carchedi - behind the crisis; marx's dialectics of value and knowledge (2011)

[...]... and techniques This is the thesis of the class-determination of knowledge which is contrary to what is held by the great majority of the commentators, according to whom knowledge (and especially the natural sciences and techniques) is not class-determined and has no class-content But, if knowledge is not class-determined, then the working class does not produce its own view of reality and thus of the. .. direction The movement towards the average wage-rate hinders the reproduction of labour-mobility, while the movement towards wage-differentials favours the reproduction of labour-mobility Thus, the former is the tendency and the latter the counter-tendency This is an example of a cyclical movement of the first type, because empirical observation shows the realisation of both the tendency and the counter-tendency... forms taken by the ownership-relation when the owners decide, and the non-owners have to accept, what to produce, for whom to produce it, and how to produce it Notice that the final and specific outcome of the decision as to what to produce, for whom and how, is the result not of an absolute power of the owners over the non-owners of the means of production, but of the class-struggle between these two fundamental... economy to the subjectivity of the social agents, that is, to the subjective manifestations of the contradictory objective foundations of the economy Within this framework, two areas of a Marxist theory of knowledge are explored The first one concerns the relation between the crisis-ridden nature of the capitalist economy, on the one hand, and the subjective and necessary manifestations of these objective... latter altruistic and solidaristic behaviour For the former, one’s well-being must be based upon the others’ misery, for the latter, one’s well-being must be both the condition for, and the result of, the others’ wellbeing The satisfaction of the former need is functional for the reproduction of the capitalist system; the satisfaction of the latter need is functional for the supersession of that system.46... capitalism, the development of the capitalists’ potentialities is shaped by their need to deal with the labourers as the source of the maximum feasible quantity of unpaid labour On the other hand, the development of the labourers’ potentialities is shaped by their need to resist and abolish their alienation, not only from their own products (which they must alienate to the owners of the means of production)... developments at the level of social consciousness This requires the development of a theory of individual and social knowledge and Foreword • xi especially of how classes express their own view of reality through the mental products of concrete individuals In the process of providing answers to these questions, other debated issues are explored, as for example, whether and when the production of knowledge. .. as the unity in contradiction of use -value and exchange -value The present work starts the enquiry into social life with a class-determined analysis of phenomena as the unity-in-contradiction of relations and processes Phenomena can be either social or individual This section deals with social phenomena The next section will introduce the notion of individual phenomena and clarify their difference and. .. hinders the reproduction of the determinant phenomenon (capitalmobility), and the counter-tendencies are the different profit-rates because they favour that capital-movement This is an example of a tendency of the third type because empirical observation shows the realisation of only the counter-tendency In the case of capital-immobility (e.g due to obstacles to capital-movement), the average rate of profit... produced, namely the unity of use-values and (exchange-) value ‘For whom’ means that surplus -value must be produced for the owners of the means of production, that is, it means that the labourers must be exploited Finally, ‘how to produce’ means that the owners, through their scientists and technicians (see Chapter 4), choose the process of production The productionrelations consist of the different forms . between the crisis-ridden nature of the capital- ist economy, on the one hand, and the subjective and necessary manifesta- tions of these objective developments at the level of social consciousness In the process of providing answers to these questions, other debated issues are explored, as for example, whether and when the production of knowledge is production of value and surplus -value. . proven their fruitfulness in dealing with the transformation of values into prices, 8 with the law of the tendential fall of the profit-rate, 9 with a theory of knowledge, 10 with a class-analysis