File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1998/deleuze-guattari.9806, message 147


Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:24:07 +1000 (EST)
From: Christopher Mcmahon <Christopher.Mcmahon-AT-jcu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: surplus value


I concur with most of this:

On Tue, 16 Jun 1998, Marcus Wilker wrote:

> 
> This is a re-write of my last post to address the discussion we've been
> having here more directly:
> 
> agreed, Chris, the "fact" of exploitation is not thrown out
> 
> the place of this exploitation in Marx's theory is thrown out, however,
> and for the reasons Gene mentions: (a)  because surplus value already
> existed as a s-v of code, and (b) because non-human machines can be
> "exploited" too. 

Definitely. Not only non-human machines, but subindividual and
suprasubjective ones.
> 
> what is left to be explained, then, is:  (a) the transition from s-v of
> code to s-v of flow, and (b) the mechanism that places human machines to
> be "exploited" when non-human machines would, formally, work just as well.

With apologies to Eugene, I have never felt entirely comfortable with the
distinction between flow and code. "i wanted to write as a flow...."
language doesn't just signify, it flows, and even  the operation of
signification is a flow (qua Derrida?) from signifier to signifier? As for
the place of exploitation, I think it stays where marx put it, not just in
surplus value for productive consumption, but also (to a certain extent) 
in productive value per se, and even in certain avenues of excess (e.g.
the disutility of religion can be put to work). 
> 
> some of this is answered by the function of the anti-production policing
> that is contained in capitalism's production, but I think there is more
> that I have not grasped. 

Yes. But capitalism no longer polices antiproduction, it sells it.
> 
> then, there is the question of what to do about it:  marxists can no
> longer know their enemy, or at least these enemies do not know themselves,
> so it is maybe too late for the old ways.  In the end, d&g propose a kind
> of intensification, but seemingly just for lack of a better answer.

Imagine you are an expolited 3rd world worker. Capitalism isn't going to
end. The revolution will simply throw you back to its threshold of
re-escalation. So what do you do? You intensify where 1st world capital
doesn't get you yet? Or where it has you, but not on the level of
intensity that you create? This isn't a revolution, it's an escape. But it
is not nec. "individual", or "impotent" for that.

 > > help, anyone? > 
> 
> Marcus.
> 
- Chris


   

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