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Prelude:

The cardinal point to grasp is that in our analyses of all these theories it is not relevant
whether they are true or scientific or indeed false or fantastic: What is most relevant is
that these theories are strategies (rather than ideologies) that give practical order or
provide guidance for the political effectiveness of capitalist social relations of production to
be preserved, reproduced and, wherever possible, expanded We say strategies rather
than ideologies because our main ob!ective is not to show that these theories are false or
inaccurate" rather, we are interested in their effectiveness in explaining, revealing or
concealing crucial aspects of capitalist reality and hegemonic practice #or us, these theories
are true and scientific to the extent that they are effective: theirs is a partial truth $ they are
true only in the sense and to the extent and for the period that they are effective % although
the theoreticians expounding them certainly believed their scientificity &ur exclusive aim
here is to identify and comprehend by means of interpretation, analysis and criti'ue of
politico%economic theories of capitalism, the essential components of capitalist society so as
to enable us to outline and develop our own strategies in the fight against it
(ere we are standing outside philosophy and scholarship: we are designing and shaping a
political tool that will better enable us to combat the established order by helping us com%
prehend it from a practical standpoint )efensive or offensive is beside the point: this tool
should help us fight and defeat an enemy that threatens more than our personal en!oyment
of life on earth, but indeed the very survival of the ecosphere*
+n a nutshell, we wish to do the converse of the histoire raisonnee that ,chumpeter
attributed to -arx and then sought to emulate We wish to conduct instead a raisonnement
historicise $ a historici.ed reasoning, winding our way through a series of criti'ues that
parallel historical developments broadly in the history of capitalism but more intensely in the
history of theories relating to capitalism, its history and its economy and, above all, its
meaning We say meaning because meaning is what characteri.es, prompts and
shapes human action: what we do has much to do with why we do it, and why we do
something has a lot to do with how we interpret things, the world (/rendt and (abermas
come to mind 0ut contrast 1areto2s or -annheim2s studies of ideologies)
The fact that a historical process has meaning does not mean that it is rational in a
purposive sense: the meaning may be different from the self%understanding of that process
or entity and, in any case, the purpose may be irrational We may distinguish between
instrumental and substantive or purposive rationality To insist, for instance, that capitalism is
an anarchic social system fails to explain how it has survived and indeed grown for so
long
+ open, by chance, /lbert -athie.2s 3a 4evolution #rancaise and parse breathlessly its
formidable preamble:
The true revolutions, those that do not limit themselves to changing the political form and
the government personnel, but rather transform the institutions and occasion the great
transfers of property, seethe a long time subterranean before bursting to the light of day
under the impulse of some fortuitous circumstance The #rench 4evolution, which caught
unawares with its irresistible impetus not less its artificers and beneficiaries than those who
became its victims, had a languid preparation for over a century +t sprang out of the
discordance, each day more and more profound, between the reality of things and the laws,
between the institutions and the customs, between the letter and the spirit
+t is impossible to tell with certainty when the capitalist mode of production that currently
engulfs the world might come to an end 0ut if we study and understand its historical origins
and structural development, it may be possible to elaborate a strategy for us to overcome it
/ pre%condition for superseding the present state of affairs is that it should come to be
regarded universally as a barrier to the further development of our human creative potential
#or this is how we increasingly and overwhelmingly are coming to regard capitalism +t is not
sufficient that the present system of human social organisation show itself as irrational: for
this system to be superseded, it is necessary also that it become redundant and obsolete
and above all counter%productive +f we survey the state of the ecosphere and our
determinant role within it with any degree of practical ob!ectivity, we will asseverate that all
the essential practical measures needed to ensure its survival, let alone its enhancement in
peaceful co%existence between its life forms, have their way barred by the essential pre%
re'uisite of political and industrial action under the present system: % that it be profitable
/ time there may well have been when profitability went hand in hand with progress 5et
what is certain is that such time lies now well in the past What we witness with growing
certainty and clarity is the inconfutable truth that profitability stands more than ever in the
way of human individual and social progress +t is possible to trace the birth of capitalism
bac6 to the seventeenth century 0ut to be able to do that, we first need to identify the
historical components that ma6e up this concept $ which is the tas6 we have underta6en in
the present wor6 ,o let us not pre%suppose what we are yet to prove The present wor6 may
be described as the obverse of that histoire raisonnee that 7oseph ,chumpeter so highly
admired in the analytical method of 8arl -arx and that he too am 9nde sought to adopt 0y
comparison, ours can be described as a raisonnement historicise, a dialectical en'uiry into
the origins and character of capitalism, at once an exegesis and a criti'ue that hopefully will
light our path to a better and more humane future
#our hundred years of capitalism, we anticipated" and it is undeniable that humanity has
made much progress in this time $ so much so that, + venture to say, the path to a better
future, to a rational society, is already visible if not clearly outlined 5et it would be folly to
conclude as many, including -arx, have done, that this is the path traced by the bourgeoisie,
by the captains of industry #or it is !ust as li6ely that this progress, and the unspea6able
devastation and crimes and atrocities with which it is strewn, is the gift of the countless
people and wor6ers who suffered at the hands of the bourgeoisie, yet who, refusing to be
counted as silent victims, fought courageously against its ruthless rule and dictatorship To all
our fellow fighters, this wor6 is humbly dedicated
SMITH AND HOBBES
0y highlighting the ability of self%interest to be enlightened, to lead to e'uilibrium or to
increase national wealth, ,mith then believes that this occurs through a natural division of
labour as separation:appropriation % when in fact it occurs through a particular political
form of social co%ordination $ a division of labour that emanates from a civilised society
that already contains a ;,tate%form2 as the ;preservation2 of natural rights presumably
ac'uired in or transferred from the state of nature*
3oc6e, instead, does not yet pre%figure such a pivotal inference but rather relies on the social
contract merely preserving pre%existing natural rights that first arose in the status naturae
+n 3oc6e there is the pre%supposition of the ,tate in the status naturae
This is perhaps one of the most important and delicate passages in the whole of political
theory +t is here that (obbes2s political theory poses a fundamental challenge to the
ideology of liberalism That ideology, as we have seen, was founded on two premises: first,
the existence of natural rights in the status naturae accruing to self%interested individuals
which form the basis of civil society in which these natural rights are guaranteed by the
,tate pursuant to positive laws under which the ,tate is constituted, and second, the
reconciliation of these self%interests in the self%regulated mar6et through the price
mechanism $ the identity of supply and demand
The 'uestion that (obbes confronts is to examine how self%interested individuals in the
state of nature can agree to reach a social contract that protects their natural rights under
the law. +n reviewing the theoretical foundations of the state of nature, (obbes follows the
pessimistic premises of the state of nature to their scientific natural conclusion +f in fact
individuals are already self%contained, self%interested atoms in the state of nature, it is
simply impossible for them to agree to the drafting of a social contract that erects a status
civilis regulated by laws for the simple reason that their irreconcilable egoistic interests
would prevent them from reaching such agreement* To argue otherwise is to postulate the
ability of individuals in the status naturae to have the necessary re'uisite faculties (reason
or some other inclination) that allows them first to discern and identify their natural rights,
and second to agree to observe them
0ut if such faculties already existed in individuals, then they would no longer be merely self%
interested, in that they would implicitly be able to conceive of the common good in
respecting their individual natural rights, and therefore the contractual establishment of a
civil society would be 'uite superfluous (<f 4ousseau in <olletti, p=>?) +n other words,
for (obbes the positing of a contractual civil society by self%interested individuals
governed by laws that protect their pre%contractual natural rights is simply either a
contradictio in adjecto (status naturae is antithetical to the notion of right) or else a petitio
principii , in that erecting a ,tate that protects natural rights under the law presupposes a
society of individuals capable of accepting the legitimacy of those natural rights, which
begs the 'uestion of why the ,tate is needed in the first place, because in that case both
the contract establishing the civil society as well as the ,tate erected to enforce the laws
would be simply redundant, superfluous
+n (obbes2s reasoning, no self%interest of individuals could !ustify or urge or prompt them to
agree to the contractual establishment of a civil society except the fear for their lives, the
fear of being overwhelmed by other self%interested individuals in the state of nature 9ither
individuals are able to protect themselves from others in the state of nature, in which case
they do not re'uire a civil society, or else they are not, in which case it is simply impossible
to spea6 of natural rights /lthough the conception of such rights may be possible in
foro interno by reference to some religious or ethical norm, in foro externo, in the reality of
the status naturae, no such rights exist simply because there is no power that can apply
force to have such rights observed by all individuals (8osellec6, p=@, ( proceeds from
the outside to the inside, mediaeval origins of separation between ;fora2)
+n other words, natural rights are mere velleities % empty and pious wishes existing in foro
interno, they are a mere flatus vocis % in the status naturae" only in a state of law or status
civilis can rights exist in foro externo and ac'uire positive reality The inescapable
outcome is that natural rights cannot have any social reality except as positive laws
enforced by a social political power or sovereign $ the ,tate What can bring individuals
together to agree to the contractual establishment of such a ,tate is the only right that all
self%interested individuals can possibly recognise: % the right to self%preservation 0ut it is
essential to understand that this right for (obbes exists only as a scientific description of
the reality of the state of nature: in no guise is (obbes attributing any ethical or moral validity
to self%preservation as a right that is simply inconceivable in the state of nature
(obbes2s reductio ad absurdum consists in this: that in the state of nature the only right
conceivable and apparent is the brutal fact of self%preservation /nd this is a fact that human
reason, seen by (obbes as a mere instrument, can recognise and act upon #or it would
be impossible otherwise for individuals to let their reason prevail over their passions and
therefore to agree to the formation of a contract or league in the status civilis founded
upon the total alienation of the freedom of their passions in the state of nature 0ut above
all it would be impossible for them to agree to any definition of right whatsoever, natural or
otherwise* ((obbes exposes ab initio what 8osellec6 called die 1athogenese of bourgeois
society 0ut see also /rendt, c pA?ff)
(ere the 9uclidean geometric logic, invariant and inflexible, is breathta6ingly candid With a
few, pitilessly calculated propositions $ more geometrico, li6e ,pino.a %, (obbes ruthlessly
slashes and fells the pathetic apologetic assumptions of what was to become the liberal
ideology first outlined by 3oc6e in terms of the political regulation of bourgeois society and
then assimilated and extended to its economic expanded reproduction by /dam ,mith
(obbes draws a distinction similar to Bico2s between the natural sciences that are based on
empirical observation and experimentation by way of hypothesis and induction, on the one
hand, and on the other the moral sciences that are based on human conventions and
deduction $ with the inference that, given that human beings are able to reflect by
introspection into the wor6ings of their own minds, they are far better able to determine
scientifically the outcome of their institutions, political, economic and social, than they are
to divine the regularity of natural events by experiment and induction (1ia..i cites Cegri at
pDE, also comments on lin6 to Bico)
And upon this it was, that when I applyed my Thoughts to the Investigation of Naturall Justice, I was
presently advertised from the very word Justice, (which signifies a steady Will of giving every one his
Owne) that my first enquiry was to e, from whence it proceeded, that any man should call any thing
rather his Owne, than another man's! And when I found that this proceeded not from Nature, ut
"onsent, (for what Nature at first laid forth in common, men did afterwards distriute into severall
Impropriations), I was conducted from thence to another Inquiry, namely to what end, and upon what
Impulsives, when all was equally every mans in common, men did rather thin# it fitting, that every
man should have his Inclosure$ And I found the reason was, that from a "ommunity of %oods, there
must needs arise "ontention whose en&oyment should e greatest, and from that "ontention all #ind of
"alamities must unavoydaly ensue, which y the instinct of Nature, every man is taught to shun!
'aving therefore thus arrived at two ma(imes of humane Nature, the one arising from the
concupiscible part, which desires to appropriate to it selfe the use of those things in which all others
have a &oynt interest, the other proceeding from the rationall, which teaches every man to fly a contre)
naturall *issolution, as the greatest mischiefe that can arrive to Nature$ Which principles eing laid
down, I seem from them to have demonstrated y a most evident conne(ion, in this little wor# of
mine, first the asolute necessity of +eagues and "ontracts, and thence the rudiments oth of morall
and of civill prudence! (*e "ive, *edication!)
Two forces, then, one opposed to the other The very notion of !ustice, reasons (obbes,
entails the notion of distribution between members of a human society /nd a fortiori it
implies that what !ustly belongs to one member does not belong to another The notions of
!ustice and right, therefore, whether they be of divine or of natural origin, must mean that
members of a society or community have moral or legal claims over some social resources
to the exclusion of other members 0ut the actual right, even if natural or divine, would
amount to a mere pious wish or velleity in the absence of a social power that can enforce it,
that can transform this right from a moral aspiration to a positive social reality /nd this
social power must be overwhelming and unopposed in the society: this social power must
have a monopoly of force over the members of society +t is sheer fantasy, then, it is mere
utopia, empty moralising to insist on the natural or divine rights of human beings outside of
a community or society ruled by an entity, an institution with sufficient power, political or
otherwise, to enforce such rights +t ma6es no sense at all, therefore, to spea6 of rights as
applying to human beings outside of a society organised in such a manner that these
rights can be enforced &utside of such a society armed with such an institution able to
uphold such rights, it is not possible to identify, to name even, any rights or laws on
which human beings may claim to be entitled to anything at all +n a pre%social state, in a
state of human existence that precedes that of civil society living in peaceful co%existence
under a legal system, all resources must be in common and there cannot be any 'uestion
of individual claims or rights to any of them (owever much human beings may form the
belief, in foro interno, that they ought to be entitled to certain resources, no actual positive
right can materialise in foro externo in the absence of laws and institutions capable of
enforcing them and thus give them social validity (3ev, c pD>?) Cot only is the concept of
property meaningless, not only are rights vacuous and velleitary except in the feeblest
moralistic sense, but also the concept of individual labour may well be difficult to define
given that even individual labour can only be applied to other natural resources that must
be in common and that therefore cannot entitle those who utilise them to claim the pro%
ducts of their wor6 as their own
The source and origin and cause of rights, then, must arise from two opposing forces in
human nature, given that nothing outside human nature can influence the conduct and
association of human beings &n one side, there is the reality of concupiscence whereby
human beings are prone to have competing claims to the same resources and that, as a
result, there is bound to be conflict between them as to how to utilise and distribute these
resources &n the other side, the very fact that unrestrained conflict in human society will
lead to a widespread feeling of insecurity and fear whereby each individual will act in self%
defence and see6 self%preservation will mean that the members of the human group will be
desirous of forming a league or contract to ensure their own safety and survival Two
forces, again, both attributable to human nature but tending in opposite directions: one is the
human tendency to appropriate social resources $ a community of goods $ unreasonably
and insatiably to the detriment of others" the other is the need to ensure personal survival by
avoiding the destructive contention and calamity that will befall each individual at random
The resultant of these forces will be a league or contract whereby the concupiscence of
each member will be 6ept in chec6 by an overriding social power that will preserve social
peace and protect the lives of each and everyone
0ut a repentine doubt undermines the mechanical symmetry of (obbes2s theorem +f it is the
case that human reason can supply a remedy to the insatiable urges of human passions,
why should these passions be so inordinate and calamitous that they cannot be
restrained by reason itselfF /nd if, conversely, these passions should be so impetuous,
how could human reason ever be able to restrain them or, indeed, even con!ecture the
establishment of an overwhelming social power to such an endF The solution to this pu..le
that (obbes offers is truly breathta6ing and places him un'uestionably and irrevocably far
away from the camp of !usnaturalism where bourgeois apologists usually prefer to enlist
him
/lready, by arguing une'uivocally from the scientific observation that natural rights are
'uite simply a contradictio in ad!ecto, (obbes has won our unstinting admiration (3ev, c
pDDD) +t is outrageously ludicrous for anyone to argue, or even to conceive in fact, that there
can be natural rights of any description in the absence of a positive social institution that
decrees certain claims to social resources to be lawful, and then also to be able to impose
these legal rights on human beings and to have them respected (obbes is scathing in this
regard ()e <orpore, c ppGE%G) both with regard to theology and the silly atavism to the
!ust (/ristotle2s summum bonum, )e <ive, c pEE) +t is silly to consider what is ideal to
determine what is real &nly by examining scientifically what human beings are and do can
we lay the foundations of a political science worthy of the name +t is because we are aware
of our own nature through introspection that we can theorise the real causes of our
behaviour and institutions by applying the scientific method (in ,ix 3essons)
Bico and )escartes meet in (obbes2s new resolve: with intrepid determination he proposes
to combine the conventional nature of human institutions with the hypothetical, scientific
demonstration of their historical shape and operation (1reface to 9lements) 3i6e geometry
and mathematics, the tas6 of political science will no longer be that of interpreting the
formulations of the anti'ui auctores or of the scriptures The aim will be to emulate the
natural sciences that derive laws from observations in experiments based on hypotheses,
much in the way that geometry moves from axioms to theorems 0ut these axioms must be
derived from introspection and experience and observation, not from abstract notions from
first principles The scope of this science will be to examine what human beings do rather
than what they ought to do" and then, and only then, to prescribe scientific measures to build
on those scientific findings &nly on this basis will it be possible to construct human
institutions that minimise conflict and maximise the welfare of human beings ()e<ive, cEH)
(obbes2s solution to the conundrum of the actual creation of the social power that will
decree, impose and enforce the laws that give rise to legal rights will establish once and
for all how distant and how far he is from the bourgeois apologetic cohorts of !usnaturalism $
chief among them 3eo ,trauss and Corberto 0obbio We emphasise this point because
(obbes leads us here at the very beginning of the capitalist era to a truly earth%shattering
series of realisations and conclusions that will be absolutely essential to our understanding
of not !ust the nation%state in the capitalist era, but indeed of the capitalist mode of
production and of its social relations of production themselves* When confronted with the
pu..le of how human beings can overcome their uncontrollable self%interest (concupiscence)
and agree to submit their will and let their passions become subordinate to a collective
institution, (obbes suggests that it is by using their reason so as to avoid the uncertainty and
insecurity that comes from the attempt by every individual to assert its own volition or will or
passion on everybody else
-ore specifically, the ensuing threat or even reality of a war of all against all (bellum
omnium contra omnes) and the apprehension of imminent harm or even death on the part of
each individual allows reason to bend to necessity and to subdue the will sufficiently for each
individual willingly to alienate the free rein of their will and passions in the state of nature
and to have its absolute freedom circumscribed by the creation of a social entity or institution
armed with sufficient power to establish rules and laws and to force their observance by
every individual +t is understood that such alienation of one2s liberum arbitrium (literally,
free arbitrariness, or free will) can eventuate only in extremis, at a time of grave need when
the threat of losing their lives in a relentless war looms inexorable and ineluctable in the
minds of all individuals &nly such a state of emergency, which (obbes li6ens to survivors in
a life%boat throwing into the sea all their remaining belongings (that is to say, their freedom)
in order to remain afloat $ only such an ultima ratio (ultimate reason) can form the rational
foundation of a social power in the shape of a sovereign state that can suppress the war of
all against all and guarantee the peaceful co%existence of all members of the new civil state
(status civilis) under one legal system
+t is illegitimate if not insensate, and un!ustifiable in the extreme, to attribute (obbes2s ruse
of reason to any 6ind of !usnaturalistic scheme or theory (,trauss and 0obbio) +t is sheer
folly indeed to explain (obbes2s reasoning (his demonstratio, not exegesis or interpretatio* $
see 0overo and 0obbio) by narrowing its scope to his empirical%historical observations of the
rampant possessive individualism that flourished rapidly in seventeenth century 0ritain on
the wave of mar6et capitalism (<0 -acpherson) #or what (obbes is telling us here has far
broader significance than any !usnaturalist or mercantilist explanation True it is, of course,
that (obbes has in mind self%interested individuals whose ac'uisitiveness is endless in the
manner of later liberalist theories and of classical political economy 5et what is uni'ue and
revolutionary in (obbes2s theory is that reason is li6ened to a life%boat in a storm that only in
extremis, in its capacity as ultima ratio or extrema ratio can agree to submit the freedom of
its will to the higher authority and power of the state This reason therefore is a very special
moment of reason, the moment in which reason is stretched to its most elemental origins,
where it is a mere reflex and most li6e the passions that it is supposed to counteract,
tame and channel into rational action: this reason is in this exceptional situation an
extrema ratio, the closest thing to an instinct and therefore closest to nature or physis,
as against convention or nomos
+n other words, and here is the all%important conclusion, (obbes is telling us that a society, a
status civilis, that is constituted or founded by self%interested individuals such as (obbes
understands human beings in the status naturae, can only come into being under
exceptional circumstances in the form of a dire emergency (cf ,chmitt, ;<oncept2) +n
such extreme circumstances, the only rule that human beings can give themselves is the
rule of exception whereby they renounce and alienate wholly and irrevocably their
autonomy or the spontaneous freedom of their wills, and that finally this state of exception
is what answers to the demands of the most natural human instinct, the instinct to self%
preservation* 1ut in other and clearer words, this means, without shadow of a doubt, that the
state that rules a society of self%interested individuals can only be a state of exception $ in
other words, a dictatorial and totalitarian state* (<f ,chmitt, 1olTheology, but see ,trauss2s
;Cotes2 on this) $ and that this ,tate answers to the most elemental needs of human beings,
to the most primordial re'uirements of their nature ,uch is the extremity of the
emergency that the ,tate that is formed therewith is analogous to a )eus mortalis in that it
is born of a sort of miracle by means of which the state of nature is suspended (again,
,chmitt on ;)er 3eviathan2 and 1olTheol $ cf also )onoso <ortes Iin 3owith, ;Bon(.uC2J)
To put it with lapidary terseness: The ,overeign is he who decides on the exception /s
,chmitt comments, the classical example of )e.isionismus appears in the seventeenth
century with (obbes /ll the rights, the norms and the laws, and the interpretations of lawsK
are for him the decisions of the sovereign, and the sovereign is not a legitimate monarch or a
competent authority, but exclusively he who decides as a sovereign (in ;<oncept2, c p=E>)
What (obbes has ably achieved has completely and remorselessly sidelined the entire
foundations and rationale of natural right: for here it is impossible to reconcile through any
dialectic the conventional status civilis with any notion of natural !ustice or right (cf the
discussion in ,trauss, ;The &rigins of C4ight2 and 0obbio2s and Warrander2s wishful
interpretation of rights in statu natura based on utility, see 1ia..i, pp=L%@) 1articularly
scathing will be (obbes2s attac6 on /ristotle2s notion of .oon politi6on and its scholastic
version of animal sociale +n (obbes2s perspective, it is no longer feasible to retrace the
origins of the ,tate to any teleological notion of !ustice or right or summum bonum
because its origins are no longer conventional but hypothetical and the hypothesis, not
free choice or innate ideals of reason, condemns human beings to the convention
I3ogico%historical status of the state of nature and of civil society ,tate by institution and by
ac'uisition at the same timeJ What many liberal commentators on (obbes have
conveniently forgotten is that his concept of reason is entirely different from that of the
/ristotelian%scholastic tradition: for (obbes reason is purely an instrument for calculation
(3eviathan, c p>>) $ to maximise pleasure and minimise pain and, above all, to ensure self%
preservation, because death is the greatest evil (9l1h,)e (omine) (,chmitt would tal6 of
danger rather than evil, but that is clearly what (obbes means)
+mpotent and pathetic, then, ,trauss2s liberal%philosophisch attempt to rescue (obbes from
the claws of his demonic vision of the ferity of human nature, and even to invert his logic by
having (obbes found the absolute rights of the individual in the new conventional ;3eviathan2
as against the mediaeval scholastic prescription of theologically%ordained duties from which
rights were derived 9'ually stultified is ,trauss2s attempt to show that (obbes sought to
escape the status naturae to a liberal state by exasperating the pessimistic features of
humanity whereas ,chmitt see6s to revert from the liberal state to the status naturae again
by highlighting the inevitability of the political What ,trauss misses completely is the fact
that (obbes and ,chmitt are tal6ing about the finality of the so%called liberal state" that is
the ex'uisite convergence of their theoretical analyses on the ultimately dictatorial and
totalitarian natural premises of the liberal state*
,trauss2s ;Cotes on ,chmitt2 thoroughly misconstrue the dramatic novelty:invention of
(obbes2s theory +t ignores those +nclosures (obbes mentioned above $ that is, the
obscene brutality of original accumulation by the bourgeoisie ,trauss2s efforts are all
aimed at reconciling (obbes with the universe of liberalist tradition and of the free mar6et,
the autonomy and e'uivalence of 1olitical 9conomy:
'oes, to a much higher degree than ,acon, for e(ample,
is the author of the ideal of civili-ation! ,y this very fact he is the
founder of lieralism! The right to the securing of life pure and
simple-and this right sums up Hobbes's natural right-has fully
the character of an inalienable human right, that is, of an individual's
claim that takes precedence over the state and determines its
purpose and its limits; Hobbes's foundation for the natural-right
claim to the securing of life pure and simple sets the path to the
whole system of human rights in the sense of liberalism, if his
92 +eo .traws
foundation does not actually ma#e such a course necessary! 'oes
differs from developed lieralism only, ut certainly, y his #nowing
and seeing against what the lieral ideal of civili-ation has to
e persistently fought for/ not merely against rotten institutions,
against the evil will of a ruling class, ut against the natural evil
of man$ in an unlieral world 'oes forges ahead to lay the
foundation of lieralism against the) sit venia vero)unlieral
nature of man, whereas later men, ignorant of their premises and
goals, trust in the original goodness (ased on %od0s creation and
providence) of human nature or, on the asis of natural)scientific
neutrality, nurse hopes for an improvement of nature, hopes un&ustified
y man0s e(perience of himself! 'oes, in view of the
state of nature, attempts to overcome the state of nature within
the limits in which it allows of eing overcome, whereas later men
either dream up a state of nature or, on the asis of a supposed
deeper insight into history and therewith into the essence of man,
forget the state of nature! ,ut)in all fairness to later menultimately
that dreaming and that olivion are merely the consequence
of the negation of the state of nature, merely the consequence
of the position of civili-ation introduced y 'oes1!
Whereas 'oes, in an unlieral world, accomplishes the founding
In the first edition of this treatise .chmitt had descried 'oes as 2y
far the greatest and perhaps the sole truly systematic political thin#er2 (Archiv
fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik vol! 58, p! 25). .chmitt now spea#s of
'oes only as 2a great and truly systematic political thin#er2 (34)! In truth
'oes is the antipolitical thin#er (2political2 understood in .chmitt0s sense)!
Notes on The "oncept of the 5olitical 67
of lieralism, .chmitt in a lieral world underta#es the critique of lieralism!
,trauss2s incomprehension of (obbes is breathta6ing (obbes is !ust as far from
interpreting death is the greatest evil as the foundation for the natural%right claim to the
securing of life pure and simple as the devil is from the Mospel The fact that (obbes calls
death the greatest evil does not in the least mean that life is a natural right or worse still
the foundation forKthe whole system of human rights in the sense of liberalism* /long
similar lines is Warrender2s favourable gloss on ,trauss2s reading according to which
(obbes is not defining the state of nature as the right of everyone to everything but
rather in a negative constitutive sense as the right to some things such as life that are
irrenounceable (see 1ia..i, p=L), reference by (obbes to the measure of right is utility
()e <ive, c L@) /nd 0obbio clasps this straw of utility to suggest that natural right K
has itself a measure of its own, and therefore is not !ust a mere factK 0ut what (obbes
means by utility here is not even remotely either a negative limit for natural rights or
a basic right, nor is it a measure of right: what (obbes means by utility is 'uite
obviously whatever satisfies the irrepressible concupiscence or passions of individuals
$ in other words, the right of everyone to everything* Ntility for (obbes stands for the
insatiability of human passions or concupiscence: this is one pole of the two
opposing forces of which the other pole is constituted by the instinct of reason in
extremis to self%preservation (The echo of (obbes2s empiricist pessimism in
,chopenhauer2s later elaboration is blindingly obvious We will return to it later)
9ven in these milder versions, therefore, the sheer foolhardiness of these estimations from
thin6ers of ,trauss2s and 0obbio2s caliber is almost painful: their attempt to drag (obbes
bac6 into the fold of !usnaturalism and (later) liberalism is fallimentary /lmost culpable,
instead, is their stratagem to hide the totalitarian implications of (obbes2s theory of the
,tate as they arise mathematically and with strict rigour from the premises of a (capitalist)
society of infinitely ac'uisitive self%interested individuals whose living labour has been
reduced to labour power /s we have ta6en pains to demonstrate, the preservation of
one2s life is merely the exercise of instrumental reason to restrain the irrepressible passions
of individuals that in extremis, in dire emergency dictate the convention in favour of the
status civilis +n no guise can this be understood as a terminus a 'uo or as a foundation for
natural rights 4ather, and crushingly so, it is the most damning reductio ad absurdum and
scornful relegation to mere flatus vocis of every and any velleity or pious wish to erect
the natural right to life as the foundation of liberal values and culture, or indeed (pace
-acpherson) the free mar6et*
Confrontation with Schmitt
Ouote from ;)i6tatur2 in 1ia..i, p>H /nd 'uote 1ia..i re importance of this divergent
interpretation, that is, alleged limit to ,tate2s power in liberal reading of (obbes
(obbes is truly the antipolitical thin6er because his status civilis represents the end of
politics as antagonism in ,chmitt2s sense This end of politics, however, is achieved by
enshrining the ,tate as a totalitarian dictatorship, which is exactly how ,chmitt perceives the
denouement of the political* ,ave that the ,tate itself perpetuates the political against
other individual nation%states #or ,chmitt, liberalism does not in any way abolish the
1olitical: it simply disguises it and hides it from view 5et the deception cannot last Co
surprise, then, that ,chmitt should thin6 so highly of (obbes: his entire wor6 is merely an
exegesis and elaboration of (obbes2s philosophy $ )own to the negation of the autonomy
of culture as a nurture of nature from which rights and values can grow*
/gain ,trauss:
The affirmation of the political is the affirmation of
the state of nature! Schmitt opposes the affirmation of the state of
nature to the Hobbesian negation of the state of nature! The state
of nature is the status belli, pure and simple! Thus it appears that
the affirmation of the state of nature can only e ellicose! That
appearance fades away as soon as one has grasped what the return
to the state of nature means for .chmitt! The affirmation of the
state of nature does not mean the affirmation of war ut 2relin)
894+eo Strauss
quishment of the security of the status quo2 (67)!
/s we have clearly shown, far from negating the state of nature, (obbes affirms it as the
only real foundation of the status civilis* ,trauss forgets that there is no dialectic in (obbes"
there is no metaphysics" there is no notion of supersession or negation of the negation
The state of nature is scientific reality itself" and reason as an instrument is part of this
reality" and reason can offer a remedy to the state of nature in the nature of an
improvementK :demonstrated y a most evident conne(ion; (aove) $ the sovereign state
which is itself an instrument, a tool, a machine ,chmitt is a different case: he is obviously
not arguing for a return to the state of nature, but rather against the liberal state as a false
truce and veil over the ultimate reality of what he advocates, that is, a return to the state of
exception which is what (obbes2s status civilis is founded on* /s ,chmitt rightly perceives
(;<oncept2, Tronti, p=E@), the status civilis is a normalisation of the state of nature" the
(obbesian ,tate is a suspension of the state of nature, yet constructed entirely on its
empiricist and pessimist foundations $ certainly not as a negation of the state of nature*
&nce more, ,trauss completely misinterprets what ,chmitt is aiming at /s ,trauss himself
cannot fail to perceive:
<77= The affirmation of the political as such can therefore e only .chmitt0s first word against
lieralism$ that affirmation can only prepare for the radical critique of lieralism! In an earlier te(t
.chmitt says of *onoso "ortes/ he 2despises the lierals, whereas he respects atheistic)anarchistic
socialism as his mortal enemy P (5olitische Theologie >>)! The attle occurs only etween mortal
enemies/ with total disdain)hurling crude insults or maintaining the rules of politeness, depending on
temperament)they shove aside the 2neutral2 who see#s to mediate, to maneuver, etween them!
5et this is precisely how (obbes would have it $ not because of a romantic attraction to
,turm und )rang as is perhaps the case with ,chmitt, but rather as the result of scientific
analysis and mathematical hypotheses based on the reality (not the negation*) of the state
of nature* To paraphrase )onoso <ortes, li6e dictatorship, the (obbesian ,tate is a miracle
in that it suspends the natural passions and forces of conflict running riot in the state of
nature: $ li6e a miracle, it suspends the laws of nature
In concreto .chmitt violates
this principle, which itself is entirely ound to lieral presuppositions,
y opposing his unpolemical concept of the state of nature
to 'oes?s polemical concept of the state of nature$ and he
fundamentally re&ects this principle y e(pecting to gain the order
of human things from a "pure and whole #nowledge2 (6>)! @or a
pure and whole #nowledge is never, unless y accident, polemical$
and a pure and whole #nowledge cannot e gained 2from concrete
political e(istence,2 from the situation of the age, ut only y means
of a return to the origin, to 2undamaged, noncorrupt nature2 (67)!
(We may pause here to draw attention to the limitations of Weber2s own innerweltische
/s6ese and the 1rotestant 9thic in explaining the genesis of the capitalist ,tate and the
parallel or conse'uent 4ationalisierung which can no longer be attributed to the rationalist
impact of commercialism and scientific experimentation but rather to the very <atholic
conception of an absolutist state machine that is engendered by the ursprungliche
/66umulation and Trennung +n this regard, in denying a certain autonomy to the 1olitical,
Weber2s historicism based on Berstehen mirrors faithfully the historical%materialist
historicism it was criticising* I<f ,egatori in Tronti, pDH?J)
/gain, therefore, reason and passion, hypothesis and convention, physis and nomos,
mathematics and political science combine in the (obbesian framewor6 This demonstratio
more geometrico continues with a reductio ad absurdum of the fundamental elements of
!usnaturalism down to its component part, the individual The (obbesian notion of the
individual from an epistemological and cognitive perspective differs from the later empiricism
from 3oc6e to -ill in that the pessimistic features are dramatised or underscored and
ruthlessly pursued to their logical conclusion Whereas later empiricists $ 3oc6e chief among
them $ will expand the scope of human reason to allow for a consensus to be formed in the
status naturae as to the desirability of forming a ,tate to protect the agreed natural rights of
the individual members of the novel civil society or indeed (in ,mith) civilised society $
hence the ,tate is empowered only in this negative protective role, 'uite the opposite of
(obbes2s positive, indeed totalitarian view of the )eus mortalis %, this is simply not possible
in (obbes2s vision precisely because he ta6es the ac'uisitiveness of individuals, their
nature as self%interested in%dividuals, that is, atomic entities with unlimited desires or
passions, to their logical and terminal conclusion $ hence the powerfulness of his reductio ad
absurdum of !usnaturalist theory With brutal coherence, (obbes exposes the hypocritical
contradictoriness of !usnaturalism and of the ensuing liberalism on the basis that the
reason of its in%dividuals is irreconcilable and utterly incompatible with the
concupiscence or passion of their self%interest on which these theories are based and
which they were conceived to !ustify and sanction legally*
The corollary to (obbes2s ruthless and relentless logic raises an even greater contrast
between (obbes and later !usnaturalists and empiricists of 3oc6e2s stamp in that there is no
room whatsoever in (obbes for the 6ind of reason that enables human beings to form
estates or leagues or classes that can constitute themselves as a pre%statual civil
society or people armed with a public opinion that serves as a bridle or a leash or a
chec6 against a negatively%defined ,tate whose only role is to protect the life, liberty and
estate of the members of the civil society (<f 1ia..i 'uotations on <harles +, ppL=%> on rex
a lege an lex a rege pendebit) /s we have shown above, to allow for such a reason would
be to land oneself in a welter of contradictions because the possessive individualism of the
self%interested individuals must be founded logically on the irrepressibility and
insatiability of their interests or passions no less than on their in%dividualism
+t is this profound chasm between self%interested bourgeois and socialised citi.en on
which <hristian%bourgeois society is founded (3owith) in the self%understanding of nascent
capitalism that (obbes sub!ects most pitilessly to the ra.or of his logic
)espite his reference to a <ommunity of Moods in the status naturae, (obbes does not
even remotely envisage a primitive communism of the 6ind suggested a century later by
4ousseau #or (obbes, goods are communal only in the special sense that everybody
has a claim to every thing $ which is why the status naturae is so treacherous Cor is there
in (obbes any notion of social labour, of human beings sharing common tas6s and the
products of their labour /gain, (obbes2s pessimistic and geometric vision does not allow
for such blatant inconsistencies
/ legitimate doubt arises therefore about the historical status, li6elihood or indeed even
feasibility of (obbes2s state of nature /nd once more we are confronted by the interaction
of (obbes2s method as a remar6able mixture of hypothesis and convention #or it is 'uite
evident that (obbes is not indicating that the state of nature is normal or that it has even
ever existed historically What (obbes is saying is that the ,tate as was methodically and
coherently conceivable to him from the standpoint of a nascent and all%con'uering bourgeois
society (literally, burgerliche Mesellschaft, an alternative description for civil society) can
only come into existence and have any sense at all as a normalisation of the state of
nature In other words, Hobbes is arguing that any human State that does not carry the
salient features or traits and characteristics of his !eviathan or "eus mortalis is unli#ely to
last for long under the assumptions of bourgeois society $%& and is indeed certain to
degenerate into a state of civil war, the status belli or the bellum omnium contra omnes.
(Ouote from 8osellec6 and from /rendt)
Cor does (obbes even distantly create the illusion that the status naturae was or could ever
be a historical state (is state of nature has far greater force than an adventitious accident or
epiphenomenon of history +t is clear that what (obbes is drawing here are the most tightly
calculated inferences to be derived from the most elementary (recall his ;9lements2 and
9uclid2s*) physical and psychological laws of human nature and behaviour (obbes2s
reflections have the deductive force of 9uclid2s geometric theorems and the universal
physical application of Cewton2s laws of mechanics: his reasoning constitutes a ;reductio ad
absurdum2 of 3oc6ean liberal !usnaturalism 0oth his status naturae as well as the status
civilis are logical states necessarily encompassing human social reality with the latter being
the only form of society possible from the given premises of self%interested individuals
<onstitution of property (1ia..i, ppE?ff)
1olitical science in (obbes I1ia..i, ppDH%? The aim of science is power(D?), ,chmitt2s
;Techni'ue2, also (=G>)
(omo homini lupus and the bellum omnium contra omnes are the axiomatic outcome of
,mithian assumptions $ a mixture of 9uclidean geometry, Thucydidean hegemonic history
and, ultimately, Cewtonian mechanics lead (obbes inescapably to this conclusion +n
(obbes, there is at most only the use of the social division of labour, and only the
contractual creation of the ,tate can give rise to the Trennung* (obbes sees the im%
possibility of Trennung in the status naturae 3oc6e certifies it retroactively and absorbs it
into his civil society as its contractual foundation: this was his reasonable ideology on
which liberalism was founded /s (obbes shows, this ex post certification is impossible and
must remain sheer obfuscatory ideology /ny examination of the notion of rights will lead us
to the conclusion that no such rights are admissible in a secular sense
Miven that both 3oc6e and (obbes shared the secular distinction of legal and divine
rights, (obbes draws the inescapable conclusion from his geometric mathematical logical%
deductive method that it is evident that no rights can exist in the state of nature Whatever
!usnaturalist notion of right might exist in the state of nature can be valid only ;in foro
interno2: +t cannot a fortiori exist or have any validity ;in foro externo2, (1ia..i, EG) /ny rights
to which individuals may lay claim re'uire the establishment, even if contractual, of a status
civilis +t is only as positive law that rights can exist, because only the law can ma6e them
enforceable, give them a social reality:effectuality ITronti, pp=?E%=E?J (Ouote from
3oc6e re the law grants authority and ,chmitt2s 'uery, Who enforces the lawF, in 1ia..i,
pL>)
The only manner in which human beings can protect their lives and create a status civilis in
which rights are at all possible is by agreeing to alienate each and every claim they may
have to property or other natural rights to a ,overeign with the ultimate, indivisible and
unchallengeable authority and power to legislate and enforce positive laws that will
positively bring those rights into being and give them social effectiveness +n this
theoretical%scientific, logico%deductive conventional framewor6 (that is, one that is logical%
contractual or even ;game%theoretic2, cf <acciari in ;8risis2), it is impossible to believe, still
less to assert as does 3oc6e that the ,tate merely is brought contractually into being so as
to preserve and to protect any natural rights that existed in the status naturae ,uch
natural rights did not and could not exist (except as velleitary empty and pious wishes) in
the state of nature* +f natural rights there be, these are only possible at all only once the
,tate has been created with the ,overeign as its commanding head that agrees to create
positive laws whose observance and effectiveness it will guarantee (8osellec6, pp=Eff,
refers to (2s sarcasm and his experience as emigrant and personal experience of civil
wars)
#rom these logico%deductive, conventional foundations, it is clear that neither is the status
naturae a historical state nor is the status civilis a contractual state, a state by institution:
rather, the status civilis and the ,tate that constitutes it by monopolising all authority and
power is a state by ac'uisition, no longer a state by institution The ;3eviathan2 is a
historical'conventional, necessary ex%crescence, out%growth of the 1olitical from the
theoretical'hypothetical, impossible status naturae +t is because the status naturae is
impossible that the status civilis must exist in one form or another ((obbes draws no
distinction between tyranny and monarchy or other forms of government, because they are
all forms of tyranny $ cf Tronti and /rendt2s 'uotes, pA?) The conventional (state by
institution) creation of the (obbesian ,tate (Cegri in 1ia..i, pDE" <acciari, ;)ial2 pEA)
would entangle (obbes in all types of apories (8osellec6, p>=, about how
contract:agreement can give rise to complete alienation of pre%existing (even if only
;internal2) rights, but above all would ma6e the partitioning:distribution (the Mree6 nomos)
of rights again impossible
#or the status civilis to have conventional necessity, it must emerge historically (by
ac'uisition) from the theoretical%hypothetical premises of the state of nature, from the bellum
omnium (which can therefore remain a hypothetical state) (This seems to be the
conclusion of 48osellec62s ;8riti6 u8rise2, 9ned, p=A:The civil war that was experienced
as a threat to life came to rest in the ,tate, p>= /lso at p>E, the historic premise of civil
war thus became a logically necessary premise for (obbes2s ability to deduce his concept of
absolute sovereignty Cote (2s own example of the sailor throwing all belongings overboard
to save his ship from wrec6 This conclusion becomes irresistible if one advances ,chmitt2s
analysis of the ;9ntscheidung:9xception2 to the conventional interpretation of the status
civilis" cf <acciari ;)ial2, pEA who does not seem to grasp the point, insisting that ,chmitt
can be criticised for turning (obbes into an ac'uisition, not contractual%institutional
thin6er)
And it is right at this juncture that Hobbess ruse! beco"es trans#arent in all its
e$$icac%& In $act' b% a##l%ing a ruthless reductio ad absurdu"! o$ (oc)ean*S"ithian
liberal jusnaturalis"' Hobbes de"onstrates in rigourous geo"etrical*a+io"atic!
$or" ,co"#arable to S#ino-as ."ore geo"etrico/ the insu#erable a#ories o$ the
contractual! origins o$ its ci0il societ%! ,es#eciall% 1hen understood in its
econo"ic! di"ension as burgerliche 2esellscha$t 1hose sel$*regulating! Econo"%
is #er$ectl% ho"ologated3reconciled in3b% its Political State o$ (a1/& The (oc)ean
status naturae 1ith its sel$*interested indi0iduals! has e"#iricist! ,(oc)es tabula
rasa/ h%#othetical #re"ises& But gi0en these #re"ises' natural rights! are i"*
#ossible in the status naturae' and e0en "ore so in the $reel%*contracted! liberal
status ci0ilis gi0en the i"*#ossibilit% o$ sel$*interested indi0iduals! to agree $reel% to
an%thing that detracts $ro" their sel$*interest!& The onl% #ossible institutional
outco"e $ro" these h%#othetical #re"ises is the Hobbesian status ci0ilis' the
.(e0iathan' because once the destructi0e logic o$ sel$*interest! threatens the 0er%
sur0i0al o$ their sel$*interest!' indi0iduals are $orced to agree! ,to ensure sel$*
#reser0ation!' the ulti"ate sel$*interest!' c$& (oasb% on S"iths di0ision o$ labour as
a "atter o$ sur0i0al/ to alienate their sel$*interests! co"#letel% to the State& 2i0en the
liberal jusnaturalist #re"ises ,h%#othesis/' the historical outco"e ,con0ention/ "ust
be .(e0iathan' not the liberal State& 4hat started as logical h%#othesis' the status
naturae' beco"es historical con0ention' the status ci0ilis 5 no longer a state b%
,contractual/ institution! but one o$ ,"utuall% coerced historical/ ac6uisition!&
As Arendt #ercei0es' Hobbess e"#iricist logic sho1s that the liberal State' to ha0e
an% logico*historical #lausibilit% at all' "ust be $ounded u#on the e+as#eration o$ the
initial state*#er#etrated 0iolence o$ Mar+s original accu"ulation!& This 0indicates'
but #re*dates' Tronti: Bien 6ue ja"ais reconnu o$$icielle"ent' Hobbes $ut le 0eritable
#hiloso#he de la bourgeoisie' #arce 6uil a0ait co"#ris 6ue seul la #rise de #ou0oir
#oliti6ue #eut garantir lac6uisition de la richesse concue co""e #rocessus
#er#etuel7! ,#&89/& And on #&:;: 7laccu"ulation originelle du ca#ital7a sa0oir le
#eche original de #illage #ur et si"#le7! ,<$& Husserl =.Phen&><risis o$ 4est&Man
$irst #age? Strauss "a)es a si"ilar #oint =chec) essa% on Socrates re Heidegger@? and
<acciari =Arisis on .giochi@ on in$inite rules! as basis o$ science! and .Techni)&/
With (obbes, the theoretical self%understanding of both liberalism and <lassical 1olitical
9conomy, founded on a pessimist conception of human nature (self%interest) and an
enlightened notion of natural rights, becomes impossible except as ideology (cf (egel in
;Borlesungen2, vol >, t=, and in 1h, vol =, reference to ;Berstand2 cited by <acciari in ;)ial2
ppDA%?) (ere (obbes leaves the internal sphere of <onscience to treat the Cewtonian
physical%mechanical reality of self%interested individuals as bodies exerting 1ower over
one another (obbes eschews the word <onscience together with 7ust and Nn!ust (again,
8osellec6 and /rendt)
+n particular, the 1olitical is eclipsed in (obbes with the necessity of the ,tate +t exists only
in the state of nature 0ut once the civil state is constituted, there is no more space for
1olitics because all ,tate actions are ipso facto legitimate and moral: there is no society
to oppose the ,tate" there is only protection and obedience (8osel, p>>) The 1olitical
reappears only when it collides with the ;!us externum2, when it emerges as raison d2etat" but
then we have the insuperable problems posed by the ,chmittian notion of the 1olitical
which (obbes overcame with ;3eviathan2
(,ee /rendt, pA>, but especially fn>L on p=@@ about the eclipse of the 1olitical in the
(obbesian ,tate" refer to 3owith2s comparison of (eidegger2s and ,chmitt2s ;)estru6tion2
nihilism of )asein and 9xisten. +t is of paramount importance at this !uncture to reflect on
the effect of the (obbesian status civilis on the integrity of the individual /rendt at pAH
s6etches the dissolving:atomising effect of a similar bourgeois order in that the eclipse of
the 1olitical reduces citi.ens to the private sphere through the mortifying pressure of
competition until the socially%defined experience of the in%dividual becomes a mere
;9xisten.2, a ;)a%sein2 whose ;fate2 is decided by ;fatality2 or ;chance2 /rendt refers to the
world of the novel from 0al.ac onwards as the exploration of interiority as a last refuge
Irecall 7oyce and Woolf or 1roust $ stream of consciousnessJ where human dignity
becomes a desperate need for man to be, at least, a consenting victim Iof the all%pervasive
power of the bureaucratic ,tateJ Ifn>G, p=@@" similar point made in ;(um<ond2, early partJ
<f Ciet.sche, ;Qar R3++2, ;&f 4edemption2 $ +t was thus,Kbut + willed it thus in <acciari, 8r,
pDL? 1ursuing the bureaucratic theme whereby the law admits of no exceptions and fills
up the interstices of all social action to reach an inexorable arbitrariness, /rendt masterfully
turns to 8af6a, at p=HL and fnE> at p>=G I;The <astle2 where 8 is indicted for a subversive
letter he received* The most penetrating statement comes from <acciari The extension of
the totalitarian tendency of the 1ure 3ogic of <hoice and game theory means that la
legge raggiunge sempre il colpevole I8risis, pGG: on Wittgenstein2s ;giudice inesorabile2 and
8af6aJ, again the inexorability of game:mathematical convention intended as ;Techni62
This is how the conatus turns ;cannibalistic2, becomes a ;closed system2 and destroys
through control:domination those it was intended to protect* The ;intention2 becomes the
;giudice inesorabile2 0ourgeois ;,e6uritat2 turns into ;/ngst2 $ #reud)
(obbes shows the despotic nature of the ,tate needed to hold together a society of self%
interested individuals /s 8osellec6 put it, Ip>> $ state as machineJ The ,tate cannot
consist only of the 1rince +t must be above all a machine that covers the entirety of
society and can bend it to its will The ,tate is a techni'ue (8osel, p>> and ,chmitt), but
not a mechanistic appurtenance to society (as -einec6e would have it) precisely because
it is a state by ac'uisition, not institution There is no aporia here if we accept (obbes2s
historical con%ditions:circum%stances (8osel, p>A" Konly when we ignore (2s starting
point can the logical inconsistencies appear to arise)
The nature of the 1rince does not matter as much as does the totality of the
authority:power of the ,tate machinery ;3eviathan2 then refers almost exclusively to the
machinery of state rather than to its leadership or form of representation such as
democracy or oligarchy
(+t is Weber2s iron cage Istahlhartes MehauseJ rather than the ;leitender Meist2 0ut did
Weber fully understand the connection between the machinery of state and the re'uirements
of social capitalF Ceither the 4ationalisierung nor the 1rotestant 9thic seem to com%prehend
these essential lin6s that, instead, are central to (obbes2s theory of the state, arising
ineluctably from its pessimistic%bourgeois premises Tronti sees well when he highlights the
<atholic, <ounter%4eformist aspects of (obbes2s theory against the
4eformation:1rotestant premises in Weber) The (obbesian 1rince ends up being
Tyrannical in any case (/rendt:8osellec6:Tronti)
Cature of the (obbesian ,tate, ;)eus mortalis2 I1ia..i, property E=ff, re -ontes'uieu, pGL,
3oc6e, ppL=%LE, ,chmitt ;)e.isionismus2 @AJ 0ody 1olitic ,tate as machine ITronti re
,chmitt pp=EE%=GA, re 0obbio =EA, re 4ousseau:,chmitt, pp=GH%D and )escartesJ
,overeign as 1rince ,chmitt2s political philosophy (1olitical theology,
9xception:9ntscheidung, )i6tatur Ias miracle:exception:suspension of right in )onoso
<ortesJ Cote 8osellec62s citation of /rendt2s ;&rigins2 pointing to (obbesian ;paternity2 of
totalitarianism, p=A)
3et us peer more closely into the nature of this 3eviathan <learly for (obbes the ,tate
machinery will need to be more far%reaching and powerful the more human beings are li6ely
to transgress against its laws That is why the power and authority of the ,overeign cannot
have any political and military and coercive limitation The only limit to its exercise is the one
natural right that (obbes allowed ab initio $ the right of individuals to preserve their own
lives
The real apories start to occur only once we move away from the necessity of the
(obbesian ,tate as an organic but pervasive positive ex%crescence of the status naturae
and we begin, instead, to loo6 at the actual positive content:substance of its laws The form
is com%prehensible, but what of the substanceF
1roperty and 3abour in (obbes, leading to passage to ,mith through abstract
labour:Trennung
-acpherson: (obbes2s e'uiparation of power with value
4ight of everyone to everything in statu naturae Two maxims: one from
;1assion:concupiscence2 $ to appropriate insatiably" one from 4eason: to associate so as to
protect the threat to life from the bellum omnium
<ontrast with 3oc6e2s more traditional mediaeval notion of civil society as a stage or
universitas or class able to oppose the ,tate with public opinion or notion of people
(meaning the owners of private property bourgeoisie), against (obbes2s strict individualism in
the war of all against all, which means of each individual against each individual (omo
homini lupus
Thus, no notion of social labour either, despite reference to community of goods Cote
reference to +nclosures which remain part of the state of nature 0ut this alerts us already to
ursprungliche /66umulation 3in6 with establishment of the ,tate (obbes unable to explain
or !ustify initial +nclosures, expropriation of peasantry
The ;overlap2 in (obbes is that actual possession in statu naturae is then legitimated to
positive right to possession in statu civile (1ia..i, pp=L%>D)
0ut once the ,tate distributes property, the sub!ect has an undisputed positive right to it
(1ia..i, p>L) Then, 3oc6e2s version
;Balue2 and ;force2 and ;power2 (1ia..i, pA=) (obbes sees first the notion of labour power
(-arx, ;Theorien u den -ehrwert2 'uotations of (obbes in 1ia..i, ppA=%>) Transition to
1ol9con
The #assage $ro" Hobbes to S"ith 5 Pro#ert%' Trennung' Econo"ic
Ideolog%' (iberal State and Societ%&
(aye6 and 3oasby say that the central problem of economics is the problem of co%
ordination 9conomic science needs to explain how individuals can exchange products in a
manner that maximises their individual utility as much as possible (not necessarily
;optimally2, in Walrasian e'uilibrium but as much as possible, (aye62s intertemporal
e'uilibrium) +f economic activity and science is ta6en to be the distribution or exchange
of goods and services between individuals, then it is obvious that this formulation leaves
two outstanding lacunae: the first lacuna is co%operation (how do these individuals co%
operate, wor6 togetherF) and the other is production (how are the goods and services
producedF) +t is by leaving production completely out of their analysis (or science) that
neoclassical economists claim that capitalism is purely a mar6etplace society, a society of
pure exchange (3anglois refers to open%ended theories $ in ;9conS4ation2)
The 'uestion then arises: how can we ensure that this mar6et exchange is fair and e'ualF
/nd the answer is that individuals exchange products in competition with one another and
are prevented from all forms of collusion such as association or hiding products from the
mar6etplace so as to inflate their prices
What /dam ,mith considered was a civil society with two obvious attributes: % a growing
national wealth and a citi.enry of self%interested individuals ,o the obvious 'uestion
arose: how can national wealth increase and, above all, how can a society of self%
interested individuals produce such an increaseF
-andeville saw a paradox because he saw that the self%interest of individuals was a
private vice (the selfish pursuit of personal wealth) whereas the growth of national wealth
was a public6 benefit ,mith avoids this paradox by insisting that self%interest does grow
national wealth in any case 0ut, in the process, he must explain how this can happen
((ence, there is no continuity between -andeville and ,mith in this sense I(aye6J and
-andeville does not show that egoism leads to wealth creation I,chumpeterJ except as a
paradox % the mass of wor6ers ;impoverished2 by this process)
,mith starts with specialisation or the division of labour: by dividing their labour,
individuals become more productive and can exchange their products for more products
from other individuals This was the basis of 3oc6e2s and #erguson2s civil society from
which ,mith borrowed his entire political theory and on which he based his economic theory
/ccording to 3oc6e, even before human beings seal a contract to establish a civil society,
an association regulated by a ,tate that preserves their legally%enforceable rights to life,
liberty and estate, human beings had natural rights in the state of nature which extended
to the products of their own, private individual labour
,mith does not 'uestion the assumptions behind this natural property right of individuals to
be enforced by the newly%created ,tate in the contractually%agreed civil society /nd he
agrees that the role of the ,tate is simply to preserve and guarantee the natural rights
now enshrined in positive law Cor can the ,tate interfere with the free exchange of
individual property: first, because it infringes against their natural right to deal with and
exchange their private property as they please, and second because this exchange is
precisely beneficial in that it allows the specialisation or division of labour that increases
the national wealth
Here again S"iths assu"#tion is that the i"#ro0e"ent o$ the #o1ers o$ labour! is
due to the di0ision o$ labour!& But 1hat S"ith has surre#titiousl% done is to inter#ret
the di0ision o$ labour! to "ean the specialisation of individual private labours!B In
other 1ords' S"ith is #roceeding no1 $ro" the (oc)ean assu"#tion o$ the e+change
o$ #roducts o$ indi0idual labour! to a 0er% di$$erent social realit%: the e+change o$
#roducts o$ collecti0e labour!' that is o$ #roducts arising $ro" the social division of
labourB
,mith assumes that human beings have an innate tendency to truc6, barter and exchange,
without which they would have to produce all that they needed through their individual
labour 0y exchanging the products of their individual labours, human beings can
specialise and so improve the productivity of their individual labours to their mutual benefit
$ which results in a rise in the general level of the wealth of a nation What ,mith neglects,
however, that in most lines of production, the goods produced are most certainly not the pro%
ducts of individual labours, because they are produced in factories or wor6places where
many wor6ers contribute to their production +n other words, ,mith completely overloo6s the
simple and incontrovertible reality that the vast ma!ority of goods and services produced in
industrial society are not the product of individual labour but rather the outcome of social
labour, that is, the co%operation of individual labour%powers The fact that this co%
operation can be divided or parceli.ed into individual labours is itself a fact that needs
to be explained
#urthermore, in no way can it be said in an industrial society that individual wor6ers
exchange the products of their labour, for the very simple reason that they do not own the
products of their labour Those products belong to their employer and are sold by the
employer What the wor6ers exchange is not the product of their individual labours (which,
as we have seen, is already a mirage)" in fact, they do not even exchange the products of
their collective individual labours or of social labour, because these products together with
the means of production belong to the employer What the wor6ers do exchange is their
labour power (/rbeits6raft), and not between themselves, but instead with their employer in
exchange for a wage, that is, for dead ob!ectified labour that allows them to reproduce
themselves as a labour force, so that they continue to sell their labour power to the
employer &bviously, were the wor6ers to reach a point where they were sufficiently
wealthy not to have to sell their labour powers, then they would cease to wor6 for their
employer and either stop wor6ing or employ other wor6ers to perform wor6 in their place*
0ecause wor6ers do not own either the means of production or the product of their collective
labours remunerated as individual labour by the employer, it is obvious that the greater
specialisation and productivity of their labour (individual or collective) does not directly
benefit them 0ut even for the employer greater productivity is a two%edged sword +f the
employer can sell the products he owns at a price that increases his profit, then he will
have an interest in raising the productivity of his wor6ers 0ut if this is not the case, then the
employer may well not have an interest in raising the productivity of his wor6ers or, in any
case, in raising the 'uantity of products produced in his wor6place +n other words, the aim
of the employer is not to raise productivity and so to increase the wealth of the nation
4ather, the aim of the employer is to maximi.e the profit derived from the sale of the
products, that is, to increase revenue and reduce costs $ or in other words to maximi.e the
value of his product
+t is palpably evident from our dissection of ,mith2s arguments (which is similar to what
4icardo and -arx did) that ,mith has confused wealth with value and that for us to
understand industrial society we need to understand the meaning of the concept of value
+t is abundantly clear that it is not exchange between individual labours that increases
wealth or value What increases value is the exchange of dead ob!ectified labour (the
product of social labour) for a greater amount of labour power that, given a fixed level of
technology for the means of production, will result in greater production not of wealth but of
value +t is obvious that there is a peculiarity about this commodity called labour power:
its peculiarity is that it has the ability to increase value for the employers who own the
means of production and who employ the wor6ers who supply the labour power
&nce this subtle, surreptitious but pivotal leap has been made, it is obvious that had he
realised this, ,mith would have proceeded to discover the true foundations and origins of
this mar6etplace society The most pivotal point, the hinge of the entire system is this: the
ability of individual property owners to be able to use their property, which is dead
ob!ectified labour, in exchange for the living labour of other individuals who have only their
living labourKto exchange*
(ow is this exchange of dead labour with living labour possibleF 3et us loo6 at the process
analytically, then historically ,mith accepts that labour is the real source of new wealth, of
products /nd, as we have seen, he mista6es products that are the result of the division
of social labour with products that are the result of individual labour ,mith does not see
this all%important parcelisation or separation of the individual wor6er from the social
process of production (the production of social wealth, or the social production of wealth)
4ather, he mista6es this pre%conceived separation of individual wor6ers from the
ineluctably social division of labour (intended therefore as social labour) for specialisation
leading to improvements in productivity ,mith sees all production as individual
production, the sum of the parts, and not in its inseparable entirety
But this se#aration! o$ the 1or)er $ro" the social #rocess o$ #roduction entails
necessaril% the se#aration o$ the 1or)er $ro" the "eans o$ #roduction (what -arx
called the alienation of living labour before alienation became a sub!ect for (egelian
philosophers) +t is this separation that allows employers to exchange their property
(dead labour) for the living labour of wor6ers and thereby use this living labour for the
further expanded production of products to be exchanged on the mar6et $ in part for
other products, but in part for more living labour 0ut for this social reality to ta6e place
and effect, the property or dead ob!ectified labour owned by the employer must be able to
be exchanged with the living labour of wor6ers and preferably separately or individually,
not as a group or collective /nd for this to occur, first of all, the wor6ers must be
separated from their means of production and from their products so that they have only
their living labour to exchange for a wage, that is, for dead ob!ectified labour that will serve
only to allow them to reproduce as a labour force dependent on the employer2s property $
which is in reality the labour ob!ectified by their prior living labour $ for its reproduction* /nd
the value produced for the employer will be greater, the greater is the ability of the
employer to command more living labour as ;labour power2 or ;commanded labour2 for the
sa6e of future production of goods that will command more labour power in future* /nd so
on, ad infinitum
Two things can be concluded from this s6etch: the first is that the employer2s property
(means of production and dead ob!ectified labour to be offered to wor6ers in exchange for
their living labour separated from the means of production, that is, destitute living labour
or abstract labour or labour power) now becomes a power opposed and commanding
wor6ers politically as living labour by forcibly separating them from their means of
production, from the products of their living labour, and by paying them separately so that
their collective or social labour is paid or exchanged as individual labour* /t this stage,
the employer2s property has turned into capital /nd the second aspect is that this process
of production is aimed at expanding the command of capital over living labour ,o it ma6es
no sense to spea6 of simple reproduction The reproduction of capitalist society will be
expanded reproduction to which no 'uantitative measure can be applied or nothing at all
<a#ital is that $or" o$ #ro#ert%! or 1ealth! that is dead objecti$ied labour that is
used in e+change $or! the li0ing labour o$ 1or)ers so as to #roduce "ore dead
objecti$ied labour to be used as $resh ca#ital!& In other 1ords' the use 0alue o$ li0ing
labour to the ca#italist is its abilit% to #roduce "ore 0alues! or #roducts! that can
be used in e+change $or "ore li0ing labour& This se#aration! o$ the 1or)er $ro" the
"eans o$ #roduction and the #arcelisation! o$ the di0ision o$ social labour into
indi0idual labour #o1ers is 1hat 1e call Trennung&
4hat the Trennung entails is' $irst' the se#aration o$ 1or)ers both in ter"s o$ their
control and choice! o0er the "eans o$ #roduction as 1ell as the #roduct o$ their
social labour so that the% are $orced to 1or) $or their re#roduction on behal$ o$ the
e"#lo%ers 1ho o1n both the "eans o$ #roduction and the #roduct o$ social labour?
second' as a result o$ this se#aration' the di0ision o$ social labour can be #arceli-ed!
into se#arate indi0idual labours! b% re"unerating the 1or)ers indi0iduall%! $or 1hat
is social labour!? third' the Trennung can no1 $orce the li0ing labour o$ 1or)ers to be
#resented as abstract labour! to be #urchased ,b% ca#italists/ and sold ,b% 1or)ers/
in e+change $or dead objecti$ied labour! ,#art o$ the goods the 1or)ers ha0e
#roduced/ so that 1or)ers li0ing labour can be described3re#resented $alsel% as
labour #o1er! ,Arbeits)ra$t/&
As a result o$ this #rocess' 1or)ers can be reduced to a labour $orce! that is a
good! or in#ut! or cost! li)e an% other entering the #rocess o$ #roduction& I$ 1e
con$use' as S"ith does' this li0ing labour! 1hose use 0alue ,#olitical character/ is to
#roduce ne1 objecti$ied labour or e+change 0alue! that 1ill be e+changed! $or "ore
li0ing labour! "%sti$ied as labour #o1er! in an e+#anded #roduction 5 i$ 1e con$use
li0ing labour! 1ith labour #o1er! so that labour #o1er! is the sa"e as labour!'
then it 1ill be i"#ossible to see ho1 a #ro$it! ,or sur#lus 0alue/ can be deri0ed b% the
ca#italist $ro" this #rocess o$ #roduction 5 1e 1ill "isunderstand co"#letel% ho1
e+change 0alue as "one%! ,"eans o$ #roduction #lus 1ages/ can turn into ca#ital!&
+t is obvious that the whole process of mar6et exchange is not needed here: exchange of
living labour with dead ob!ectified labour is merely a fiction that hides the real sub!ugation of
living labour to the capitalist who commands:owns:controls dead labour exchanged under
duress with living labour, what we call capital /nd the freedom of the wor6er to
exchange living labour for dead ob!ectified labour so it can produce more dead ob!ectified
labourKand so on $ that freedom is also a fiction that is not needed for analytical or
political purposes +ndeed, the most telling point is that although the formal e'uality of
citi.ens in capitalist society and the mystification of the mar6et economy (-arxian
alienation and the analysis of commodities) may have been valuable concepts in earlier
times (capitalist growth was an indispensable factor), it is possible to argue that the very
development:evolution of capitalism has brought about the de%mystification of the Trennung
process by bringing out in all its na6ed violence the exercise of capitalist command in and
outside the wor6place* The society of capital has ensured that the process of exploitation
and sub!ugation of living labour achieved by the Trennung has become apparent and e%
vident, conspicuous and perspicuous in all its violence and brutality with the rise of the
collective capitalist, itself a result of the antagonism of the wage relation
Cow we can turn to <olletti and -arxist analysis
+t is in order to explain this co%ordination of private labours and products that ,mith needs
the mar6et +t is in order to show that resources are used most productively:efficiently that
,mith needs mar6et competition 0ut why the invisible handF 0ecause ,mith 6nows that
if the prices of goods are determined by the labour value embodied in them for their
production, then mar6et competition will still not explain the co%ordination of private
labours $ because there is no such thing or measure as labour value that can actually
determine mar6et prices* <onse'uently, only the invisible hand can s'uare the circle,
reconcile the irreconcilable, and turn the anarchy of self%interest into the co%ordination of
resource allocation, into the e'uilibrium of the processes of production and consumption
through the law of value
Cational wealth grows out of the division of labour" but ,mith has to brea6 this down into
co%operation through self%interest, which is contradictory and therefore the contradiction
needs to be resolved by ma6ing the self%interestKenlightened* The need for
enlightenment arises out of the very political separation and private appropriation
(Trennung) of the division of social labour 0ut this ma6es it impossible to reconcile the
separation:appropriation with the individual rewards (private distribution) arising from the
social division of labour (social production) on which private property is founded The
reconciliation needed is the !ustification for the Trennung $ the invisible hand of the
mar6et becomes the imaginary:fictitious replacement of the Trennung with the natural self%
regulation of the mar6et through competition
,-+T( /C) 3&<89
The mar6et is self%regulating because the social process of production (the division of
social labour) is now based on the pre%contractual natural%ness of the
separation:appropriation ,mith then tries to generalise 3oc6e2s private labour and
property through an assumed, naturally%arising separation:appropriation of the division of
labour that gives rise to national wealth as a result of enlightened self%interest /s /
1ia..i rightly argues (in Tronti, ;,tato e 4iv +n +ngh2), and as we will show here, the capitalist
economy starts with the 3oc6ean liberal ,tate, but ends up with the (obbesian authoritarian
,tate" the liberal ,tate of 3aw ends up as the redoubtable ;3eviathan2 &ur tas6 here is to
show not only that this trans'formation of the ,tate%form is possible but above all that it is
necessary once we follow the pessimistic assumptions of the 3oc6ean%,mithian civil
society as burgerliche Mesellschaft to their bitter (obbesian denouement (#or all this, cf
8osellec6 and Tronti)
We have seen that 3oc6e is absolutely vital for ,mith, because it is with 3oc6e that the
productivity of private labour gives rise to the right to private property, but this time
intended as the division of labour%Trennung* This transition from property as the pro%
duct of private labour to property as pro%duct of Trennung, that is the politically%enforced
separation:appropriation of the division of labour, ta6es place subtly in 3oc6e and is
described as properly pre%contractual, as belonging to the status naturae +n 3oc6e,
9conomics and 1olitics begin to draw closer $ !ustified by the higher productivity arising
from the Trennung now seen as the result of self%interested application of naturally%arising
private property and, as such, as a Trennung no longer re'uiring the ,tate, except
negatively to protect it as a natural right (,ee 1ia..i in Tronti, pp>@%AH)
&nly the self%regulating mar6et can reconcile the (conomic (civilised society with its self%
interests) with the )olitical (the liberal, non%interventionist ,tate) because self%interest can
then be shown to be enlightened as a result of economic laws rather than
exogenous:extrinsic relations of force, and can thus form the foundation of the liberal ,tate
The ,tate remains the liberal guarantor of and non%interventionist in the 9conomy both in
the foundation of contractually%regulated civil society from the state of nature (it is the pro%
duct of the social contract sealed by individuals and not a contracting party) and in the
regulation of this civil society (no redistributive taxation affecting self%interest in the
mar6et, individuals have right to oppose excesses of authority) +n 3oc6ean%,mithian theory,
the liberal ,tate, the 1olitical, arises contractually:conventionally from civil society (a state
by institution), but not organically (a state by ac'uisition) because 3oc6e has not yet shown
that the self%interests of the contracting individuals in his civil society can be reconciled
positively $ as a harmony, a common goal &nly with /dam ,mith2s 1olitical 9conomy does
the 1olitical ,tate of 3aw reconcile the individual self%interests through the 9conomic
invisible hand of the self%regulating mar6et, to become the ,tate of 3aw of Balue
0ut in 3oc6e, as <olletti (in ;+S,2) notices, there is only the ;presupposition2 of the ,tate in
3oc6e2s civil society (<olletti cites 4 1olin2s study I3a 1oliti'ue -orale de 73oc6eJ and
then 'uotes ,mith in ;Wealth2 ma6ing exactly the same point about the ,tate preserving
contractually rights Iperhaps ;functions2 or ;roles2J ac'uired in the state of nature) 0y
contrast, there is no such preservation of rights in (obbes (except thoughts), only total
;alienation2 of rights to the ,tate +n reality, 3oc6ean:,mithian civil society and 8antian
ungeselle Mesellig6eit contain already the social fabric (certainly the competition) and the
division of labour that found the mar6et economy, in which the ,tate only apparently plays a
negative role preserving the natural rights of civil society, but in reality has achieved the
Trennung that is now assumed away* (1olin is right to claim that the 3oc6ean contract
preserves individual rights in the status naturae" but he is wrong to suggest that the
contract that constitutes civil society and the ,tate really protects the individual from
societyI*J, because it is limited only to the negative feral 'ualities of individuals, the
anarchical aspects of pre%contractual society Nnli6e (obbes, 3oc6e Iand #erguson and
,mith and 8antJ sees no reason to alienate all rights to the ,tate, which therefore plays
only a negative role)
4ecall that, as <olletti himself notes, ,mith Iin ;9ssays on 1h,b!cts2J was aware of and
praised 4ousseau2s ;)iscours sur l2+negalite2 where he highlights the important distinction
between self%interest in a co%operative society and the same self%interest in a
competitive one This would have forced ,mith to re%examine the nature of co%operation
away from the -andevillean version and to rely on the 3oc6ean (natural rights ac'uired in
the state of nature, as against state of war, and protected:preserved in civil society $
above all labour and conse'uently property), rather than the (obbesian (homo homini
lupus: belllum omnium contra omnes) notion of what he called civilised society
What ,mith intended by civilised society was a society capable of improvement in both an
economic sense as well as a moral sense (hence the Theory) #or what ,mith embodied
now was a rising bourgeoisie that wished not only to isolate the divine from the secular
sphere, and not only the economic from the political (the enforcement of laws): he also
wished, li6e 3oc6e, to champion the validity of the new bourgeois moral sphere that
distinguished between vices and virtue (cf 8osellec6 ch &n 3oc6e) /s a result, the
political sphere of the ,tate to legislate and execute laws was to be confined further in that
the ,tate had to heed and be responsive to the public sphere, the sphere of public
opinion $ Which is why ,mith had to oppose (and follow his predecessor (utcheson)
-andeville2s ;#able because this seemed to erect a paradox between the 9conomic and
the public sphere of morality that claimed now an ever growing role in the conduct of
public policy or 1olitics
,mith2s Theory highlights the necessity of 1olitical 9conomy to homologate the 9conomic
with the 1olitical also in a hegemonic moral sense of civilisation:progress (though
scientific progress is still exogenous to the 9conomy) or 9nlightenment 0ut what ,mith
could not perceive was the devastating effect that this sphere of moral sentiments would
have once the 9conomy with its self%regulating mar6et and wealth:commonwealth
expansion came up against the national boundaries in terms of capitalist accumulation,
bringing its self%interest and ;!us internum2 into destructive collision with the ;!us externum2,
!ust as the (obbesian forum internum was bound to collide with the forum externum and re%
ignite the bellum omnium (8osellec6 brilliantly traces this pathogenesis, as does /rendt
/s 8osellec6 argues, this growing interference of public opinion and its ac'uisitive
morality led eventually to the ;8risis2, the political use of the mob $ the )emo6ratisierung
that overran the bourgeois ,tate itself in the D@>Hs because of the polarisation of
electorates Icf Ciet.sche2s warnings and /rendt2s analysisJ We could say that the
machinery of ,tate now fell into very irresponsible hands aided by insecure Irecall
;,e6uritatJ bourgeois elites Ialso -aierJ)
0/<8 T& ,-+T(
The ability to enforce laws can exist only if a sufficiently powerful social entity exists +t is
only once a political entity with sufficient power exists that the forceful separation:Trennung
of labour from the means of production and conse'uent parcelisation of the labour process
and the division of social labour, that their Trennung can be sanctioned and enforced $ by
the ,tate +t is (obbes that draws these premises to their logical conclusions 3oc6e
develops and sanctions retroactively the historical notion of an autochthonous,
spontaneous development of the common law together with divine sanction of natural
rights, the fiction of the -agna <harta $ all these are the rationalisations of a bourgeoisie
that has become secure in the legitimacy of its 9conomy % so much so that it can see6 to
impose an arbitrary limit to the powers and legitimacy of the ,tate The establishment of
this 9conomy was the pre%condition for the delimitation of the ,tate2s powers to the 1olitical
$ that is, predominantly the preservation of the 9conomy, of the mar6et and property rights
Had S"ith acce#ted and e+#lored the real social relations behind the "ar)et!' he
1ould ha0e concluded that it is a creature o$ #olitics!& B% resisting this notion and
es#ousing co"#etition! as hu"an nature!' S"ith could onl% loo) to the in0isible
hand! ,a (eibnit-ian #re*established har"on%! or har"on% o$ "onads!/ to e+#lain
ho1 sel$*interest!' ho1e0er "uch enlightened!' could )ee# the "ar)et! together
and sel$*regulated!' let alone at e6uilibriu"! ,1hich i"#lies .o#ti"al regulation/ or
in a condition o$ gro1th!B (,mith sees growth as an outcome of competitive division of
labour $ see 3oasby, ppDH%DG 3oasby refers to )emset. calling (aye62s perfect co%
ordination, perfect decentralisation, the result of perfect competition 3oasby li6ens this to
perfect slavery, confirming again that a closed system I(aye6J becomes ;overdetermined2
and paradoxical $ it enters as it exits and it exits as it enters, li6e 4ussell2s set of all sets not
members of themselves I9S9 pDGJ I,chumpeter2s 8reislauf and stagnation from (aye6
to 8eynes starts hereJ 3oasby then tac6les (ahn2s replacement of prices with
information Cote how bourgeois science moves away from production Idivision of labourJ
to information)
,mith, for his part, could not perceive that the capitalist division of labour is a form of co%
operation that does not re'uire a self%regulating mar6et" he could not prove the existence of
such a mechanical mar6et, the 3aw of Balue $ which is why he had to resort to the invisible
hand: $ because he needed at all costs to reconcile production and distribution and exclude
the real antagonistic relations of production and with them any political interference with the
operation of the mar6et, so that economics could be reconciled with civil society without
political intervention in the authoritarian sense ,mith needed to turn the ,tate into a deus
otiosus (unli6e the (obbesian )eus mortalis)
&nly the self%regulating mar6et can reconcile the (conomic (civilised society with its self%
interests) with the )olitical (the liberal, non%interventionist ,tate) because self%interest can
then be shown to be enlightened as a result of economic laws rather than
exogenous:extrinsic relations of force, and can thus form the foundation of the liberal ,tate
The ,tate remains the liberal guarantor of and non%interventionist in the 9conomy both in
the foundation of contractually%regulated civil society from the state of nature (it is the pro%
duct of the social contract sealed by individuals and not a contracting party) and in the
regulation of this civil society (no redistributive taxation affecting self%interest in the
mar6et, individuals have right to oppose excesses of authority)
+t is ,mith2s neglect of the (obbesian political separation of wor6ers from the productive
process, and therefore his acceptance of the appropriation of its products (;exchange)
without political intervention that distinguishes him from -andeville (on Trennung) and
3oc6e (individual labour as basis of property) 0ut then ,mith adopts 3oc6e2s pre%civil
property rights as extending to the Trennung without the need for violent political
imposition (the ,tate) but assuming they already exist in the state of nature* /nd this is why
,mith2s self%interest needs to be enlightened* The real enlightenment of ,mith2s self%
interested individuals arises from the fact that the labour process and the productive
process are aspects of social labour of co%operation 0ut ,mith2s inability to detect this
forcible separation (Trennung) of wor6ers from the means of production, the parcelisation
of the labour process and its transformation from division of social labour into technical,
individual specialisation leading to higher productivity leaves him unable to explain
rationally or scientifically how the parcelised or specialised labour of individual wor6ers all
intent on pursuing their self%interest can be reconciled or co%ordinated into a functioning
complex capitalist economy that is able to grow and produce ever%greater national wealth*
(This is not to say that the liberal nightwatchman state I3assalleJ is wea6 7ust as in
(obbes, the 3oc6ean ,tate can be as authoritarian as need be to preserve individual rights
and to fight wars I#Ceumann, ;)emS/uth,tate2JJ (obbes2s ,tate -achine and 1rince
(Mhost in the machine)
+ndeed, the +nvisible (and is as redundant as the liberal ,tate, yet needed to explain
eventual failures of the self%regulating mar6et +t is a deus absconditus $ it is a Mod
superfluous only if self%interest is allowed to operate without interference +t is what civil
society would be li6e if there were a Mod The +nvisible (and is the natural perfection of
the self%regulating mar6et: it is the reason why the ,tate:1olitical must not interfere with this
mar6et:9conomy" it is an article of faith empirically displayed, visible in the unassisted, non%
political operation of mar6et forces, the resultant or balance, e'ui%librium of these mar6et
forces" the natural order of human affairs, the harmony of human choices and plans" it is
observable reality become aspired finality, hic et nunc become telos, the rational become
real and the real become rational, the end of history +t was this superfluity that led to the
abandonment of the invisible hand in later <lassical 1olitical 9conomy
The in0isible hand! is i"#ossible but necessar% $or S"ith because the (a1 o$
Calue! is a "eta#h%sical!' unhistorical h%#ostatised conce#t' and ca#italist
#roduction is antagonistic' not e6uilibrated! ,e6uilibriu" is an absurd' a#oretic
notion/: it 1ould be su#er$luous i$ the (a1 o$ Calue! 1ere real? and it is $alse because
ca#italist societ% is actuall% guided b% a #olitical*historical construction or agenc%!B
In other 1ords' the in0isible hand is theological*transcendental! because the (a1 o$
Calue! is "eta#h%sical? and i$ the (a1 o$ Calue! 1ere real! or trul% i""anent!' the
in0isible hand 1ould be su#er$luous& In realit%' both notions are $alse as anal%tical*
scienti$ic! conce#ts (/nd this is where Weber and ,chumpeter are utterly wrong about the
need to sever -arx2s scientific analysis from his ideological penchant To do so would
reify economic studies because it would remove their historical underpinning 4efer to
(aye62s scientism <f <olletti, ppDE and AL for ,chumpeter2s later approach to -arx in
<,S) where he eventually praises and adopts Iin ;0<2J -arx2s histoire raisonnee)
+n reality, logically and historically, what /dam ,mith and <lassical 1olitical 9conomy after
him disguised were the two fundamental truths that we have discovered and that are the
most valuable products of our study The first is that the act of birth of capitalism is the
establishment of a machinery of ,tate, a 3eviathan, powerful and far%reaching enough
both in its degree of bureaucratisation (administration and dispensation of political
policing control over a given territory and population) and rationalisation (effective use of
available resources for the paramount purpose of preserving domination over the
population) +n this regard, it is possible to say that the capitalist economy with its social
relations of production owes its existence to the initial violent separation of wor6ers from the
means of production both in the legal sense of their ownership and in the physical sense
of parcelisation of the social labour process through the payment of wages as individual
reward for each wor6er2s contribution to production This process we have called
Trennung
The second point is of e'ual importance, but one more immediately perspicuous: given that
capitalist society is founded on the (obbesian bourgeois premises of the self%interest of its
individual members in competition with one another, the inevitable aim of this society will be
and cannot but be the domination and sub!ugation of its members through the fear of poverty
and degradation implied in the wage relation +n the final instance, once a nation%state is
unable to control the explosive accumulative logic of the wage relation and of the capitalist
order, its irrepressible tendency will be internally the totalitarian destruction of its social
fabric through the atomisation of its members and externally the military aggression,
sub!ugation and domination of the entire life%world (3ebenswelt) $ cf /rendt, pp >Eff (This
latter is a ;tendency2 that can be buffered by crises that can reduce wage antagonism and
allow the survival of the wage relation 0ut crises necessarily place the bourgeois order at
ris6 and result in political polarisation with all its conse'uences +ndeed, we have seen with
(obbes that the logical%fundamental I;fundus2, from the bottom:beginning:originJ tendency
of the capitalist ,tate is to degenerate into authoritarianism)
E+cursus on Negris .E"#ire and .Sa0age Ano"al%
+t may be instructive to pause here and glance rapidly at Cegri2s own treatment of our
raisonnement historicise2 (+ refrain from using 7< 1asseron2s ;raisonnement sociologi'ue2 or
;histori'ue2, which is a revival of Weberian approaches in different garb) called 1assages of
1roduction in ;9mpire2 (co%authored with (ardt), and then the allusions to (obbes in
32/nomalia ,elvaggia dedicated to ,pino.a, both of which suffer from the ;malignant2 (and +
suffer to use the strong word) influence of )eleu.e and Muattari which (an invidious thing to
say) owes more to the support Cegri received from them in the difficult years but also
(32/nomalia was written while he was in prison, before the escape to #rance) to Cegri2s own
philosophical roaming incertitudes (!ust loo6 at ;+l )ominio e il ,abotaggio2 for a taste of the
absurd charlatanry worthy of a Ciall #erguson that he can get himself bogged into)
The cursory treatment of the historical analysis of capitalism in ;9mpire2 is very seriously,
harmfully flawed in various regards +t emerges, mercifully, right from the outset:
:The wage of the wor#er (corresponding to necessary laor) must e less than the total value produced
y the wor#er! This surplus value, however, must find an adequate mar#et in order to e reali-ed!
.ince each wor#er must produce more value than he or she consumes, the demand of the wor#er as
consumer can never e an adequate demand for the surplus value! In a closed system, the capitalist
production and e(change process is thus defined y a series of arriers/ AA"apital, then, posits
necessary laour time as the arrier to the e(change value of living laour capacity$ surplus laour
time as the arrier to necessary laour time$ and surplus value as the arrier to surplus laour time?? (p!
4BB <from A%rundrisse?=),; (pBBB)!
(ere from the outset is the use of necessary and surplus labour in a 'uantitative sense
$ which is everything we are trying to disprove in our wor6 /s we have seen above, only the
;Trennung2 is historically real and relevant: all the mumbo !umbo about historically necessary
labour time is !ust that $ scientism /nd Cegri gets right into the myth of
underconsumption: he mista6es -arx2s barrier or limit to capital for the inability of
capitalists to consume $ which is rubbish because, ultimately, they can produce the
surplus for their own consumption (8alec6i) /nd note ,chumpeter2s ob!ection (in <,S))
that capitalist competition would whittle away any ;surplus2 in any case +n short, what is
missing is the real source of antagonism $ what is central to -arx2s criti'ue, what gives rise
to the ;)oppelchara6ter2 of the commodity ;labour%power: % the separation of living labour
from the means of production Cegri has completely forgotten this essential point
Cegri immediately becomes aware of the difficulty $ right from the top of the next page:
:"ertainly, the capitalist class (along with the other classes that share in its profits) will consume some
of this e(cess value, but it cannot consume all of it, because if it did there would be no surplus value
left to reinvest. Instead of consumin all the surplus value, capitalists must practice abstinence, which
is to sa!, the! must accumulate.4 "apital itself demands that capitalists renounce pleasures and astain
as much as possile from AAwasting?? the surplus value on their own consumption! This cultural
e(planation of capitalist morality and astinence, however, is &ust a symptom of the real economic
arriers posed within capitalist production! Cn the one hand, if there is to e profit, then the wor#ers
must produce more value than they consume! Cn the other hand, if there is to e accumulation, the
capitalist class and its dependents cannot consume all of that surplus value,; (pBB7)!
0ut where is it written that there must be ;accumulation2F Why must surplus valueK IbeJ
reinvestIedJF /nd what is that garbage about capitalists must practise abstinenceF That is
,chopenhauerian and Weberian mythology: in fact it is the most ab!ect capitalist ideology
from the time of Cassau ,enior $ the capitalist gets rich by abstaining* 0y admitting that
this is a cultural explanation, Cegri is evidently falling bac6 on Weber2s spirit of capitalism*
The argument simply does not hold water: to 'ualify it as stupid would do it too much
honour" and from this point onwards, Cegri2s entire short history of capitalism is banal,
vitiated and mangled
&ne of the distortions that arise from this treatment is to oppose as two contrary powers or
forces capitalists and wor6ers right from the beginning $ hence the inordinate importance
given to ;primitive accumulation2 by Cegri 1er contra, we ought to stress the gradual
emergence of the wage relation and of capital as the material expression of it, as a
concentration of capitals or private property or wealth $ in gold, in land, in use values as
well as exchange values $ that then stands truly as a monistic entity, finally as social capital
under a collective capitalist, in the course of its historical concentration 5et initially,
capitalism can arise as a gradual generalisation of the wage relation, and capitalists
emerge from among the ran#s of wor#ers, as )obb has shown*
Cegri2s ;manichaean2 presentation of the origins, the actus nascendi of capitalism owes much
to his mista6en emphasis on underconsumption or overproduction, with conse'uent need
to heighten the ;conflictual2 aspects of its development that this approach cannot provide, by
exasperating the violence of capitalism2s ;act of birth2, original or primitive accumulation
(li6e original sin, cf Cegri in ;32 anomalia2, p@H, Generally, seventeenth-century
philosophy accepts this terrain. The passional appropriation of nature (this
ideological metaphor for the capitalist market and for primitive
accumulation) has to bow down to the necessities of the social and State
organiation of the !u"es of value) as well as the ;con'uest2 in its imperialistic
expansion 5et formal subsumption shows the continuity and organicity of the transition
to capitalism (to echo Cegri, its constitutive poten.a) stressed by )obb, while real
subsumption entails that relative surplus value can result from the intensification of
labour%power, which contradicts the need for expansion +t follows that expansion need
not ta6e the form of imperialism (formal or informal empire $ Cegri2s definition of ;9mpire2
copies the latter notion), but can occur even without an increase in the population $ so long
as the antagonism of the wage relation urges it to greater productivity (production of use
values that reproduce and perpetuate the wage relation) This defeats the entire central
thesis of ;9mpire2
Cor is there any consideration of the role played by institutional trans%formation of the
machinery of ,tate (cf Tronti, ;,tato e 4iv +n +ngh2) which opens up an essential dimension
of the Trennung $ the regimentation and massification of the political elements of the new
mode of production that are strictly%spea6ing ;external2 to the wage relation itself but li6e
money inherited from feudal absolutism (to comfort Tronti2s autonomia del politico and
<acciari2s 1olitico in its ;<atholic2 hierarchy and Weber in its ;1rotestant rationalisation2)
+nterestingly, Cegri grows immediately cautious about overproduction, but has to insist on it
to !ustify the imperialistic or ;9mpire2 thesis, which simply distracts us from the antagonism
of the wage relation, from the Trennung: %
:We should note that this arrier has nothing to do with the asolute power of production of a
population or its asolute power of consumption (undoutedly the proletariat could and wants to
consume more <so does the ourgeoisie, noD=), ut rather it refers to the relative power of consumption
of a population within the capitalist relations of production and reproduction. n order to reali!e the
surplus value generated in the production process and avoid the devaluation resulting from
overproduction, BB4 5A..A%E. C@ 5FC*G"TICN "ar# argues that capital must e#pand its realm/1;
K and then begins the whole nursery tale of outside and inside, of barriers and limits
which leads to imperialism (expansion is the word /rendt uses in &T, and Cegri 'uotes
the same aphorism about annexing the planets from 4hodes) and ends, after formal
subsumption yields to real subsumption (a proper categorisation), and after the Cew )eal
(for the world), with 9mpire <learly, Cegri explains nothing with the relative power of
consumption of a population within the capitalist relations of production $ what on earth is
that (*) if not the fact that, differently from what Cegri is arguing, the actual barrier to capital
is, once more, that capital becomes a barrier to itself (*) $ in other words, that the
preservation of the wage relation becomes antagonistically incompatible with the productive
potential of capitalist industry*
This is an aspect of the origins of the bourgeoisie that is too often neglected and for that
reason has engendered a thoroughgoing misconceptualisation of the actus nascendi, the
birth and growth of capitalism (historical development of the Trennung from wor6shop to
,tate and mar6et institutions, that is) as well as of its nature and causes (antagonism of
wage relation, as against sphere of circulation, something Cegri2s emphasis on
underconsumption and imperialist expansion serves to encourage)
The formative logico%historical passage from many capitals to social capital is traced in
Tronti (+l 1iano del <apitale in ;&e<2 and in ,e4in+ngh2) +t is instructive to find that Tronti
himself ('uoting -arx) concludes that the accumulation of capital is therefore the increase
of the proletariat (+l 1iano, loccit, pG?) Tronti2s analysis here follows -arx faithfully and is
similar to Cegri2s in ;-o-2 (see below) 5et Tronti is more careful on the transition by
stressing how the capitalist separation of the wor6ers from the means of production as well
as from control over their living labour already constitutes itself as self%government of
capital (pGD), as concentration of single capitals and ultimately as social capital in the
society of capital by having to preserve the sociality of the labour process $ and therefore
en%gendering im%mediately a wor#ing class(ppGEff) /s he puts it, +l denaro separa, il
capitale unifica <ioe2: la produ.ione capitalistica riunisce wuello che il patrimonio monetario
ha diviso Oui ci sono due epoche di storia: nell2 unita2 di entrambe sta il passaggio, il
processo, della transi.ione <2 e2 una concentra.ione di capitali e una concentra.ione del
capitale (;,e42, p=DL) $ a concentration of capitals in one place, even as ;ursprungliche
/66umulation2" but also a concentration of formerly individual wor6ers in one place by
capital through the real subsumption of the social labour process $ giving rise to the
sociali.ation of capital (+l 1iano, pEG)
+n this section, Tronti 'uite rightly contrasts -arx2s emphasis on the violence of primitive
accumulation in *apital with the more nuanced historical transition traced in the
+rundrisse, from the dissolving role of money on feudal relations, to the role of die
4egierungen in concentrating wealth and then forcing the Trennung (3a Transi.ione)
/gain referring to the Mrundrisse: 1rima aveva detto una di 'uelle nuove verita2 che
rimangono in genere sepolteK: ;,olo all2 epoca del tramonto del feudalesimo, in cui pero2 si
svolgono lotte al suo interno $ cosi2 in +nghilterra nel R+B e nella prima meta2 del RB secolo $
si ha l2 eta2 d2 oro del lavoro che va emancipandosi2 (p=DG)
0y contrast, Cegri2s presentation conceals this ;positive2 side of the rise of the bourgeoisie,
surely in part with the support of the newly emancipated wor6ers $ forgetting thus the
apocalyptic elogium paid by -arx in the -anifesto &ne may legitimately admonish Cegri
for abandoning his own metodo della tenden.a antagonista, for shifting from immanence to
transcendence, in that he does not start from the constitutive power (the phrase from The
,avage /nomaly) of antagonism of the wage relation and then pursue its historical
development ()obb) into full%fledged capitalism under the impetus or Cegri2s potentia of
the Trennung, culminating into the homologous liberal political institutions and their
;degenerate2 forms 0y leaping im%mediately (without mediation) to the op%position of capital
and wor6ers, Cegri hypostatises capital as 1otestas (one is reminded of the (egelian
;negation2 as (3owith) the annihilation of the world (which he extends to the ;post%
(egelians2, -arx included, and for which Tronti upbraids him, ;&e<2, pDAH) Thus, he both
mystifies the more constitutive or organic ;trans%crescence or meta%morphosis2 of nascent
capital (the 8risis of <acciari that Cegri adopts in 32 /nomalia) and hypostatises in
-anichaean fashion the all%important ;antagonism2 whose foundation he traces bac6 to
,pino.a2s ;cupiditas2 (or its primary drive, ;conatus2, that + used elsewhere)
This inability to enucleate the concept of antagonism historically helps explain why the notion
of 9mpire itself is flawed in that it describes a form of capitalist command that is diffuse yet
centralised (disciplinary governability) and thereby hypostatised (li6e 6a6otopian versions of
omniscient and omnipotent dictators) 9'ually (continuing the litany of neologisms), it gives
rise to a primitive accumulation of informatisation and to immaterial labour (a very wea6
notion, not supported with any detailed study of the labour process) andK Mod help us*
)eleu.e and Muattari2s famous:infamous rhi.omesK 9nough* /sse.* 0asta* &h, and
then there is that benighted word to which we will turn soonK multitude
The misrepresentation of -arx2s ;Mrundrisse2 is more instructive -arx is not saying that the
barrier to capital is underconsumption or overproduction (that is 4osa 3uxemburg*) The
point -arx is ma6ing is that the productive potential developed through the antagonism of
the wage relation leads to the compression of necessary labour and a rise in the organic
composition of capital with conse'uent tendential fall in the rate of profit $ something Cegri
interprets correctly and re!ects as economicismo in ;-o-2 (pDDH%D, see below)
Negri on the .2rundrisse 5 .Mar+ Oltre Mar+&
0ut first, a loo6 at Cegri2s -o- 0riefly, it would be tempting to give a favourable
assessment, and there is no doubt that the analysis of the Mrundrisse is much more
insightful and accurate than the dog2s brea6fast in ;9mpire2 ;-o-2 alternates between
moments of lucidity and disappointing areas (the ma!ority) where Cegri shows still that he
has not overcome the scientistic aspects of historical materialism The insistence on the
law of value, for instance $ which, even when Cegri insists with all his contorted rhetoric and
absurd philosophistry that it has been inverted by -arx (and the meaning is far from
clear), it is still the case that a concept can be inverted by historical developments (even
antagonistic ones) only if it was historically real and valid at some earlier stage 5et in
reality, as we have amply demonstrated, the law of value, the whole notion of necessary
and surplus labour and theft of labour time were always im%possible concepts that found
no expression in reality The chapter on 3a Teoria del ,alario (especially at ppD?E%G) offers
an inconfutable illustration of how Cegri see6s to reconcile -arx2s old categories (law of
value, necessary labour, law of falling rate of profit) with the insights of the Mrundrisse with
regard to the incompatibility of the productive potential of living labour occasioned by the
antagonism of the wage relation and the permanence of this wage relation, particularly with
the discussion of the #ragment on -achinery
There are moments (pGA), where Cegri seems to thin6 that -arx2s fault is to reduce the
creation of surplus value to the sphere of industrial production (the 1 in -%<K1K%<2%-2) $
which would be right, if Cegri did not intend by this merely that one has to loo6 at social
wor6ers or immaterial labour or multitudes or similar nonsense /nd there are times when
the ;organic composition of capital2 and ;the falling rate of profit2 are seriously countenanced
(ppDH@%DD=) (cf 4owthorn in ;<<S+2 on this) 0ut it is this obstinacy to loo6 at the wage
relation through the prism of necessary and surplus labour that turns Cegri2s $ and -arx2s %
exposition into an unseemly !umble, ornamented with expatiations about il metodo della
tenden.a antagonistica (ch>) $ which does have a 6ernel of truth, represented by his
discussion of the wage relation itself
/s we said, the erroneous formulation of the barrier or limit to capital can also be blamed
on -arx This fallacious analysis then leads Cegri to wax lyrical on the proletarian
reappropriation of the use value of labour%power, when in fact it is the very inability of living
labour to do so because of the forceful imposition of the wage relation by capitalists that is
the productive barrier and limit to capital +t is a subtle but essential difference of perspective
/t pD?A we find an excellent illustration of this mis%apprehension when Cegri enters a
lengthy 'uote from -arx to the effect that the compression of necessary labour expands
surplus labour until the discrepancy becomes unsustainable (politically) Cegri retorts that
living labour has increasingly more control over its time and imposes on capital the
expansion of ;necessary labour2 (autovalori..a.ione, pDDH" see also chL, pDGD and DG?, and
pDLL about ;il passaggio dalla legge del valore alla legge dell2 autovalori..a.ione)" and he
insists that the #ragment demonstrated l2estin.ione della legge del valore (pDG? and DLL)
$ as if, once more, the law of value had ever had any historical validity or logical content
whatsoever (it is an apory, as we have shown) $ and reveals the archaism of -arx2s organic
composition framewor6 (which Cegri !ustly decries, ppDDH%D)
+n fact, wor6ers never cavil at parsimonious distinctions between ;surplus2 and ;necessary2
labour" and any refusal of labour and auto%valourisation provo6e inflationary crises or else
an expansion of capital to reserve armies of labour (cf 4owthorn again in ;<<S+2), so that any
;necessary:surplus2 distinction (Cegri2s legge del plusvalore) becomes incomprehensible
particularly when one considers the notion of real subsumption of labour, which is
eminently political The whole 'uestion of production and distribution therefore is one that
involves not !ust the proportions of production distributed between wor6ers and capital and
the respective labour%power time employed for their production (see, eg, bottom pLA and
pLG) ,uch distributive apportionment, even if 'uantifiable, would tell us little because we
would need to 6now what use values were specifically distributed (consumption goods for
wor6ers, production goods for capitalists) +n this perspective, the suppression of necessary
labour cannot constitute a limit to capital, because it is an entirely ;aporetic2 or even fictitious
notion that turns the whole analysis into a distributive one (cf -arx2s correction of 7, -ill
'uoted at pDG> Ithis nonsense is eminently neo%4icardian $ production is 'uantitatively
ascertainable once distribution or profit is ;politically settled2J)
,y thin#ing within the narrow confines of necessary and surplus labour, by focusing on the
fractioning of the wor#ing day between these two constituents parts, -ar. tied himself to the
/uantitative or distributional analysis of the wage relation and, worse, to the emphasis on
0actual production1, that is, the actual means of production $technologies, resources& used in
the labour process at a given time. 2s a result, -ar. left entirely out of the analysis 3 even in
the 04ragment1, which remains the ape. of the +rundrisse $0il piu alto esempio di uso della
dialettica antagonistica e costitutiva5 forse in tutta l2 opera marxiana, pDAL) ' the possibility
that capital will see# to restrict and suppress the productive potential of these means of
production precisely for the need to preserve the wage relation*
6nce this becomes the case, the only available avenue of antagonism for living labour is its
realisation that the e.isting means of production $technologies and use values produced& no
longer properly reflect 0the productive potential1 that is feasible and that capital 0prevents1 so
as to maintain intact 0the need1 for the wage relation to subsist. +n effect, capital warps and
distorts the productive potential of available technologies that wage%relation antagonism has
occasioned, by suppressing their use and adoption* Thus capital becomes a barrier to
production, a limit to itself +n effect, it is capitalists that now become ;saboteurs2*
-arx fre'uently s6irts by this insight, especially in The #ragment 0ut his focus on ;value2
leads him to express it aw6wardly, even wrongly, in terms of the apportionment of ;ob!ectified
labour2 (or output, to use an economistic term), in terms of the relative shares of necessary
and surplus labour and respective time, and finally in terms of capital2s opposition to
producing more value % because of overproduction and rising organic composition of capital
(see pp@Hff and most of ch?) 0ut then Cegri intervenes and inverts the tendency (of the rate
of profit to fall) by asserting the tendency of living labour ad autovalori..arsi and to expand
the share of ;necessary labour2 (pDDH), finally abandoning the organic composition as
economicismo (pDDD) /part from the arbitrariness of this reversal and the ;apory involved
in the law of surplus value, Cegri and -arx miss the point because by then it is not value
production that capital is preventing or suppressing, but rather the production of alternative
emancipatory use values%
/ppropriately, Cegri 'uotes -arx saying that use value plays a role as an economic
category (pDL?), which -arx 6new all along given the ;)oppelchara6ter2, but here it is
intended to extend to use values other than living labour (a point + made with regard to
4oscher in ;1hilo/nteof,o92 and implicit in 1igou2s externalities), something that is lac6ing
in )as 8apital 4ecall also that Mrossman falls short of ma6ing this point despite his correct
stress on the fact that <192s exclusive focus on valourisation is its essential shortcoming $
what we call here the sphere of exchange
(Time to revise ,ylos%3abini, &ligopolio e 1rogresso Tecnico <f spillover effects in 7
,urowiec6i, Cew 5or6er http:::wwwnewyor6ec6iTix..D)-LDhmLp : % PThose days are gone, and
/merican companies now do less basic research 9conomists have long argued that companies will
underinvest in 4 S ) and infrastructure because so%called spillover benefits prevent their capturing all the
value they produceP)
3in6 to <ivil ,ociety >
+n a growing or stationary economy, ,mith2s invisible%hand self%regulating mar6et is divine
revelation" but in a crisis it becomesKan article of faith /nd this, once 3abour Balue
was replaced with -arginal Ntility and 1olitical 9conomy with economic science, is what
it became when the bourgeoisie encountered crisis +f, indeed, the mar6et is self%
regulating, if it has a centripetal tendency to revert to e'uilibrium, it is obvious that any
crisis of the 9conomic must be due to a non%9conomic force interfering with the mar6et $
and that force or disturbance can only be the 1olitical, the ,tate That is the real historical
purpose of ,mith2s invisible hand: % The hypostasis of capitalist social relations of
production &f course, this victimisation of the ,tate grew more strident as the
socialisation:rationalisation:concentration of capitalist industry advanced
/ttac6 on labour as source of wealth $ abstract labour invites negatives )en6en attac6

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