Marx’s Not-Capital : Labour and the Contemporary Critique of Political Economy

As a contribution to critical social theory, this book reconsiders Marx’s critique of political economy through the concept of labour as “not-capital”. Engaging with thinkers who have dealt with Marx’s concepts of “not-capital” and “not-value”, Tetler examines whether and how these concepts can contribute significantly towards a renewal of the critique of political economy beyond the limits of traditional Marxism. In doing so he provides the first in depth interrogation of these concepts, both within Marx’s work itself and within and across the various intellectuals who have put them to use in their attempts to address the faults of traditional Marxism. He argues that the theory of value that sits at the heart of Marx’s critique of political economy requires a negative conception of labour. In helping establish this, the notions of labour as not-capital/value are shown to have formidable ramifications concerning the crisis-ridden nature of capitalist social relations and the struggles operative within and against them. Acknowledgements Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Context 1.1.1 Traditional Marxism and Its Critique 1.1.2 ‘Labour as Not-Capital’ 1.2 Chapters Bibliography 2 Marx’s Grundrisse, and Labour as ‘Not-Capital’: Roman Rosdolsky, Antonio Negri, Mario Tronti 2.1 Roman Rosdolsky 2.1.1 ‘The Real Not-Capital’ 2.2 Antonio Negri 2.2.1 The Book on Wages: Workers’ Autonomy as Not-Capital 2.2.2 Paradigmatic Thinking 2.2.3 Immeasurable Value 2.2.4 A Multitude of Sins 2.3 Mario Tronti 2.3.1 ‘A Wholly Particular Commodity’ 2.3.2 The Only Commodity That Can Say ‘No’ 2.3.3 The Subject That Says ‘Yes’ 2.4 Conclusion Bibliography 3 Systematic Dialectic of the Value-Form: Christopher Arthur 3.1 The Arthurian Project 3.1.1 Value-Form 3.1.2 Systematic Dialectic 3.2 The Labour Hokey Cokey 3.2.1 Out 3.2.2 In: Labour as ‘Irredeemably Other’ 3.2.3 Shake It All About: Capital’s Use of Labour 3.2.4 The Turn Around? 3.2.4.1 Dussel: A Positive Influence? 3.2.4.2 Deus ex machina 3.3 Another Way: Alienated Labour 3.4 Conclusion Bibliography 4 The ‘Critique of Labour’: Moishe Postone, Wertkritik, John Holloway 4.1 Postone and Wertkritik 4.1.1 Critique of the Labour Fetish 4.1.2 What is the Non-identical in Capital? 4.2 Critique of Postone and Wertkritik 4.2.1 Abstract Labour 4.2.1.1 Wertkritik 4.2.1.2 Postone 4.2.2 Consequences 4.2.3 The Proudhonian Whiff 4.3 John Holloway’s Open Marxism 4.3.1 The Scream 4.3.2 The Crack 4.3.3 ‘Doing’ as the Real Not-capital 4.3.4 Doing Ontology? 4.4 Conclusion Bibliography 5 The Critique of Political Economy as Critical Social Theory 5.1 Critique of the Neue Marx-Lektüre 5.2 Abstract Labour 5.2.1 Primitive Accumulation: ‘The Recipe is Separation’ 5.3 Not-Capital Reconsidered 5.3.1 As Dispossession and Use Value of Labour 5.3.2 As Failing Capital 5.3.3 Consequences 5.4 Conclusion Bibliography 6 Conclusion: The Limits to Not-Capital 6.1 What Happened to Not-Capital? 6.1.1 From Grundrisse to Capital 6.1.2 Why Was It Dropped? 6.1.3 Remaining Ambiguities 6.2 Conclusion Bibliography Index