capital

August 20, 2015

Turning the Tables

Jack Graham alienation, capital, commodity fetishism, Fantasy, gothic marxism, marx, marxism, reification, SF 0

“A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. So far as it is a use-value, there is nothing mysterious about it, whether we consider it from the point of view that by its properties it satisfies human needs, or that it first takes on these properties as the product of human labour. It is absolutely clear that, by his activity, man changes the forms of the materials of nature in such a way as to make them useful to him. The form of wood, for instance, is altered if a table is made out of it. Nevertheless the table continues to be wood, an ordinary sensuous thing. But as soon as it emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than if it were to begin dancing of its own free will.”

– Karl Marx, Capital vol.1

Consciously or not, a lion’s share of SF/Fantasy is concerned with just this. Almost to the point of running with Marx’s ‘great idea for a story!’.

It’s also a great illustration that the best Marxism is Gothic Marxism. A Marxism which recognises the uncanny, the weird, the surreal, the fantastic, as both truthful expression and invaluable heuristic. The real world is made so strange, so bass-ackwards, so haunted and haunting, so alien by capitalism, that only historical materialism informed by the uncanny and the dreamlike can truly capture it.…

November 16, 2013

19

Jack Graham 50th anniversary countdown, capital, capital accumulation, capitalism, commodity fetishism, enclosure, gothic, love & monsters, neoliberalism, vampires 4

LIN’n’DA has allowed ‘Mr Kennedy’ into their little circle of friends. His determination to find the Doctor is the opposite of their desire to socialise & laugh while sharing their ideas & obsessions & histories. Even if much of what we know about LIN’n’DA is just Elton’s garbled wish-fulfillment, it’s still a nice story. Until Kennedy arrives. It’s never the same again. Hierarchy is introduced, along with work schedules & targets & orders & timetables & a drive for objective ‘results’.

“Though we had to admit,” recalls Elton, “he was right. His methods were much more rigorous. It felt like we were getting closer & closer to the Doctor.”

As if that had ever been the point.

“Umm, Mr Kennedy?” says Elton cautiously, raising his hand as though he’s a kid at school trying to attract the attention of his teacher… & actually, LI’n’DA’s headquarters now looks like a school room. The friends are sat at desks, toilng away individually & silently at private work. Mr Kennedy is every inch the teacher. He sits at the head of the room, behind a desk, surrounded by the paraphernalia of pedagogy.

“We were wondering…” Elton continues, “…no sign of Bliss. Do you know where she is?”

Bless Bliss.

“Yes,” replies Kennedy irritibly, “didn’t she tell you? She’s getting married. She left a message. It’ll never last, stupid girl. Come on, back to work.”

Yes, back to work kids…

Thing is though, LI’n’DA doesn’t just look like a school room now. It also looks like an open plan office, or a call centre. The friends are now workers, arriving on time & working on projects according to the dictats of their new boss. He watches to make sure they don’t slack. He assesses their results. He expects to profit from their work. That’s what he’s in this for. LI’n’DA has become a Doctor-finding factory. LI’n’DA has been enclosed. Accumulation by dispossession. The relentless absorbtion of everything into itself: the essence of neoliberalism.

It’s no coincidence that the school room also looks like the workplace. The school system in capitalism is a way of training the future workforce to arrive on time five days a week, to savour the weekend, to obey orders, to work towards output targets, to have your work judged & tracked, & discipline oneself for a lifetime of showing up.

Kennedy is many things (teacher, boss, repressed misanthrope, caricature of the uber-fan…), but among them he is a summation of something the Doctor has found himself facing many times before: he’s capital as a monster.

He’s a ruthless, pin-striped posho… but it goes deeper than that. Like the Cybermen, he’s a user & utiliser, an employer, an encloser of hopes & dreams & friendship… & even flesh. Like so many monsters from the Wirrn to the Krynoids, he absorbs people into himself, first figuratively then literally. He encloses even the bodies of the workers in his factory, adapting them to his purposes, feeding off them & monopolising all life – just like a vampire, that gothic monster of capital. …

November 13, 2013

26

Jack Graham 50th anniversary countdown, axonite, axons, capital, capital accumulation, classicism, claws of axos, commodity fetishism, commodity form, patriarchy, westernism 1

The Doctor, the Brigadier, some scientists and a Ministry bureaucrat have ventured inside Axos, a living ship that has just landed on Earth.

The Axons have greeted them. They are a nuclear family – man in charge, surrounded by wife and boy and girl – modelled on classical statuary, their skin a lustrous gold.

They reflect the prejudices of those they meet. They are part of Axos and have formed themselves from the ship/entity. They easily adapt their image to Westernism, Patriarchy, Classicism, the worship of the commodity and of wealth itself.

In return for shelter (ostensibly), they offer “a gift… a payment”. They appear unable to quite understand the concept of ‘gift’, immediately amending their use of the word. They meant ‘payment’, which implies a commodity transaction.

Their payment is…

“Axonite!”

It looks like a mineral, something torn from the ground by labour. In reality it is just another aspect of Axos, individuated from the amorphous and tentacular mass of the whole so it will pass as a rock.

“Axonite is the source of all our growth technology,” says Daddy Axon, “Axonite can absorb, convert, transmit and programme all forms of energy.”

Note the word ‘growth’. To Axos, this is a central concept. It’s why they’re here.

They do a deal. Axonite will be distributed around the globe.

“This is indeed a rich planet you have brought us to,” Axos tells their unwilling partner, the Master.

Axos has found a new market into which it can spread, new material to consume.

“Axonite must encircle the world,” says Axos.

When it has been distributed globally, Axonite will absorb all energy and return to Axos, glutting it with new power. Remember, Axonite can be anything. It can take any form. It can grow via an occult process. It covers the world. It has a “cycle” which ends with its absorbtion and assimilation of everything around it. It returns to Axos, which is another aspect of itself, bigger and richer, swelling and increasing the whole. It is the commodity form itself – the commodity fetishised and come alive, personifying itself and then treating people as commodities to be consumed. It is scrambled, insane, multifarious, protean, yet singular and unitary. It glitters. It is lusted after as a transformation of production (of food, technology, anything at all) and as power in and of itself… yet the people who want it to serve them end up serving it. It is alien to humanity, yet dresses in the clothes of Western tradition, classical values, oppressive gender relations and wealth. It offers itself as payment, then takes everything as profit. It is ravenous. Vampiric. It circulates and ends its cycle with profit it has sucked from the world. And then it moves on, still hungry.

It is capital.…