Marx in Motion: A New Materialist Marxism

Description

Karl Marx is the most historically foundational and systematic critic of capitalism to date, and the years since the 2008 financial crisis have witnessed a rebirth of his popular appeal. In a world of rising income inequality, right-wing nationalisms, and global climate change, people are again looking to the father of modern socialism for answers. As this book argues, every era since Marx's death has reinvented him to fit its needs. There is not one Marx forever and for all time. There are a thousand Marxes. As Thomas Nail contends, one of the most significant contributions of Marx's work is that it treats theory itself as a historical practice. Reading Marx is not just an interpretative activity but a creative one. As our historical conditions change, so do the kinds of questions we pose and the kinds of answers we find in Marx's writing. This book is a return to the writings of Karl Marx, including his under-appreciated dissertation, through the lens of the pressing philosophical and political problems of our time: ecological crisis, gender inequality, colonialism, and global mobility. However, the aim of this book is not to make Marxism relevant by "applying" it to contemporary issues. Instead, Marx in Motion, the first new materialist interpretation of Marx's work, treats Capital as if it were already a response to the present. Thomas Nail argues that Marx was a new materialist avant la lettre. He argues that Marx did not believe history was determined, or that matter was passive, or that humans were separate or superior to nature. Marx did not even have a labor theory of value. Marxists argue that new materialists lack a sufficient political and economic theory, and new materialists argue that Marx's materialism is human-centric and mechanistic. This book aims to solve both problems by proposing a new materialist Marxism. "It is rare to find a genuinely novel reading of Marx and yet that is exactly what Thomas Nail provides in this remarkable book. In an ambitious, pathbreaking, and admirably lucid analysis, Nail offers us a 'new materialist' Marx that both resonates with ecological, feminist, and postcolonial Marxisms and suggests answers to some of the central political problems of our age." - Simon Choat "Thomas Nail's Marx in Motion is the most penetrating account of the origins of Marx's overall philosophical outlook to appear this century. Relying on his extensive background in Epicurean philosophy, Nail explores the emergence of Marx's materialist dialectics and his ecological-metabolic views as these first appeared in nascent form in Marx's 1841 doctoral thesis on Epicurus. The result is a revolutionary understanding of Marx's historical ontology of motion, a whole new starting point for the philosophy of praxis." - John Bellamy Foster "Why does Marx return in such a lively way after being banned from philosophical and political debate? Nail, who is an excellent reader of Lucretius, reminds us that Marxian thought finds its basis in the powerful ancient materialism. It is of that light that it shines. Beyond the positivist folklore of the Soviet Diamat, beyond the anthropocentric universalism of Marxist humanism after World War II, beyond the surrealist drift of post-structuralism, this book invites us to let ourselves be taken by the ancient materialist rhythm of Marxian concepts, and thus to accompany that philosophical return to political action." - Antonio Negri Introduction THE DECLINE OF MARXISM THE UNDERGROUND CURRENT OF KINETIC MATERIALISM The First Revolution: Soviet Marxism The Second Revolution: Humanist Marxism The Third Revolution: Post-Structuralist Marxism MARX AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOTION THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK METHOD Close Reading Translation Argumentation History 1. Marx and Motion ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEMOCRITEAN AND EPICUREAN PHYSICS Dialectics: The Threefold Motion of Matter ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL MANUSCRIPTS Kinetic Theory of the Human Kinetic Theory of the Object The Movement of Private Property THE HOLY FAMILY THESES ON FEUERBACH AND THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY CONCLUSION 2. Method and Critique METHOD Appearance The Individual Atomic Commodities CRITIQUE The Ends of Capital Dialectical and Historical Materialism Transcendental Materialism CONCLUSION 3. The Birth of Value THEORY OF THE OBJECT The Thing The Fold THE COMMODITY Desire Quality and Quantity THE MULTIPLICITY OF QUALITIES History Measurement THE BODY OF THE COMMODITY THE BEARERS OF VALUE The Birth of Value CONCLUSION 4. Devalorization THE FORM OF APPEARANCE OF VALUE Identity VALUE AND DEVALORIZATION Concrete and Abstract Labor THE HORROR OF VALUE TIME AND MOTION SOCIALLY NECESSARY PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION Socially Necessary Labor Time Primitive Accumulation CONCLUSION 5. Metabolic Drift METABOLIC MOVEMENTS THE THREEFOLD THEORY OF METABOLISM The Metabolism of Nature The Human Metabolism with Nature Social Metabolism METABOLIC EXPANSION BY EXPULSION Metabolic Appropriation and Value Creation Metabolic Primitive Accumulation METABOLIC DRIFT METABOLIC COMMUNISM CONCLUSION 6. The Patriarchy of Value HOME-BAKED VALUE DAME QUICKLY The Stewed Prune The Drawn Fox Maid Marian The Thing The Otter 7. Kinetic Theory of Value I THE SIMPLEX-MANIFOLD OF VALUE THE TWO POLES OF MOTION THE MATERIAL AGENCY OF THE COMMODITY QUANTITATIVE FLUX EQUIVALENT FLUX The Oikos THE EMBRYOGENESIS OF VALUE 8. Kinetic Theory of Value II THE UNFOLDING OF VALUE The Mirror of Value The World of Commodities The Motley Mosaic THE COMMON-FOLD OF VALUE The Common and Entangled Movement of Value The Magnetic Field of Value The Performance of Value THE MONEY FORM 9. Fetishism and the Form of Motion THE LAW OF MOTION Motion Law THE TRACES OF VALUE TURNING THE TABLES The Taiping Rebellion Table Turning THE OPTICS OF VALUE The Mirror Mystery The Optics of Domination The Fog of Religion Atomic Fog THE FORM OF MOTION The Gravity of Value 10. The Colonialism of Value PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION ROBINSON CRUSOE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY ROBINSON’S ISLAND, BATHED IN LIGHT The Conditions of Appearance Transparency COLONIAL ACCUMULATION The Onefold or Simplex Form of Colonialism The Unfolded or Expanded Form of Colonialism The General Form of Colonialism CONCLUSION 11. Kinetic Communism THE FEUDAL FORM OF MOTION THE PEASANT FORM OF MOTION THE COMMUNIST FORM OF MOTION DEUS SIVE MONETA The Metabolic Limits of the Ancient World METABOLIC COMMUNISM METABOLIC CONDITIONS Economic Structure Social Structure Conditioning CONCLUSION Conclusion THE CONSEQUENCES LIMITATIONS FUTURE DIRECTIONS