Critiques of labour in value

Value is the form of capitalistic products, which also transforms the process of 'production.'

However, the form in which this value is depicted can vary. Marx's formulation is subject to several, potentially valid objections.

Further, 'value' is not an organic form, rather it arises from the form of the social process. This is not restricted to official 'production,' of course. Nonetheless, Marx stresses that value is inorganic, and hence must arise from the social process. This insight is not unique to Marx, of course; most observe that economic categories are a social matter. The capitalist economic categories are premised on several traits of the social process, which allow people to face each other in the atomised yet unified mode characteristic of capitalism.

In dealing with people's conduct within capitalism, capitalism itself might seem slightly relaxed. It does not, of course, tell people that they must spend money in one way or another, or that it represents anything. This is merely a postulate of ideologists. Ideologists also try to take issue with the 'metaphysical' nature of value - as if money just 'happened' to be an inherent property of things. It is not, hence the 'metaphysical' appearance. Hence, all that ideologists are doing is taking a social process that happens to occur, and taking its treatment of forms as inherent to them. The coin just is money, the spending of money is for one purpose or represents a certain thing. In truth, money is merely an emblem of the society as a force against the individual or concrete. Further, human society must necessarily relate to this capitalistic form with slight uncertainty - does capitalism really have any inherent concern over their conduct being 'ethical' or in one set of moral norms?

Hence, the 'metaphysical' nature of value is the pseudo-concretisation of social forms as an alternate or replacement form of the object. Hence, it is already implicit in things like the socially determined nature of money. As such, the 'social forms' encroach on and seek to replace the objects with something empty. They hence also seek to do this with humans, forming a seeming 'community.'

The ideologist merely wants to evade the 'metaphysical' so that they can excuse their own unthinking positivism.

The liberal positivist finds a systematic criticism too 'metaphysical' anyway, because the liberal is only interested in the immediate spurs and stimuli provided by a society which they positivistically accept. Hence, the liberal views a society of shifting hopes and dreams within it, not of 'absolute' forces. In the process, this 'hoping' becomes itself an abstraction that appears 'absolute.' As such, to enquire too far here seems to disturb this image, and hence 'metaphysical.' To criticise something as metaphysical in this sense is merely to say that it falls outside of their limited 'image' of the world, does not appear there. Their interest is in 'reform,' and indeed anything systematic is not understood - it is not merely reforms. Further, it appears 'dry' - 'reform' takes its momentum from positivist takes on social aspects, while the systematic eschews that momentum or does not start from the same place as liberal 'action' and 'excitement.' The liberal considers things within the system, but rarely the system itself.

Yet there are valid criticisms to be made, distinct from liberal prudishness.

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Qualms

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Social labour-time

Marx wants value to be determined by the total socially necessary average labour time, with labour hence considered as an abstraction. However, labour is not posited as a uniform, social mass without value. Hence, this cannot occur as an external relation of determination. It is labour necessary to produce a value that is relevant - 'value' is the telos of labour. Hence, it is a problematic category to base value on.

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Other factors

From a discussion, which touched on the criticisms made by Böhm-Bawerck:

As far as Marx opening with the commodity, it needn't be seen as stringently necessary. In discussing use-value, for instance, we are also implicitly discussing production - which is where some commodities are used. Hence, it isn't a strictly focussed opening or one that can exclude others stringently, or other ways of giving such an account. The category of production is introduced as something derived, as a result, and must be portrayed in this way throughout the account.

Interestingly, however, within this schema production and such can only appear as adjuncts of the commodity or as a result of analysing the commodity. As occurs. In this sense, Böhm-Bawerck's observation can have some validity, namely that many other things can be derived from and play a part in the commodity. Hence, so far as they are concerned Marx might make a valid point, nonetheless they then make a jump which is uncalled for from the commodity itself. Hence, this is akin to criticising the commodity as a starting-point, with some validity perhaps. It might have been clearer to start with production, then investigate how this is altered in commodities.

In general, it is valid to note that other factors go into the commodity. This is a basic factor of capitalism, that other things are subordinated to commodities, and to act as appendages of them. Hence, other factors are also important, because they contribute to the commodity. However, this is a limitation, as these factors cannot be economically integrated or given a notable status. This was somewhat relevant in times of Luddism and so on, where people were forced to sacrifice machinery and so on in order to demand more of a place for themselves. In any case, it forms a limitation in an economy which wishes to centre around something, yet cannot generally do so.

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 Receptivity

Value appears receptive, or other objects and processes can replace your own active process. 'Sociality' is here posited as generic submission of individuals to the empty core of capitalist society. Hence, this sociality of value appears as a general trait of it. It involves a situation of 'receptivity' where the one person's process is erased in order to unify with another's - your activity and existence is replaced 'seamlessly' by someone else's. Hence, it might not seem apt that it is restricted to 'production.' The act of production is not by itself formulated as being in a social form appropriate to the capitalistic situation. Rather, this is primarily a property of relations.

Of course, even Marx goes in this direction on occasion.

This point might seem straightforward, however it does take issue with the formulation of value as primarily a matter of labour and not of more properly 'labour formulated as part of a society organised according to value.'

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What's labour?

The labour process in capitalism typically takes place in a way directed by the interests of capital. However, this hence seems to give capital a role in 'labour.' Hence, capital would also play an active role in the process which 'determines value' - even if it is seemingly excluded from this. If labour is involved, then is not the force which directs social labour and drives it also a determining factor? This is a complex question. Although capitalists function only through capital, nonetheless social labour is conditioned and given direction by capital. As a result, it might be misleading to hypostatise the simple category of 'labour' onto labour in capitalism as if capitalist labour is still the same as labour in general. The labourers who would direct value are themselves directed. The category of 'labour' by itself hence rarely appears without other forces integral to it. This objection does have some significance, although it is important to be careful not to distort it into a more conventional dogma. Due to the 'determination' of value featuring several intertwined or directed forces, it would be misleading to speak of only one as being the sole 'determinant of value.' While rhetorically inconvenient, this is nonetheless the case. However, the classes still have relations to each other which are part of a capitalist system. Though the relations' form of appearance as a relation through objects is interesting, the fundamental objection to this class situation should remain the same due to its basis in the concrete class system as a human social structure. It is easy for people to reduce the criticism of capitalism to a portrayal where it seems like man primarily relates to objects when this is only a misleading appearance which is capitalistic in nature. It is clear why this portrayal may be limited, due to its basis in a capitalist mode of thought. Although it may be called 'Marxist-humanist' or 'German philosophy,' it is important to recall the centrality of the 'human factor' and structure of social relations to anti-capitalist critique within socialist thought.

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The Law

When people are involved in a capitalistic economy, they should never be expected to be generous to others while the others are engaging in economic activity.

In general, struggle against prominent people is not something that capitalism's economy can fully discourage. It is encouraged. If the opposite is to be primary, it is not only to substitute an imagined economy for the real one, but also must accompany some forgery in the economy. It is to have the image or airs of these people, without any actual need for such people. Indeed, capital sets all people a given task, there is no reason why any should 'succeed.' To posit capitalists a priori as a part of the economy, is to have a fictitious economy.

The economic hence seems in some ways a treacherous terrain, and often reduces 'religions' and so on to subservience. They often veer into liberal or 'reformist' terrain, the most absurd element in capitalism and indeed fitting to them.

Regardless of building a church on a 'firm' foundation, it is important that such a formation toe the line of capitalism. If not, mutual animosity would harm and undermine a group foreign to it. Their unified 'cause' could not be maintained.

While people are in a capitalistic economy, they should not be expected to have any necessary pity for or aversion to others' death. Insofar as they are economic actors, this may benefit them in a competitive atmosphere of mutual animosity. Given the 'bellum omn

A capitalistic situation is averse to many. They will therefore stay at a slight distance from it. Hence, part of people's relation to capitalism is always imaginative. As Christian conservatism and liberalism can attest. This is also a part of capitalism. To relate in this manner is to vacillate, to claim to 'enter' and then immediately recant this for milder terrain when called upon. It is hence to 'enter,' or engage with, then vacillate to an opposite thing due to mildness. In the end, it is 'imaginative,' or strays from its apparent place so much that it is barely there. Nonetheless, this kind of activity is also a necessary part of 'capitalism.'

It cannot truly invalidate that which you have heard of old.

The silver cord unbroken

A discussion recently came up with Zanthorus, involving Böhm-Bawerck's contentions about Marx. Zanthorus issued the following summary of Böhm-Bawerck:

Hopefully this clarifies to a certain extent where Böhm-Bawerk goes wrong in suggesting that the common property of commodities could just as well be that they are products of nature, or something absurd like the fact that gravity acts on them

We would like to examine this in more depth.

Marx contends that, when commodities are considered in an abstract manner, then the only common property can be that they are products of labour. However, Zanthorus notes a possible and opposed viewpoint, that commodities are also a product of other forces. Hence, that Marx might be hasty in this circumstance.

However, in doing this we must not ignore what becomes of 'labour' in this process. Otherwise, the commodity itself is lost sight of. The labour is action upon and involving the commodity. It is not cleanly cut apart from this object. If the commodity disappears, so does the labour upon it. The labour is specified by the commodity and interaction with it, hence when the commodity is removed you cannot properly speak of a labour process behind it - nor is it differentiated from a 'natural' object. Hence, to speak of 'being products of labour' is misguided. Once the abstraction removing all traits from the commodity occurs, we cannot speak of labour upon it instead. That vanishes with the traits. Marx essentially follows capitalism's 'logic' for a way, stripping commodities of all traits, and hence of all physical specifications and interactions, however they then wish to turn around and introduce the category of 'labour' as still remaining. This is an unjustified summoning. Marx wishes to derive the category of 'labour' or physical interaction from these commodities without physical traits. This is problematic.

We want to derive 'labour' from the commodity itself, however labour like all physical interactions is evacuated in the commodity without physical traits. To speak of labour on a commodity, we must speak of the physical commodity and the interaction with its traits. Otherwise there is nothing for labour to interact with, nor can we derive that labour could ever do so.

While Marx observes later how labour alters under capital, however this serves only to partially correct the earlier problems. The abstraction of capitalism does, indeed, mean that other forces that act upon commodities are hidden. To refer to capital being a 'mode of production' would be sleight of hand, like merely contending that despite the commodities being abstracted from they have traits and these determine value. Of course, Marx is correct from this basis to diverge from economics that after this abstraction wishes to make the fundamental economic form depend on people's evaluation of these void commodities. Nonetheless, if the physical traits are abstracted from, then labour and so on are also casualties. The only possible near-exception would be to a 'divine' or 'psychic' labour, that is to one which produced the commodity without participating in it at all or needing to. This would mean that the commodity could exist without such interaction. However, otherwise labour is abstracted from when we mention an abstract commodity.

To abstract from the commodity is also to abstract from the things touching it.

Marx hence wishes to abstract from the physical traits of commodities, then phoenix-like to resurrect them as if they presented a solution. It is like wandering into a desert, as Jesus did, and then promptly wandering out rather than surveying the area. The physical traits of commodities are extinguished, then return covertly in the form of the category of 'physical interactions with these traits.' It is a contradiction of such 'communism,' not of capitalism.

As a result, to criticise it as ignoring the overall interactions of the commodity and world around it is not that misleading. These also play a part in the commodity, and specify its place. Hence, they are also important. However, one might wish to examine the question of production in more depth. If we have an image of production without an object, we of course do not have an image of 'production' in any strict economic sense. It cannot be derived from commodities as such. Nonetheless, we hence have an image of 'production' as an action which might seem to have an object, which is actually objectless. This could be profound in some ways. Hence, production becomes reducible to private motions. While this cannot be acknowledged economically, it is nonetheless a general situation. Hence, people act, albeit without an object, and this process constitutes 'production.' What is the precise nature of this process? In any case, it presents a level of detachment from the external which can easily be decisive. Hence, instead of acting on an external object, production becomes something that constitutes merely actions. Due to the actions being ultimately directed in a void direction, the outcome is hence not the object in a straightforward way, but rather internal stimulation or the stimulating experience of the action. From this, an object or external thing must arise or be ejaculated. Hence, in the midst of this exploration of the commodity, we also happen upon a different or less clearly economic conception of 'production,' which is devoid of its object. Is this confined to capitalism? While the particular form might be,

A given form of labour is familiar and known despite the object not always yet being present, then it is carried out. Hence, it is a process repeatable without a specific object. One could hammer in a nail, or hammer a thousand. The specific nail is not intrinsic to such an occupation. Hence, in a way you still have a generic action or format, followed by this encountering 'objects' and stimuli. In this sense, such labour always has in part the character of labour devoid of a specific object. Nonetheless, it is not necessarily posited socially as abstract labour, as labour without properties. It hence is instead close to this other form of labour which is without a direct object, yet not posited as abstract. Hence, on the other side is posited a human form of action, of which the 'commodity' is merely a result of the stimulation of the action. The commodity hence represents here simply the general emission of this human action. Marx occasionally seemed to draw on such things, positing that labour should be its own end and focussing on the fulfillment of labour. However, this was usually not posited as an aspect of labour independent from the commodity, which springs incidentally from it. As a result, we have instead the possibility - though one which capital discounts - of labour carried on for its own sake and with the commodity merely a result of the stimulation of labour. Hence, the form taken by it and the direction of it is decisive. This is of interest.

Nonetheless, we may also finish the central points with a copy of a comment on their blog:

Böhm-Bawerck deals with Marx's logical exposition, however this is in any case the main part which is relevant later on. As a result, the rest is mostly optional, or follows. If it didn't follow from an analysis of capital, then it would be irrelevant to it specifically. It would be a dishonest association. Hence, Böhm-Bawerck would merely be highlighting the heart of Marx's work.

In general, it is valid to note that other factors go into the commodity. This is a basic factor of capitalism, that other things are subordinated to commodities, and to act as appendages of them. Hence, other factors are also important, because they contribute to the commodity. However, this is a limitation, as these factors cannot be economically integrated or given a notable status. This was somewhat relevant in times of Luddism and so on, where people were forced to sacrifice machinery and so on in order to demand more of a place for themselves. In any case, it forms a limitation in an economy which wishes to centre around something, yet cannot generally do so.

As a result, we may also note the inability of the economy to truly revolve around the 'commodity,' rather than being limited in this by human social relations. Conversely, by abstracting from these human aspects it can easily lead humans to death - the more humans participate, the more they eviscerate themselves. It is like entering a chamber of toxic gas, which is fatal to humans. Nonetheless, the commodity cannot be simply transfigured into human categories, once it is given. It persistently shuns this, as if to maintain this toxicity. In this it deserves some respect.

While the commodity is a fragile thing, being shattered as soon as it is formed, it remains through that a stubborn creature which shrinks from human society. Perhaps it may turn out just as reluctant, in its own manner, to participate. Like Gandhi, it is disobedient though civil, and occasionally beckons humans to throw themselves 'lemming-like' to their deaths, and strips them of their existence. From this perspective, the commodity was like a virus, not merely a stable and acquiescent social commonplace.

All Roads Lead

M-C-M'.

Money capital is the Eden of capital. From this the motions of all its actors spur, towards its possession they return. From it, the whole machinery of capitalism is set in motion. It is the basic principle of the processes and labour of capitalist society, the true fount of all of these. It is the truly motivating force, the active principle of capitalist processes. Yet it is, despite this, insubstantial, as Marx and others displayed in explaining the 'law of value.' The whole 'system' is hence unstable.

Now, before continuing, let us clarify some things. When Marx and so on derive money from the 'form of value,' they are also describing it historically. They begin from the 'commodity,' seeking to explain what a 'commodity' is in general terms. Value is treated as inseparable from the 'law of value,' which is merely a further examination of value's actual nature. Likewise, money is explained as a function of value, as expressing the abstraction inherent in value. Hence, these are historical categories. They can nonetheless take on different traits in different 'systems' and times.


In capitalism, forms of labour are stripped of their unique properties and reduced to abstract labour, as forms of objects are stripped of their unique properties and reduced to an abstract, exchangeable substance. Nonetheless, stripped of these properties the objects are precisely - nothing. Not can such labour be performed, though it is expected. People are set an absurd task, and hence phrases like 'rigged economy' now prominent do well to illustrate this. However, what counts as 'labour' here might be unclear. A person standing on a road could be labour, especially if on video; a person jumping from a cliff could be labour, suicidal, or both. Hence, it would be more exact to say that capital strips 'human activity' and therefore being of its distinguishing features, or represents its reduction to nothing. This might seem to equate capitalism to death, which we shall comment on in a later post. Capital does not check each specific type of activity, to check if it is abstract or nothing - obviously, it could not be. It reduces them to nothing, then it assimilates things into this. However, this means that money is merely an expression of this nothingness stripped of concrete traits. Its own properties become disregarded, except in general associations - and when Marx for instance tries to examine it in depth they are lambasted, as people would rather money rush from here to there without having to look at it. Hence, as money or investment becomes the primary principle of society, at the same time it turns out to be a chimera, and hollow. Such a society is not stable in its progression. At its heart is emptiness, the mere abstraction from determination.

Well, unless you are me, and are acclimatised.

In money, discordant things are brought into a 'system,' or at least 'pseudo-system.' Hence, alongside human societies you have a 'community of things' which does not care for differences or 'determinate being.' Hence, the tendency of money towards forming a 'society' is evident, and given explicit recognition in 'capital.' Marx also noted that money as a disruptive force had been earlier criticised by many social commenters, who viewed it as at least a hindrance. People like Socrates urged social coherence as a counter to such discordance, as a way of cohering the various aspects of society and the human soul. This is in some ways akin to more modern socialism. They hence emphasised 'planning' and the harmonising of society into a consciously organised system. However, their account was still limited, and acknowledged opposed forces into this despite the inevitability - that they feared - of this Republic and the Greek society dissolving. Nonetheless, the Roman Empire would then distort Greek themes while Jesus likewise distorted Judaism into a new, eerie tone, somewhat like German National Socialism would then explicitly alter socialist themes. They were hence intimidating, dangerous Empires haunted by past ghosts, unfamiliar and difficult to surmount. The Romans absorbed the Greek multitude of deities and 'Romanised' it or turned it in a single direction, so a tendency to monotheism was always implicit in their situation. Even Christianity, in the Trinity, evolved polytheistic impulses, or attempted to peddle polytheism with monotheistic tendencies as monotheistic. In this they were merely a lesser representation of the Roman Empire's strange culture. They should be seen alongside other tendencies, such as Emperor-worship and the tile of Caesar derived from the 'martyred' Julius Caesar. However, while all of these were eventually caught up in a crowded religious maelström, Christianity with its pseudo-monotheism could come closer to synthesising these tendencies.

Christianity was appropriate to the time, and tried to dilute itself enough to seem acceptable despite divergences. It could be said that the weakness of Christianity undermined Rome, this is only partially true. Its 'weakness' meant that it could be integrated into Roman culture more freely, without throwing it off track.Further, it was adopted in part due to the weakening of Rome, and merely had to express these conditions. With the decline of Rome came also the revealing of Rome's inner forces in a clearer form, without the same show of grandeur - although this might not have been clear at the time.

The later significance of these religions might vary. In a time of suicide bombing, for instance, it need be no surprise that religions like Christianity are seen as mere 'Western' or socio-political entities, and otherwise unspectacular. However, it has to be noticed that along with the sacrifice of Christ came a vision of general sacrifice and being outcast, a religion where God is 'sacrifice.' Kierkegaard's later distinction of 'divine' and 'human' concerns, as well as emphasis on 'suffering,' come close to recognising this essence. However, the formulation of capitalist society, with its emphasis on worldly accumulation as a spur for all human activities and on indiscriminate consumption, is often quite far from Christianity. In this sense, Christianity formalised several things inherent to 'suicide bombing' and similar dedication to a cause, nonetheless despite this religious worth it also paralysed them. When one shoots a gun, a bullet is ejected and is no longer there. This is a similar tendency. However, things such as sin are less transferable, and cannot be taken up unless one oneself sins. A religion of forgiveness is, in the West, merely a religion of ignoring religion and other demanding views, it does not matter whether the means of this forgiveness is understood or coherent.

In lieu of religion - the assertion that Christianity is taken seriously across the Western world is unrealistic - society takes recourse once again to objects, yet now without the semblance of the divine. Hence the frequent social pessimism, often reactionary, is in part a result of this 'worship' without worship. There is a certain directionless to it. Capitalism, though it tends against opposed political forces, could profit from them in appropriate circumstances, and hence appears unstable. However, they can also easily be assimilated or 'co-exist peacefully,' while their groups are hence set at each other's throats. They are hence neutralised, in part by their own permission. The flaws of capital are displayed, not used - and capitalism could just as well do this by itself. Capitalism nonetheless is in essence slightly closer to 'Christianity,' forcing people into opposition and exalting in money something that cannot be consumed. Yet it still takes this exchangeability as its central property, it is not non-consumption but indiscriminate consumption. To appraise it from a Christian perspective is to take up a critical perspective, or view its categories in their self-defeating nature and 'exploit' that. In wealth there is dearth, a contradiction that undoes it; in display there is danger, wealth must not dictate over dearth or it destroys itself - its self being merely dearth. In the concept of capitalism's contradictions and decline due to them there is a hint of the 'religious.' Hence, from a Christian perspective, to praise capitalism is to criticise it and posit its self-defeating nature, to attack it is to do that. This perspective is rare among Christians, who even if they are ascetic cater to the capitalistic world often without notable discrimination. Even moreso among paid preachers, who somehow generally consider God reducible to abstract labour in pragmatic self-interest. It need be no surprise that Christ died for money - and yet among Christians unlimited monetary gain is praised.

Where are the Romans when they could be useful, eh?

Of course, countries like America might have an uncanny similarity to the Imperium Romanum, especially with the similarly-named USSR doing their best impression. Curiously, after the 'empire' rising from a nation titled as 'Romanus' or romance, a term with notable connotations, you hence have a pseudo-Empire which aspires famously to a dream of 'marriage' while 'rich.' Of course it would be a pseudo-empire, as to marry in abstraction is merely to remain locked up. This aptly dove-tails with the contradictions of the nation, which divides and locks itself into separate places yet wishes to constitute itself as a nation despite this. Others are also viewed as abstractions. With 'romance,' one might rather wonder whom with and how to do this if it doesn't matter. Which is an apt companion to the pagan multiplicity of Rome. This might be slightly more coincidental than the United States of America, whose name suggests very clear associations. And an atomised state is primarily a name.

It goes without saying that liberalism's trumpeting of 'love' as against a movement for American patriotism, with pop music and other noises, is essentially running backwards on a treadmill. Even moreso, because it is incoherent in a society proclaiming its defence of capitalism, and compared to capitalism. Who are you loving? How? Can you make a politics out of 'love' for an abstraction shorn of traits? Love is ultimately the opposite of that, it deals with traits. Clearly people are to conjure something from this emptiness. Yet to reduce love to an abstraction is rather to negate it. Hence, again, it undermines itself and serves its opposition - nationalism, national sovereignty, radical politics, Corbynism (notice for instance its turning against people like Momentum, in favour of comfortable imperialists like Jo Cox funnily enough), extremists, essentially anything at all radical or anti-establishment in direction. Nonetheless, it tries to persevere, like a disease. People literally tearing themselves apart for nothing in particular or at all, like smallpox (variola major, perhaps.)

Yet capitalism is always allied to this empty worship, albeit not quite in this exaggerated form. From money capital all things flow, to find it people run onwards. It offers control and directing of activities, and forms structures of authority that are nonetheless hollow. A 'Party of Labour' is either asceticism or farcical - labourers do not labour to stay labourers, unless they are ascetic, but would prefer to approach capital. It is either to posit limitation and asceticism - in which case why not go all the way? - or alternatively they are nonsensical. A Party where everyone would rather escape, by design and also according to their continuing adherence to capitalism in any way, is a peculiar formation that no doubt invites its difficulties. Really, without asceticism Marxism is nothing, and with it it is still just a knock-off. In general, of course, representative Parties allow capital and the bourgeois to further dictate what labourers get up to, as if they need that after capital's authoritative mediation in everything they do and consume - hopefully with notable scrutiny.  'Labour' can never hold true authority or even more rule in this system, it is an expression of  subordination. If it strives to rule, it will soon undermine - only itself. The other classes have not been caught up in this illusoy striving. However, to express a sense of limitation is, although contrary to the point of labour, at least an opening to people who want to repudiate the values of the system instead. And besides, what is 'labour'? Labour is how rioters are locked up, how an assassin shoots you, how a political deceiver lies to you, it means little. If people were to be paid for videos of rape, then it would be labour. When labourers could well be paid to kill each other, and this is their 'labour,' then for either to act in the interests of 'labour' would be to invite and congratulate the person who wishes to kill you. To posit a unified interest from this particular 'labour' would seem an absurdity on the face of it. Hence, what actually occurs is usually to ignore the labour and instead substitute rhetoric about the 'brotherhood of men' and 'harmony,' which are ultimately just conservative. It is merely some sort of pacifism in radical garb. This renders it essentially empty, in most cases.

Nonetheless, if in a capitalistic or pseudo-capitalistic context people are reduced to undifferentiated things without traits, they are not truly there. Hence, the emphasis on 'love' has seen a massive emphasis on funerals - more and more praise is heaped on the dead. Society is therefore converted into a funeral, which implies that it is misrepresenting its security. However, people are hence converted to money and sought, leaving them powerless to go forwards because they are simultaneously being used. In the process an 'informal aristocracy' builds, with musicians and others increasingly ignoring their competition and proclaiming harmony and close 'friendship' with any nearby, keeping others out. Many old trends have been revived, to make up for the barriers that have been recently erected. However, capitalism relies on drawing people towards money, to take part in a cycle where accumulation and money are central. If people are widely treated as money, directly, then they are forced into stasis and cannot seek money freely because they are under constant surveillance, continually an object. It ends up in stasis. While the abstract person usually existed in capitalism, this was kept at a degree of separation, not turned into an economic and general object to be encountered freely. It were better to be loved by a 'hater,' than an advocate of 'love' in this now reactionary and liberal form, for whom both it and you would truly mean nothing.

We shall discuss soon the ways in which liberalism often degrades capitalism to something below its stature. The economy ultimately obstructs its own goal, it does not allow for people to settle down into the households they aim for. It sets enmity at the heart of this, and decisively prevents people from being secure around others. Capitalism is a system of insecurity and conflict, considered on its own part. If they want crowds, it instead gives them rivals and dangers - if they want law, nonetheless there cannot be a law because nobody looks out for the law and the state, only for their own person. There is no law, merely caprice. Rape is a caprice, the law is also a caprice - if caprice may be treated as law, because it is caprice and leads to one's own pleasure, this were merely to spur on rape and similar things. Hence, capitalism itself sets little stake on the journey which it sets out before humanity. If you wish to please others, then according to capitalism you might as well commit suicide because what they aim for in the system is your undermining. As we will suggest later, the 'way forwards' that capitalism sets for people in its functioning is not one that it emphasises. Hence, the need for 'liberalism' to try and accommodate for the continual need to take capitalism in a direction it does not want to go. In many ways capitalism, by setting a void at its heart, gives no way forwards except to notice its transience.

Hence, capitalism is like being stuck in divestment with no clearly present way forwards. Capital itself must begin with nothing - no traits to defend oneself, no traits that might appeal to others in this context, no traits at all, nothing to offer and usually nothing to receive. Hence, capitalism can often be like people being thrown to sharks. In this sense, the system is often carried out in ways which ultimately are disharmonious with it and undermine it. This is another side of the system, however it is obscured and in its process this is hidden. The system makes demands, yet these are clearly vulgarised everywhere. It lacks 'authority.'

Nonetheless, despite this the process takes a void as its principle, and as the aim where it shall return. People continually, and passionately, enact this in a way that also undermines themselves. In this lemming-like process, however, the possibility of transcending this cycle appears. Yet there must be a certain truth to it, or a connection to humanity, or it could not interact with their societies. The cycles must connect. As such, capitalism is a process, however it lacks a clear direction. Due to this, it must remain a distortion of the process of human society, not directly a form of it. This is its strength, that it continually undermines human aims, tears movements apart (the alternatives to this are rendered artificial and false), and gives processes a deathly pallor and direction. However, it nonetheless remains finite and self-limiting, and must be transcended.