Good morning all pessimists!
Have just been reading Slavoj Zizek (The Sublime Object of Ideology, 1989),
who reads the Marxian formula 'the limit of capital is capital itself, i.e.
the capitalist mode of production' in a way that is not evolutionist.
Earlier modes of production have gone through periods of relative
accordance between productive forces and social relations, with a circular
process of social production and reproduction, interrupted by periods of
convulsion where the contradiction between forces and relations aggravates
itself. Capitalism differs from this by being driven into a spiral of
permanent expansion - there has never been and will not ever be a moment of
balance between social mode of production and the individual, private mode
of appropriation:
"Far from constricting, its limit is thus the very impetus of its
development. Herein lies the paradox proper to capitalism, its last resort:
capitalism is capable of transforming its limit, its very impotence, in the
source of its power: -- the more it 'putrefies', the more its immanent
contradiction is aggravated, the more it must revolutionize itself to
survive." (p.52)
BTW, I was going to suggest something similar to what Mary did about the
Foucault quote that Nate provided as support for attributing a desire for
objectivity to Foucault -- that F is suggesting an orientation towards a
conception of power which takes a view on what is the goal, and what is
tactically efficient in a field of multiple and fluid power relations.
Not very objective in the sense the word has in the subjective-objective
dichotomy, or? ... (the same confusion of terms has been known to arise in
the context of the Object in activity theory.)
Eva
deciding to post this
thus revealing that yes, she is still here = Sweden
and yet has no answer to Helena's request.
She does not know her country.
There should be others around????
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