Suchergebnisse

* Winner of the 2018 RECASP Essay Prize * According to Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler (2009), capital is not an economic quantity, but a mode of power. Their fundamental thesis could be summarized as follows: capital is power quantified in monetary terms. But what do we do when we quantify? What is the nature of money in a capitalist society? Indeed, what is power? In the following, we try to develop a concept of power as the ability of persons to create particular formations against resistance. The kinds of formations persons can think of depend on the society they live in, which can be identified by what Cornelius Castoriadis called its social imaginary significations (SIS). The core SIS of capitalism is rational mastery operating with computational rationality. Computational rationality in turn rests on a particular understanding of how signification works: it works through operational symbolism, as theorized by Sybille Krämer in analyzing the philosophy of Leibniz. When the concept of the SIS of modern rationality was developed in the 1950s and 1960s, bureaucracy was seen as the main organizational mode of rational mastery. We argue that there are two modes of rational mastery, capitalization and bureaucratization, that interact with each other in capitalist society. The paper concludes with deliberations on the future of rational mastery and possible ways out. --- FRONT PICTURE: International Space Station Expedition 26 Crew (24 Dec 2010), Montreal at Night. Astronaut photograph ISS026-E-12474 (https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/48471/montreal-at-night). Image courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center (https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/) --- BIO: The author studied physics and informatics, along with a lot of philosophy, but is also interested in many other subjects. He came across Bichler and Nitzan's Capital as Power in the first decade of the twenty-first century when he was politically active in various ways. He rediscovered Castoriadis through one of Bichler and Nitzans's works. Since then, he has tried to understand what Bichler and Nitzan actually mean by power. As there is no concrete answer to this question, he has been trying to develop one by (con)fusing concepts developed by Castoriadis and other thinkers with some of his own.

According to Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan capital is not an economic quantity but a mode of power; it could be sumarized as: "Capital is power quantified in monetary terms". So, what do we do when we "quantify"? What is the nature of "money" in a capitalist society? And, indeed, what is "power" in the first place? In the following I will try to develop a concept of power as the ability of persons to create particular formations. The kind of formations persons can think of depends on the society a person lives in, which can be identified by what Cornelius Castoriadis called its social imaginary significations (SIS). The core SIS of capitalism is rational mastery operating with computational rationality. Computational rationality in turn rest on a particular understanding of how signification works: operational symbolism, as theories by Sybille Krämer (following Leibniz). When the concept of the SIS of modern rationality was developed in the 1950s and 60s, bureaucracy was seen as its main organisational mode or rational mastery. I will argue that capitalisation and bureaucratisation are the two modes of rational mastery which interact with each other. The paper concludes with deliberations on the future of rational mastery and the possibility of "ways out".

Mit ihrem Buch Capital as Power (2009) haben Jonathan Nitzan und Shimshon Bichler eine radikale Alternative zu neoklassischen und marxistischen Wirtschaftstheorien vorgelegt. "Kapital" begreifen sie im Rahmen ihres neuen Ansatzes nicht im engeren Sinn als ökonomische Größe, die - wie in der Neoklassik - in Nutzen-Einheiten oder - wie in der marxistischen Werttheorie - in abstrakter Arbeit gemessen werden kann, sondern als symbolische Quantifizierung gesellschaftlicher Macht. Diese Konzeption verspricht nicht nur, einen wichtigen Beitrag zum besseren Verständnis der aktuellen Krisenentwicklungen der Weltwirtschaft zu liefern, sondern sie hat auch interessante Berührungspunkte zum Konzept der imaginären Institution bei Cornelius Castoriadis. Der diesjährige VSFA-Workshop soll die Möglichkeit bieten, den Ansatz von Nitzan und Bichler kennenzulernen, über seine kapitalismus - und krisentheoretischen Implikationen nachzudenken sowie nach den Verbindungen zum Denken von Castoriadis zu fragen.

Thoughts on 'objective value', power and the normal rate of return.