Five Theses on Informational–Cognitive Capitalism

George N. Dafermos

1

Recession is here, everywhere. Whether recession is artificial and thus compatible
with the axiomatic of capitalism (that is, the tendency toward a world market), or
forced and thus a threat to capitalism is still debated.

From the perspective of
Capital, what is more important is that the historic magnification, which has been
defining capitalism since the 15th century, is not likely to maintain its pace or
character. There are no more barbarians to civilise, no more virgin lands to
conquer and colonise. The new barbarians are refined, the new virgin lands are not
defined by geographical parameters. Primitive accummulation has been completed;
explosion now gives way to implosion.

nolympics writes:

"What Is Communism?
Paul Bowman

What is communism? Well according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, communism is


        "1 a political theory derived from Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person is paid and works according to his or her needs and abilities. 2 (usu. Communism) a the communistic form of society established in the USSR and elsewhere."

If that was correct then this would be a very short article. However, as so often, the Concise Oxford is wrong again. In fact the terms socialism and communism appear in England around the 1820s as terms adopted by members of the cooperative movement who were sick of hearing their politics referred to as "Owenism". Originally the two terms were undifferentiated but by the 1840s communism was used by revolutionaries to differentiate themselves from reformists such as J.S. Mill who had adopted socialism to cover an indigestible mess of reformisms.

By the 1870s the terms had moved from differentiating means to distinguishing ends. The proper Oxford English Dictionary notes in its sources:


        "Forster Diary 11 May in T. W. Reid Life (1888).... I learn that the great distinction between communism and socialism is that the latter believes in payment according to work done and the former does not".

It is this meaning of communism as opposed to socialism that evolved in the late nineteenth century that this article discusses. Of course it's not that important to get hung up on a name, for many people the Concise definition of communism being something to do with Marx and the USSR is the one they know. For us the name of the post-capitalist society we aim to help construct is a detail, what matters is the content of the ideas. Nonetheless for the purposes of this article we need to choose a name so we stick with the historical one.

"The Contradiction of Trotsky"

Claude Lefort

"Let us hold out our hands to each other and rally around our Party's committees. We must not forget even for a minute that only the Party committees can worthily lead us, only they will light our way to the Promised Land."

It was in these words, with the turn of phrase now familiar to us all, that as early as 1905 Stalin addressed the Russian workers on the occasion of their first revolution. It may well have been on that very same day, Trotsky notes, that Lenin dispatched from Geneva the following appeal to the masses: 'Make way for the anger and hatred that have accumulated in your hearts throughout the centuries of exploitation, suffering and grief! (1)

Nothing could be more typical of the two men, or better bring out the contrast between them, than these two statements, one made by a revolutionary for whom the oppressed masses are the essential force of history, the other made by a party militant, already a 'bureaucrat', for whom the party apparatus alone knows what the future is to be and is capable of bringing it about. For us who are familiar with the course that events have taken since then, this psychological opposition assumes a more general significance, for it forms part of a broader opposition that is essentially historical in character.

NOT BORED! writes:

"Guy Debord's Letters, 1957–1972"

Not Bored!

"I believe that all of the people who prefer personal letters to the [situationists'] journal lack the ability to elevate themselves to the generality of the same problems. Thus, they don't see that it is the same position, the same thing, but more utilizable by more people. Of course, if it is a question of saying, "we are all better than that" (than all writing), this is obvious. It is one of our basic themes. But an epistolary correspondence, even with a friend, even if one is understood, seems to me further away from the importance of living than the most profoundly calculated texts. It is even less satisying." — Guy Debord, letter of 2 September 1964 to Ivan Chtcheglov

Despite Guy Debord's reservations about epistolary correspondences, he engaged in a great many of them — so many, in fact, that it's going to take six full-sized volumes for Editions Fayard to publish them all. To date, four of them have come out: Volume 1, 1957–1960 (published in 1999); Volume 2, 1961–1964 (2001); Volume 3, 1965–1968 (2003); and Volume 4, 1969–1972 (2005). It isn't known what will be contained in Volume 5 (1973–1976? 1973–1994?). But it is known that Volume 6 will include the pre-1957 period, plus letters that have been received between 1999 and the conclusion of this immense work.

In her introduction to Volume 1, Alice Becker-Ho (a.k.a. Alice Debord) writes:

This global correspondence, which is rich in lessons on the personality and active role that he had during these forty years, thus take their place in the complete works of Guy Debord. It will perhaps orient differently the always growing number of biographers who are pressed to draw premature conclusions from all sorts of legends that have surrounded someone who was especially pleased to have a well-known bad reputation.