationships

1606
01:35:21,499 --> 01:35:23,504
and he'll spin outwards from this

1607
01:35:23,999 --> 01:35:29,360
into a far, far greater
understanding of the dynamics of this.

1608
01:35:29,036 --> 01:35:33,795
So this is the way in which he's working.

1609
01:35:34,119 --> 01:35:35,630
And I think what

1610
01:35:35,063 --> 01:35:37,932
I suggested to you is that

1611
01:35:38,499 --> 01:35:40,556
you should go back over this section

1612
01:35:41,069 --> 01:35:46,070
and look carefully at the way in which
these concepts unfold and how they work

1613
01:35:46,007 --> 01:35:49,103
in these sorts of terms.

1614
01:35:50,003 --> 01:35:52,055
Now generally speaking,

1615
01:35:52,055 --> 01:35:55,474
I've been talking all the time on this occasion,

1616
01:35:55,969 --> 01:35:58,056
as an introductory thing.

1617
01:35:58,839 --> 01:36:01,891
Rather necessary I
found out of bitter experience.

1618
01:36:02,359 --> 01:36:03,260
But I would like,

1619
01:36:03,026 --> 01:36:07,255
actually, to try to get
you to engage a little bit, so

1620
01:36:07,489 --> 01:36:09,790
in the future,

1621
01:36:09,079 --> 01:36:12,146
precisely because you've
read the text very carefully in advance,

1622
01:36:13,046 --> 01:36:16,825
you doubtless come with
all kinds of questions in your mind.

1623
01:36:17,239 --> 01:36:18,300
And so when

1624
01:36:18,003 --> 01:36:22,712
I'm talking about something and you don't
get it because it doesn't fit with what

1625
01:36:23,009 --> 01:36:26,070
you got, then interrupt me, Ok.

1626
01:36:26,619 --> 01:36:35,674
That's fine, but interrupt me about the text.

1627
01:36:36,169 --> 01:36:40,235
As he says about this in his
introduction to the French edition, you know,

1628
01:36:40,829 --> 01:36:44,838
people very often want to talk politics

1629
01:36:45,729 --> 01:36:48,791
in here, I love to talk politics.

1630
01:36:49,349 --> 01:36:52,410
But sometimes if you talk
all politics you forget the text,

1631
01:36:52,959 --> 01:36:56,280
and actually the politics
of this class is to get you to read the text

1632
01:36:56,028 --> 01:36:57,997
and understand the text.

1633
01:36:58,249 --> 01:37:01,570
If you want to discuss politics we go
down to O'Reilly's bar on 35th street afterwards

1634
01:37:01,057 --> 01:37:03,606
and discuss as much politics as you like,

1635
01:37:04,119 --> 01:37:06,178
over several beers and that's

1636
01:37:06,709 --> 01:37:08,718
part of the joy of this course.

1637
01:37:08,799 --> 01:37:12,801
This is…,
in here we wanna try to

1638
01:37:12,819 --> 01:37:14,520
keep it with the text.

1639
01:37:14,052 --> 01:37:18,441
But there are instances of the
sort that I sort of indicated here where

1640
01:37:18,909 --> 01:37:23,110
people might have a particular kind of
experience which actually is illuminated

1641
01:37:23,011 --> 01:37:26,110
by the framework of analysis.
And that's extremely helpful.

1642
01:37:26,209 --> 01:37:29,233
When people can kinda say:
yeah, that reminds me off,

1643
01:37:29,449 --> 01:37:32,512
you know, when I was working for
AT&T this happened etc, you know, and

1644
01:37:33,079 --> 01:37:36,164
this happened and this happened, and it is
exactly what Marx is talking about. In other words:

1645
01:37:36,929 --> 01:37:39,670
there are constant ways in which

1646
01:37:39,067 --> 01:37:42,152
this refers to experience. I don't
mind some of that, in fact, that's always

1647
01:37:43,052 --> 01:37:45,141
very, very useful, but really,

1648
01:37:45,609 --> 01:37:47,625
what we're trying to do
is try to make sure we

1649
01:37:47,769 --> 01:37:51,400
get through to the text, and we have also

1650
01:37:51,004 --> 01:37:54,053
a little bit more fluidity, so that
I'm not just preaching all the time

1651
01:37:54,089 --> 01:37:57,048
and telling all the time, a
little bit more fluidity so that you can get into

1652
01:37:57,849 --> 01:37:58,897
discussing some things. Now,

1653
01:37:59,329 --> 01:38:02,387
we have about ten minutes left
so if anybody wants to raise some

1654
01:38:02,909 --> 01:38:08,150
issues about what we've done?

1655
01:38:08,015 --> 01:38:12,774
»STUDENT: I was just wondering, because I think that,
in the philosophical tradition, when we speak of value,

1656
01:38:12,909 --> 01:38:14,987
you usually have this conception
of something that is absolute or that has

1657
01:38:15,689 --> 01:38:19,694
an independent existence grounded in reality,

1658
01:38:19,739 --> 01:38:22,780
and I'm wondering, whether
we can understand Marx's

1659
01:38:23,149 --> 01:38:27,170
definition of value as
socially necessary labour-time,

1660
01:38:27,359 --> 01:38:31,960
as itself, something that is socially
conditioned, and is there any way

1661
01:38:31,096 --> 01:38:37,625
that is totally outside,
might there be a social configuration

1662
01:38:38,489 --> 01:38:46,280
that we can imagine in which value is,

1663
01:38:46,028 --> 01:38:49,080
actually itself its representation,

1664
01:38:49,008 --> 01:38:52,897
when those two things are reconciled.

1665
01:38:53,689 --> 01:38:56,736
Or is value always, inevitably kind of a chimera?

1666
01:38:57,159 --> 01:39:00,240
»HARVEY: No, I think you gotta understand:

1667
01:39:00,969 --> 01:39:04,067
Marx's concept of value is

1668
01:39:04,949 --> 01:39:11,016
something which is internalized in the
processes of a capitalist mode of production.

1669
01:39:11,619 --> 01:39:15,380
And what he will say to you is: you may
have alternative values, and that's fine.

1670
01:39:15,038 --> 01:39:19,417
And you can dream about
them and want them, this kind of stuff.

1671
01:39:19,759 --> 01:39:25,805
But they don't mean very much,
unless you can transform

1672
01:39:26,219 --> 01:39:30,760
the real value system which is
governing our daily lives which is this one.

1673
01:39:30,076 --> 01:39:34,076
So Marx is not against, necessarily,
thinking about alternative values. And in

1674
01:39:34,076 --> 01:39:36,161
fact, I think, one of the big issues

1675
01:39:37,061 --> 01:39:42,138
which we face right now, is
precisely about what alternative values we

1676
01:39:43,038 --> 01:39:46,007
would like to see

1677
01:39:46,349 --> 01:39:49,060
operating in in the global marketplace.

1678
01:39:49,006 --> 01:39:52,655
Values of fairness…

1679
01:39:52,709 --> 01:39:56,794
and this is particularly coming up in
the environmental issue, for example.

1680
01:39:57,559 --> 01:40:01,820
People want to talk about
environmental values which should be

1681
01:40:01,082 --> 01:40:03,168
part in this. And the
answer again, as I suggested, is:

1682
01:40:04,068 --> 01:40:06,337
Marx would say: that's fine.

1683
01:40:06,949 --> 01:40:10,600
Well, he might not say that's fine, he had a
particular kind of aim of where he wants to go.

1684
01:40:10,006 --> 01:40:12,077
But I think, theoretically he would say:

1685
01:40:13,031 --> 01:40:17,109
that's fine. But in order to
make your notion of value work

1686
01:40:18,009 --> 01:40:21,898
you have to confront the one which is actually

1687
01:40:21,979 --> 01:40:23,820
dominating us in terms of

1688
01:40:23,082 --> 01:40:26,421
what's going on in the supermarket, how we're
living our daily lives and all the rest of it.

1689
01:40:27,159 --> 01:40:29,840
And we're talking about a value theory

1690
01:40:29,084 --> 01:40:31,303
which is implicated inside of

1691
01:40:32,059 --> 01:40:34,340
a capitalist mode of production.

1692
01:40:34,034 --> 01:40:39,126
Now, there's been a
categorical mistake in many instances,

1693
01:40:40,026 --> 01:40:43,745
precisely because value is located
in relationship to labour and labour processes,

1694
01:40:43,979 --> 01:40:49,040
that there's been a lot of
thinking in socialist societies of taking

1695
01:40:49,589 --> 01:40:53,653
Marx's labour theory of value
also almost as a normative device

1696
01:40:54,229 --> 01:40:56,250
to think about how

1697
01:40:56,439 --> 01:40:57,445
socialism should work.

1698
01:40:57,499 --> 01:41:00,150
But this is not what
Marx is saying, he's saying:

1699
01:41:00,015 --> 01:41:02,044
value is inherent

1700
01:41:02,179 --> 01:41:03,256
within a capitalist mode of production.

1701
01:41:03,949 --> 01:41:06,043
And we have to come to terms

1702
01:41:06,889 --> 01:41:07,988
with what that value is.

1703
01:41:08,879 --> 01:41:10,907
Now, there are alternative value theories.

1704
01:41:11,159 --> 01:41:12,810
And you know, you can

1705
01:41:12,081 --> 01:41:16,105
philosophize about them, think
about them and worry about them, socially,

1706
01:41:17,005 --> 01:41:18,894
politically, all the rest of it…

1707
01:41:18,939 --> 01:41:21,995
But his point is, as I suggested,

1708
01:41:22,499 --> 01:41:25,420
you've always got to come
back to confront this one,

1709
01:41:25,042 --> 01:41:28,057
because this is very basic to how
capitalist mode of production works.

1710
01:41:28,057 --> 01:41:28,606
And if you wanna

1711
01:41:29,119 --> 01:41:31,204
instantiate a different set of
values, then you've gotta

1712
01:41:31,969 --> 01:41:35,300
overthrow a capitalist mode of production.

1713
01:41:35,003 --> 01:41:37,101
And that's his revolutionary intent.

1714
01:41:38,028 --> 01:41:43,053
Sorry, there was a question here.

1715
01:41:43,053 --> 01:41:47,392
»STUDENT: Yeah, I just was wondering if
you could talk a little bit about how we should think

1716
01:41:47,869 --> 01:41:48,916
about objectification. Because, I know, the
preconceived notion I bring to it is

1717
01:41:49,339 --> 01:41:51,427
much more static in terms of,

1718
01:41:52,219 --> 01:41:54,480
as labour is objectified, it
moves away from the labourer

1719
01:41:54,048 --> 01:41:56,103
and there's this separation.

1720
01:41:57,003 --> 01:42:01,482
How can I think about that in terms of,

1721
01:42:01,509 --> 01:42:03,518
more process oriented?

1722
01:42:04,409 --> 01:42:08,270
»HARVEY: Well, again…
the thing is not…

1723
01:42:08,027 --> 01:42:10,916
…is not…, for instance:

1724
01:42:11,159 --> 01:42:13,162
Just to give you an example:

1725
01:42:14,639 --> 01:42:17,650
Let's suppose that labour produces a house.

1726
01:42:17,749 --> 01:42:20,090
Okay the labourers that
produced the house move away from it,

1727
01:42:20,009 --> 01:42:23,051
then maybe other labourers move in to it.

1728
01:42:23,051 --> 01:42:27,310
And then there's the issue of: is that
house then fixed forever in terms of

1729
01:42:27,769 --> 01:42:32,080
its value? Well, given the way
he set it up, the answer is no.

1730
01:42:32,008 --> 01:42:36,257
Because let's suppose
there are revolutions in technology

1731
01:42:36,329 --> 01:42:39,416
which suddenly make housing
production much easier.

1732
01:42:40,199 --> 01:42:44,480
Then you can go away from, I don't know,
shanty towns to sort of housing of a

1733
01:42:44,048 --> 01:42:46,130
different kind, and therefore there's a dynamic

1734
01:42:47,003 --> 01:42:50,009
involved in this, and therefore,

1735
01:42:50,009 --> 01:42:52,073
you know, this gets back to the fact that

1736
01:42:53,054 --> 01:42:57,213
something like a house has a use-value and
the use-value remains a long time and you can still

1737
01:42:57,699 --> 01:43:00,718
trade its exchange-value,
so it has a residual exchange-value.

1738
01:43:00,889 --> 01:43:01,902
So…,

1739
01:43:02,019 --> 01:43:03,930
so again there's a dynamic here,

1740
01:43:03,093 --> 01:43:04,137
so the thing

1741
01:43:05,037 --> 01:43:07,516
and the qualities of things are not fixed.

1742
01:43:07,849 --> 01:43:10,550
In fact, again, there's a lot of

1743
01:43:10,055 --> 01:43:14,494
dynamism in this. But again Marx,
by and large, is not going to be concerned about that

1744
01:43:14,989 --> 01:43:16,083
in Capital. He's going to sort of say:

1745
01:43:16,929 --> 01:43:20,995
OK, I'm gonna assume it's fixed for the moment.

1746
01:43:21,589 --> 01:43:24,000
But nevertheless, what
he's saying here is:

1747
01:43:24,000 --> 01:43:29,109
watch out!, it's always in motion,
it's never fixed, it's always changing, it's a dynamic

1748
01:43:29,109 --> 01:43:32,141
concept, not a static one.
And the objectification

1749
01:43:32,429 --> 01:43:36,505
is there, but again, the meaning
of the objectification itself changes over time

1750
01:43:37,189 --> 01:43:39,240
and according to place. So you know

1751
01:43:39,699 --> 01:43:44,704
there are all those elements within it.

1752
01:43:45,199 --> 01:43:46,257
» STUDENT: This particular vision of the capitalist

1753
01:43:46,779 --> 01:43:50,590
world that Marx deals with

1754
01:43:50,059 --> 01:43:51,938
diverges, I mean obviously

1755
01:43:52,469 --> 01:43:53,490
diverges with the modern day…

1756
01:43:53,679 --> 01:43:58,765
Specifically with the way in which laws, and
you know, create a proprietary… you know

1757
01:43:59,539 --> 01:44:01,562
only certain companies
can make one thing, and then,

1758
01:44:01,769 --> 01:44:06,690
corporations sort of

1759
01:44:06,069 --> 01:44:07,070
dominate the scene.

1760
01:44:07,007 --> 01:44:11,326
It's not a free market- protectionist laws,

1761
01:44:12,019 --> 01:44:15,800
…does that…

1762
01:44:15,008 --> 01:44:18,167
affect the values being purely
about the socially necessary labour-time.

1763
01:44:18,959 --> 01:44:21,800
»HARVEY: Well that's one of the
questions which you have to ask about. What is

1764
01:44:21,008 --> 01:44:23,197
socially necessary labour-time?

1765
01:44:23,989 --> 01:44:25,800
How is it determined?

1766
01:44:25,008 --> 01:44:29,040
To what degree is there a monopoly
power in the market which is determining it?

1767
01:44:30,012 --> 01:44:36,038
To what degree is there imperialist
politics which is determining it?

1768
01:44:36,038 --> 01:44:38,397
To what degree is there

1769
01:44:38,739 --> 01:44:40,784
colonial enslavement which is determining it?

1770
01:44:41,189 --> 01:44:42,130
In other words:

1771
01:44:42,013 --> 01:44:43,752
those are open questions.

1772
01:44:43,869 --> 01:44:46,930
And Marx is very much open to

1773
01:44:47,479 --> 01:44:48,577
discussing those sorts of questions

1774
01:44:49,459 --> 01:44:53,483
in principle. But again, what
we're going to look at is

1775
01:44:53,699 --> 01:44:56,765
Marx's conception of a pure
capitalist mode of production.

1776
01:44:57,359 --> 01:45:01,368
Which in many ways, as we will see,
is guided by the vision of classical

1777
01:45:01,449 --> 01:45:02,457
political economy.

1778
01:45:03,249 --> 01:45:06,510
In other words: classical political economy

1779
01:45:06,051 --> 01:45:09,510
assumes there were going to be perfectly
functioning markets and the state power

1780
01:45:09,969 --> 01:45:14,070
is going to be out of the way,
and there's gonna be no monopoly.

1781
01:45:14,007 --> 01:45:17,676
So Marx tends to say:
okay, let's assume that

1782
01:45:17,739 --> 01:45:20,812
the classical political economists are
correct and that's how the world is.

1783
01:45:21,469 --> 01:45:23,474
We will see examples where

1784
01:45:23,969 --> 01:45:27,038
that presumption gets him into difficulties.

1785
01:45:27,659 --> 01:45:29,663
But actually, there's nothing

1786
01:45:29,699 --> 01:45:33,320
in this conception that says you can't
consider all those things, because,

1787
01:45:33,032 --> 01:45:35,811
for me anyway, the category socially necessary

1788
01:45:36,099 --> 01:45:38,170
is something which is perpetually open,

1789
01:45:38,017 --> 01:45:39,065
is constantly changing.

1790
01:45:39,065 --> 01:45:41,074
What is socially necessary now?

1791
01:45:41,659 --> 01:45:45,650
as opposed to what was
socially necessary in 1850.

1792
01:45:45,065 --> 01:45:49,514
Very different. And so you know,

1793
01:45:50,099 --> 01:45:52,510
I would want you to think about this as

1794
01:45:52,051 --> 01:45:55,058
having a flexible reading in this,
but realize that Marx is using it

1795
01:45:55,058 --> 01:45:58,697
in a very specific way, in a very specific situation

1796
01:45:59,219 --> 01:46:03,340
for very specific purposes.

1797
01:46:03,034 --> 01:46:06,433
»STUDENT: Does socially necessary
imply the amount of labour required

1798
01:46:06,739 --> 01:46:09,838
for a labourer to reproduce him- or herself?

1799
01:46:10,729 --> 01:46:11,812
»HARVEY: Socially necessary

1800
01:46:12,559 --> 01:46:15,588
can include that kind of question.

1801
01:46:15,849 --> 01:46:19,290
As many socialist feminists pointed out in the

1802
01:46:19,029 --> 01:46:22,033
debates of the nineteen
sixties/nineteen seventies,

1803
01:46:22,069 --> 01:46:25,868
the whole question of socially necessary,

1804
01:46:26,489 --> 01:46:28,650
has to take into account

1805
01:46:28,065 --> 01:46:31,086
certain basic costs of reproduction
that are born inside of the household

1806
01:46:31,086 --> 01:46:34,595
and which may be
disproportionately born by women.

1807
01:46:35,369 --> 01:46:38,375
Even though, actually, if you look
at the whole history of the industrial

1808
01:46:38,429 --> 01:46:40,480
revolution, it was women's labour

1809
01:46:40,048 --> 01:46:43,107
in the factories that was
fundamental, as it is today. And most of

1810
01:46:44,007 --> 01:46:47,084
the global proletariat right now is women.

1811
01:46:47,084 --> 01:46:50,119
So the kind of social
reproduction aspect of it, and how to

1812
01:46:51,019 --> 01:46:53,118
integrate that into
socially necessary, has been

1813
01:46:53,289 --> 01:46:58,230
a contentious issue amongst Marxists.

1814
01:46:58,023 --> 01:47:01,069
And what you have to
remember by the way, is that Marx

1815
01:47:01,069 --> 01:47:07,348
was a little skeptical of this
term "Marxist". He once said: 'I am not a Marxist.'

1816
01:47:07,969 --> 01:47:11,021
What he meant by that, was, there
were a lot of things being said in his name, that were

1817
01:47:11,489 --> 01:47:13,504
not exactly what he had to say.

1818
01:47:13,639 --> 01:47:17,706
So again, that's one of the reasons
why I want you to think about this in Marx's

1819
01:47:18,309 --> 01:47:21,940
own terms. Because, you know,

1820
01:47:21,094 --> 01:47:23,293
it's very, it's very important to realize

1821
01:47:24,139 --> 01:47:28,156
how he expands this
notion of social necessity,

1822
01:47:28,309 --> 01:47:29,346
we will see.

1823
01:47:29,679 --> 01:47:32,700
How you might want to expand it,
is again something that is open

1824
01:47:32,889 --> 01:47:33,948
to discussion and debate.

1825
01:47:34,479 --> 01:47:36,535
How we should expand it,

1826
01:47:37,039 --> 01:47:41,107
in terms of a socialist project, or
socio-ecological project, or a social-

1827
01:47:41,719 --> 01:47:43,070
feminist project, or whatever.

1828
01:47:43,007 --> 01:47:44,836
How we should expand it,

1829
01:47:44,899 --> 01:47:47,730
again, is something very much up to us.

1830
01:47:47,073 --> 01:47:50,952
And I don't think Marx would want to be read

1831
01:47:51,609 --> 01:47:54,687
as someone providing a
gospel within which you

1832
01:47:55,389 --> 01:47:56,590
can find yourself.

1833
01:47:56,059 --> 01:47:59,111
It's not about confining mode of
argument, it's a matter of

1834
01:48:00,011 --> 01:48:03,370
liberating you to think about
all kinds of possibilities,

1835
01:48:03,469 --> 01:48:04,478
all kinds of alternatives,

1836
01:48:05,369 --> 01:48:08,780
all kinds of ways to go.

1837
01:48:08,078 --> 01:48:09,227
Just one more.

1838
01:48:09,929 --> 01:48:13,932
»STUDENT: Could you just
clarify very specifically

1839
01:48:13,959 --> 01:48:15,028
the difference between
use-value and exchange-value?

1840
01:48:15,649 --> 01:48:19,880
»HARVEY: Use-value is a shirt or a shoe,

1841
01:48:19,088 --> 01:48:21,097
whatever you use. The exchange-value is:

1842
01:48:21,889 --> 01:48:25,880
shirts and shoes in the market,
and about the prices on them,

1843
01:48:25,088 --> 01:48:29,307
put very simply. And it's…

1844
01:48:30,099 --> 01:48:33,131
I don't like to use the word price at this
point, because we haven't talked very much about

1845
01:48:33,419 --> 01:48:35,474
money. But when you get
further down the line

1846
01:48:35,969 --> 01:48:40,610
you see it's really about prices realized
in the market, and exchange-value is the price

1847
01:48:40,061 --> 01:48:43,220
of a commodity.

1848
01:48:43,769 --> 01:48:45,853
Okay, we should leave it there.
So thanks very much.

1849
01:48:46,609 --> 01:48:52,612
We don't meet next week, right?,
because…What is it?

1850
01:48:52,909 --> 01:48:54,986
» STUDENT: Labour Day.
» DAVID HARVEY: Oh, Labour Day, what a good idea.

1851
01:48:55,679 --> 01:48:57,685
Next time I want you to read

1852
01:48:57,739 --> 01:49:03,840
the rest of chapter one, and chapter two.

1853
01:49:03,084 --> 01:49:07,413
So we will get to the end
of chapter two. Chapter two is pretty short.

1854
01:49:08,169 --> 01:49:12,650
The rest of this chapter is very
curious for a variety of reasons. I mentioned

1855
01:49:12,065 --> 01:49:17,014
Marx's literary style. His
literary style changes from

1856
01:49:17,599 --> 01:49:22,676
crisp analytic, like you've seen here,
and that goes on for the next one,

1857
01:49:23,369 --> 01:49:27,374
to what I can only call
his kind of 'accountancy style',

1858
01:49:27,419 --> 01:49:29,464
which is deadly boring.

1859
01:49:29,869 --> 01:49:30,945
Where: 'this is worth two shillings

1860
01:49:31,629 --> 01:49:34,650
and that's worth three shillings,

1861
01:49:34,065 --> 01:49:37,684
and that's worth two and a half pence.
And if we add this to that we will end up with…'

1862
01:49:38,269 --> 01:49:39,269
Deadly boring.

1863
01:49:39,269 --> 01:49:42,980
So the third section is rather long

1864
01:49:42,098 --> 01:49:45,155
and rather boring of that style.

1865
01:49:46,055 --> 01:49:48,151
And he could have done
it much quicker in my view.

1866
01:49:49,051 --> 01:49:52,086
But it has some very important
insights in it. And so you're going to

1867
01:49:52,086 --> 01:49:52,181
find yourself struggling.

1868
01:49:53,081 --> 01:49:56,107
The last section of chapter one is the
fetishism of commodities, where it's

1869
01:49:57,007 --> 01:50:00,030
about werewolves and Robinson Crusoe,

1870
01:50:00,003 --> 01:50:04,192
in an incredible kind of literary
style. So you suddenly find in this chapter

1871
01:50:04,489 --> 01:50:07,556
you're going to have a big
sample of Marx's different writing styles.

1872
01:50:08,159 --> 01:50:09,191
And they are all together.

1873
01:50:09,479 --> 01:50:13,501
Now, if you wrote a PhD that way, people
would say: For god's sakes!, smooth this out,

1874
01:50:13,699 --> 01:50:15,320
you can't do that.

1875
01:50:15,032 --> 01:50:18,038
Which style you're gonna write in?
But he writes in different styles.

1876
01:50:18,038 --> 01:50:19,217
And he enjoys it.

1877
01:50:19,559 --> 01:50:21,810
And it's fun, actually, because you starts to say:

1878
01:50:21,081 --> 01:50:24,320
How on earth does this relate to that?

1879
01:50:25,049 --> 01:50:28,138
And what does this really mean?
So anyway, chapter one is like that.

1880
01:50:28,939 --> 01:50:29,982
Chapter two is relatively short,

1881
01:50:30,369 --> 01:50:33,371
and again fairly analytic.

1882
01:50:33,389 --> 01:50:36,447
Key concepts are laid out a bit like here. So
it's a step further along the conceptional apparatus.

1883
01:50:36,969 --> 01:50:41,992
Okay? So chapters one and two

1884
01:50:42,199 --> 01:50:45,265
for next time.