Robert Kurz, an interview with Sonia MontanoRivista IHU On-Line, No. 188, 10.07.2006Università Vale do Rio dos Sinos, S. Leopoldo, Porto Alegre, Brasil
1. What does he say the "radical critique of value"?
As you know, the traditional Marxist labor movement accused capitalism only deprives the self-employed and employees of the popular surplus value which the owners of the means of production was appropriated as a "power of disposal." This is a critique of capitalism, mutilated, and that leaves out deontologize social form of value. Consequently, according to this thinking, the post-capitalist socialist society should continue to rely on the form value and function as a producer of goods "planned." Transformation of society as this concept has been wrecked. The problem can only be explained historically: the labor movement and the same state socialism were still part of the history of "value-based mode of production" (Marx). It was a "struggle for recognition" in this form of society not investigated. Now, the surplus can only be replaced with the value, and not as a planning and "equitable distribution" of the value. This is not a merely theoretical. In the new unified system crisis worldwide, the same value as the third revolution is disvalorizzato industry, to the extent that the "abstract labor" as its substance is dissolved. Under these conditions it is necessary to criticize and to abolish the value as a basic form and, consequently, the production of goods as such.
2. What makes a commercial society? What is meant by "goods"? That their reports provide the goods?
The term "merchant" refers only to buy and sell. A commercial society does not even exist. Capitalism is essentially a mode of production and not just a mode of movement. Hence the term "market economy" is misleading. Marx already demonstrated that the reduction of the modern movement of goods is at the Eldorado capitalist ideology, because they appear only in the market owners "equal" and "free" goods and money. But the market has to be the subject of production before becoming the subject of movement. The market is not the place where the subject "free", but essentially the sphere of "realization" of surplus value, therefore the conversion of the commodity form in the form of money. This is the movement of the value of "automatic subject" (Marx), a state of aggregation to the other. The merchandise does not exist for itself but is a stage of development. And market players are not the agents of this movement. But the overall production of goods is only possible through the transformation of human labor into a commodity sui generis, and a general form of value is possible only through the added value as an end in itself irrational. Exactly at this point shows that the "negative socialization" of capital is to 'ownership' of the subjective value added by the owners but the same legal value form, which makes only by the general postulate of systemic capital gains. Beyond the "freedom" of formal movement, you come to the awe (originally violent) of human beings to "abstract labor." And 'This is the basic relationship of the system manufacturer of genuine goods. This relationship is a mockery of the third industrial revolution. It is not only a problem of unemployment and mass misery, but also a problem of capitalism itself, which begins to lose the "substance" of its value because of its very dynamic.
3. What is a "radical critique" of the fundamental categories of capitalism, such as value, labor, goods, money, government, politics, democracy and nation?
The critique of capitalism up to now has never been a categorical criticism, namely, the fundamental categories of modern manufacturing goods were seen in the affirmative and non-critical. The deontologize deontologize caused the value of its categorical forms of appearance and representation. The state, politics, democracy and the nation were not decoded as the 'other side' of the negative social value and as an integral part of this value, but were mistakenly understood as categories of dominoes for the wickedness of capitalism. Now, homo politicus is only the alter ego of homo economicus, it should be demolished together with the value also its democratic political sphere. The categorical criticism, however, goes deeper, because capitalism is not just a mode of production and a state system of regulation (which now, together with the value reaches its limits in globalization), but also a way of reproduction and of life. In this sense, the modern relationship between the sexes plays a crucial role, because every moment of social reproduction that are not absorbed by "abstract labor", value, and state and / or social policy are differentiated by the official delegates to women (family responsibilities, children's education etc, but also - through all the spheres - the sociopsichiche functions of 'empathy' and 'labor of love "of feminine connotation, without which social life would not be possible in the universal competition). The report of value "abstract labor" is, therefore, at the same time a report of separation between the sexes, which is so essential and categorical as the same value. That report dissociation between the sexes is decaying under the present conditions of crisis, as evidenced by the "confusion of the sexes" and the processes of barbarizzazione the newspaper. The aim of the critical value is, therefore, a society beyond the "abstract labor", the value, the market, the state and the dissociation between the sexes. Of course, this means huge problems for centuries because it is that human beings have been "socialized into" these categories and internalization. So there is no direct path to exit the existing order but you need a process of historical mediation. Mediation means that you must find a new relationship between the immanent struggles for money, government services etc., the social resistance against the administration of the capitalist crisis, on the one hand, and the categorical targets of criticism, on the other. It is, in a way, the ancient problem of the relationship between path and destiny ", but in new condition and with a modus of criticism entirely different, more profound. Also included here is the perception that there is no simple opposition to an enemy in a merely conceived outside (the capital), but we all we are all, in our underwear, "the capital". This means that even within the social movements are given the contradictions to be solved and not ignored. So also the separation between the sexes is ongoing and should be criticized in the social movements, for example, when the burden of the crisis is, "as was natural," dumped on women are being revoked and achievements of the feminist movement. Even ideologies as nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism permeating the social contradictions and are explicitly or implicitly virulent among the "humiliated and offended" by this world. The necessary critique of ideology must not retreat behind a predominance of abstract "social question" in the same way the contrast material in the social situation of different groups (eg migrants, on the one hand, and local workers who are in a situation precarious, on the other) should not be submitted under the generality of this "social question". On the contrary, the tensions and differences have to be supported and critically digested. A movement common social assumption does not arise as abstract, but only as a result of this comparison. The theory of radical critique of the value and dissociation can show, in the process of mediation, a new target and analyze the historical terrain of the global crisis not to lose sight through distinct movements, social struggles, tensions and differences, all negative and give an orientation of "big breath." It can not however provide comfortable "operating instructions" as a template for action, this concept would be "false immediacy" (Adorno). What is the weakness of existing social movements is in fact that continue to cling to outdated ideas and set the "false immediacy. "
4. This radical critique is a critique of modern metaphysics real foundations of the Enlightenment, of everyday life. In what sense?
Modernity producing goods is itself the idea that he would supplanted metaphysics. The same value but is a "metaphysical reality," an "empty form" that can not be grasped by the senses, that is transcendent in relation to social needs and content quality. The universality of this form and surface, the same time, structurally masculine (androcentric), and the modern subject is, originally and in its essence, a masculine subject, and western white. The value and its subject not only arose in a historical process "target", but also by affirming the ideological guidance of social consciousness. The foundation of all modern theories and ideologies is the philosophy of the Enlightenment, which, as "mother of all affirmative reflection" (including the traditional Marxism), contributed substantially to the formation of global commodity producing system. Therefore, the critical value of the dissociation and needs to include a radical critique of Enlightenment. It is not, however, in the sense of a critique of the conservative counter-Enlightenment and dell'antimodernità irrational, but a critique of the roots of modern thought, fixed the metaphysics of the real value. The Enlightenment helped in various forms so that the logic of the value and dissociation were internalized by human beings. So, it will not only spread a "disciplined" outside to meet the needs of the "abstract labor, but also sketched a program for the 'self-discipline" inside the individual, that works today. At the same time it produced the ideological fixation in circulation (in the market and its players), which has led to this day an erroneous understanding of 'freedom' and 'equality' in the same left. Finally, it lined the ideological character of modern universalism androcentric, his philosophy is structurally "masculine" and hides the moments also differentiated conceptually and theoretically. In the work of Foucault can find plenty of material and a critical reflection on the "cars of discipline" built in the Enlightenment. Foucault, however, remained half-way criticism of the Enlightenment. In his self-repulsion of mechanical Marxism party of the sixties and seventies, he misconstrued the issue of social form as "economism". So his criticism of the Enlightenment comes only a positivist concept of the mechanisms of a "production of truth" quota, which has no relation with the logic of value and the dissociation between the sexes as training social history. Of course, the critical value is also a critique of everyday life from the value determined. The 'real abstraction' Social reached in the process of capitalist modernization, all spheres of life, architecture, aesthetics and culture, to the eating habits (agro-business, fast food) and relationships. The new global crisis accelerates the release of the 'abstract individual', in which, however, the separation between the sexes continues to be in place. The value and the universal competition associated with it penetrating into the depths and destroy all the constraints. People become capable and self-referential, narcissistic and hysterical character of the personal and social is scattered in all social situations. The company's isterizzazione crisis does not stop even before the policy, science, groups of critical theory, and in the same relationship of love and friendship. The complaint staff and replace broken staff throughout the discussion of content. Feelings of competition, fear of the links and the "compromise", abstract available psychodynamic conflict and anxiety in every sense of "validation" staff threaten to overwhelm any content, even in the same radical critique. The same theoretical content, and even the same feelings for other individuals who do not become interchangeable gaming chips in the "fight for positions." Individuals become unpredictable as the weather and financial markets. This trend sociopsichica is socially conditioned and can only be overcome in the process of social revolution, and not for education or for coercive social control, the spirits of the neo-utopian projects of the "reform of life." Nevertheless, it is necessary to find out how we can resist this trend in internal crisis of the subject within social movements and groups of theoretical reflection, to maintain the capacity for action in critical theory and practice of relations in general.
5. What should we take Marx's and why is it necessary to go beyond it?
analysis and display of Marx laws internal movement of the value of "automatic subject" of modernity, continues to be the foundation was not exceeded and the starting point of our criticism. In the present world crisis Marx is more relevant than ever. What we have to take him, however, are precisely those aspects of his theory which was neglected, reduced or silenced by the traditional Marxist labor movement. Of course, this is particularly true regarding the critical value, which is actually present in the thinking of Marx, and the aspect of his theory of crisis with its report, which runs deeper discussions Marxists back on the concept of crisis. But even Marx can be found in the same connection points for the interpretations traditional. So the new critical value is about a "dual Marx." Marx was, first, a radical critic of the modern system of producer goods and, second, a positive theory of modernization, which he understood as "progress needed." Consequently, little is aiming, with neo-orthodox, to discover "the true Marx". Like any theory, the Marxian theory has a "core time" (Adorno). The reflection of Marx was far beyond his time and yet simultaneously took root at that time. This prison can be identified mainly in four points, which constitute an internal link. First, Marx held the paradigm of the philosophy of the Enlightenment history and its metaphysics of "progress", though, in another respect, he has criticized the Enlightenment ideology of those "free" and "equal" of the movement, as well as the illusion associated with it, politics (mostly the young Marx). Second, Marx criticized, unlike the majority of Marxists, the "abstract labor," however, remains ambiguous in this criticism and by insisting on a universal concept, supra, general and abstract "work" in this sense, it shows' inheritance have not yet exceeded the Enlightenment and Protestantism. Thirdly, it was precisely Marx's "positive" theory of modernization, which wrongly conceived, in the form of an "ontology of work", the "working class" and "class struggle" as levers of social liberation, when, in reality, there it was just dell'autolegittimazione the holders of "abstract labor" in the value whose "struggle for recognition" as legal entities and civil capitalism was a movement of integration into the "iron cage" (Max Weber) of modernity, which precluded any categorical criticism. Marx, as "dual Marx, wanted to associate the" class struggle "categorical criticism, based on the universal deontologize" work ", but this could not happen, as demonstrated in practice the historical development of social and labor movement. Finally, and fourthly, as a "man of the nineteenth century, Marx could not feel the separation between the sexes as an essential aspect of socialization through the negative value, even at this point, his theory did not go beyond 's androcentric Enlightenment universalism. Therefore it is necessary to go beyond Marx, not to reject his theory of criticism, but to transform and develop a new theory, which goes farther and is equal to the current planetary crisis.
6. In that sense we can say that we are prisoners and of fetishism?
The concept of fetishism is an inseparable part of those aspects of Marxist theory that were taken up and further developed by the radical critique of the value. It is no coincidence that Marxism did not know what to do traditional with the Marxist concept of fetishism, that puts this concept to the 'a priori' silent of social relations, beyond the reach of any positivist thought, the transcendental nature of the "automatic subject "which permeates all social classes and filters or any form previously thought and action. The fetish character of social reproduction means that humans do not consciously shape their social relationships and not using their resources and capabilities through a free agreement, by contrast, are subjected to a medium of their own product, but it is made autonomous in respect thereto. This medium, which is the value in modernity and its form of appearance, money, driving the social reproduction according to a self-blind ("second nature"). The modern understanding of reason, which is a product of the Enlightenment, is completely limited to this medium of self-fetish, because it contains only a historically specific, cut the shape of the goods and destructive in its essence. The modern irrationalism represented by the currents of the bourgeois counter-lights up is just the reverse of this reason and is a derivative of the same enlightenment. The categorical criticism, as criticism of modern fetishism, is a critical link between the internal modern reason and modern irrationalism, it must result in an "other reason", thus to develop a "counter-reason" against reason fetishistically provided by the system manufacturer of goods. We are prisoners of fetishism to the extent that, under the prevailing conditions, copies of all our practical life is at the mercy of the "irrational reason," the fetish of the commodity and capital. The robot blind "covered auto" requires us to "work" for our own shipwreck. The economic rationality of business undermines the foundations of human life with the 'externalization of costs permanently, destroying the biosphere as an increasing extent. For the same reason, resources personal and material are disabled, regardless of social and material needs, as soon as they cease to satisfy the criterion of return on capital fetish. Although there are human skills, knowledge and sufficient means of production, they can not be used freely but are subject to the restrictions of social form fetishist. The production of abstract wealth "(Marx) leads to the impoverishment of the masses. However, this is not an outward antagonism of interests, but the poor themselves are also working for their own impoverishment, simply by articulating their material needs and social issues in the social form of value, therefore, in the form of fetishism. This contradiction, that more intensified in the periodic crises of capitalism only to be overtaken by new impulses regarding the accumulation of capital, acquires an existential dimension in the global crisis of the third industrial revolution because it is no longer sustainable real accumulation of capital. Or it breaks the social form of fetishism or the life of society will be "turned off" so as ever more catastrophic.
7. What would, in his opinion, the essential aspect of the new book by Anselm Jappe "The Adventures of goods: a new critical value," published in Portuguese?
in his book, Anselm Jappe for the first time systematically summarizes the results of radical critique of the value until the end of the nineties, which were scattered in many individual publications, and does so in a completely self-synthesis, according to the process where the critical value was originally developed, from traditional Marxism. One could therefore say that this is an "introduction to the critical value for Marxists" that makes all the people who are still confused in the paradigm of the traditional critique of capitalism, reconstructing the course of the argument of the most critical of the amount so that it approprino. Since this process does not happen only once, then being closed, but it is repeated in the case of many individuals interested in the radical critique of society, and in an ever new, new constellations, continuing the same critical theory of value and dissociation to grow more. This systematic exposition is also useful for the younger generation who do not know the Marxism of the seventies, it allows these young people to read Marx's theory already with the new eyes of the critical value and, so to speak, leaving the side the traditional understanding that has meanwhile become obsolete. So the concepts of value as "real abstraction", fetishism and "abstract wealth," the critique of false universalism of "work", the new theory of the crisis of critical value and the "real metaphysics" of the modern system of producer goods are presented and built up very clearly. The theory of separation between the sexes, the critique of the masculine subject, white and Western criticism of the Enlightenment are included in the book only peripherally, but these aspects will be explained and presented in more detail in a future project that has the working title " The Adventures of the subject. " Important in the book by Anselm Jappe is also the final chapter, in which he compares with "false friends". In this way, the critical reduced Jappe critical of capitalism in the anti-globalization movement and its "social forums", which reduces the relation of capital to its current phenomenology "neoliberal" and basically asks only to return to forms of regulation Keynesian (socialist ideas or traditional). He also engages with a neo-utopian "exchange without money" that is disclosed (in part using the work of Marcel Mauss on the "gift" in the pre-modern societies) in the ideas on "cooperative free" movement and the "software free ". In these still mistakenly conceive of capitalism as a simple way of movement or "market economy", it is inadequate ideas about a movement without commodity form, which could even be instrumental promoted by the administration of the crisis, in terms of a increase in subsistence economic niches in the form of the 'informal economy ". Finally, also criticized the ideology Jappe the post-processor of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, who has gained prominence in recent years and, with its concepts of "immaterial labor" and "multitude" can not appear in any criticism of categorical and clothes post-modern " the last masquerade of traditional Marxism "(Jappe). Such criticism is necessary, as well as the radical critique of the value and deviation are raised in the ivory tower theory, but in a certain way in a "melee" in the fight for a new theoretical understanding of the criticism, same criticism must be upheld consistently and over again in this "combat" the process of formation of the theory can only move forward in comparison (even polemical).
8. The book invites you to "search the room in which are kept secret to which the whole of humanity." What are these secrets and what room is this, then?
Anselm Jappe chose the beautiful metaphor of the "forbidden room" of the world where fairy tales are kept "secret" that should not be known. This room is none other than the place of critical reflection, which is beyond the everyday world to think and act preformed by capitalism. And the secret is in the constitution of this world, in the 'a priori implied "relations, so in conditions that in the course of a historical process were internalized as if they were" obvious "and seem to be given by nature, although they were taken up by human beings - but in a way, being blind and without a conscience "above" this act. It is, in other words, that determines the fetishism that think and act and that no longer appears as the result of a development that could also be replaced again, but do not cross as ontology. Such an extent that one can say that the traditional social criticism still has not dared to enter the "forbidden room" and touch on those secrets. This also involves the theory of history, as the pre-modern societies (agricultural) had not, as has modernity, a conscious relationship, direct themselves with their own capabilities and resources. Even were commanded to be medium consisting fetish, only for other mediums and other means. What is the value in modern times was God in the pre-modernity. What is the medium in modern "objectified" and metaphysically loaded from goods and money were in pre-modernity individuals as representatives of God metaphysically loaded value is not God, and capitalism is not the continuation of religion by other means, such claims as Walter Benjamin, this is more of a historical constitution totally new. Between both worlds is opened the abyss, after a profound historical rupture. However, the radical critique can recognize a negative moment of continuity, ie quell'incoscienza in relation to a "tacit a priori" (which is quite different in each case) of social life and reproduction, as a report that overall design fetish. In this sense, the radical critique of the value refers to a "history of relations fetishist." Of course, this concept of theory of history is itself a modern concept inevitably, because we can not jump out of our place in history. However, this is a fallacy to which all the necessary reflection on the theory of history is necessarily subjective. On the contrary, however, the history of modern classical philosophy after Hegel, of which even the "historical materialism" is part Marxist, the theory of the history of criticism of the value and dissociation is no longer a positive theory in the manner of a metaphysics of "progress" ontologically anchored, which accentuates the unilateral moment "of world history" of continuity, but a negative theory, which allows a dialectic of continuity and discontinuity. We see the story inexorably to modern ears, but with the eyes of critics to this story than with the eyes of the statement. This criticism goes beyond the traditional Marxist theory of history, which still assumed the existence of a continuum of positive "work" and "progress" and, thus, only prolonged the bourgeois philosophy of history. The negative concept of a "story relations fetish "implies the contrary, an" ontological rupture "with all prior history, so by passing the relationship of the modern value and the fetishism of the dissociation is exceeded in general. Just so we understand the claim that Marxian the end of capitalism is simultaneously the "end of prehistory." In the history of critical theory and the value of dissociation is given as a "critical surpluses" that produces the necessary impetus for the break with the false ontology of modernity. Though the theory bourgeois history, extending to post-modernity, in the meantime has itself criticized the continuum of a positive "history of universal progress," it did so only in a process of decay theory, which emphasizes the discontinuity in a unilateral, non-dialectical time as first emphasized continuity. "Metaphysics of progress" has been replaced with only a "metaphysics of contingency" (and mere discontinuity) of a reverse, which, of course, is caused by the fact that modern look and is fully established. However, this statement shall be under the terms of the crisis, and no longer under the historical point of view of the ascension of modernity. Behind the appearance of a "metaphysics of contingency lies in wait ontology rigid and ahistorical, for example, the ontology of" power " Foucault's thought, borrowed from the 'German Ideology "from Nietzsche to Heidegger. So do not you come to a critical excess "in the sense of" ontological rupture, and thus ultimately also lost sight of the report's specific fetish history of modernity.
9. The ideas of Guy Debord on the society of the spectacle are still relevant today?
are even more present than ever. Debord, in his time, kept mainly in view of the means "spectacular" television noting a development of the modern fetish reached a "degree of capital accumulation" where it becomes image "and replaces the entire" sensory world "with a" selection of images. " This of course does not refer only to media but simple technology to a new quality of "real subsumption to capital" (Marx), a subsumption not only of production processes, but the totality of life and the totality of experience, a fetishization of all reports up to intimacy, as I suggested above, as in awe of all walks of life to the "real abstraction" and how to release the value of the 'abstract individual. " In what is a 'medialization of the newspaper in which the technical means of communication becomes autonomous in itself, but in their character inscribed in the goods and, in some way duplicate the fetishism of the commodity form. This development has dramatically enhanced with new communication technologies of the third industrial revolution. Now, this is not just raw technology, but a "virtualization" in world of life, as you can see the nell'onnipresenza telemobile, SMS etc. and especially the Internet. This goes hand in hand with the virtuality of the new financial capitalism, which is detached from the accumulation of real capital, as a phenomenon of crisis. In the "virtual" of postmodern thought, the process was partly ideological and misunderstood as emancipation. But there is nothing but an expression of the crisis of the subject in which you play as a phenomenon of consciousness the inner edge of the modern system producer goods. An example might look like through the communication by electronic correspondence in groups of every kind, are "cooked" conflicts so incredibly quick and rash each time and with greater frequency, because the conversation is just simulated, nor was there a genuine partner, with which people come to get involved. All conversations are just soliloquies. Individualisation, media coverage and virtualization in the form of fetishized as a unit value are negative, in which inflation contributes to the self-communication systems of individuals.
10. There are currently relations between the society of the spectacle and the adventures of the goods?
Society of the Spectacle "and" the adventure of the goods in the historical stage of its obsolescence. In Debord, which can be considered a precursor of the radical critique of value, yet still is not a new concept of the crisis, which appears only in the wake of the third industrial revolution. He misunderstands the medialization and virtualization as the "new degree of accumulation, while they in fact go hand in hand with the real desostanzializzazione and disvalorizzazione value. A crisis that is associated with the report of the dissociation between the sexes and the "class struggle" traditional, even at this still has no notion Debord. What is the paradoxical dialectic of society and the value of the dissociation that has turned into a spectacle is the fact that the completion and release of abstract individuality are identical to the emptying of the value and the absolute limit of accumulation. Individuals are much more likely value as no longer able to be subjects of the "work". This results in an enormous tension that is discharged into forms of destructive behavior and poisoned more and more everyday. The radical critique of the value and the dissociation between the sexes must learn to wrestle with this tension not to lose itself in the vortex of the crisis spectacular.
Original Robert Kurz: Interview mit Sonia Montaño, IHU-Online-Zeitschrift, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Brasilien), 03/07/2006
http://www.exit-online.org/link.php?tabelle=autoren&posnr=271
translation by LPZ
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