Karl Marx in America: Readings for the Current Global Economic Crisis

1. Karl Marx in America:Readings for the Current Global Economic Crisis • Joseph W.H. Lough, Ph.D. • Filozofski fakultet Tuzla • Blog: http://www.newconsensus.org/MarxInAmerica/ • Twitter: @jwhlough • email: joseph.lough@gmail.com • phone: +387 603375497

2. Review • The Problem • The Course • Expectations • Gymnasium in a Box

3. Review • The Problem • if the break-up of the former Yugoslavia was structured by global forces, then we need to grasp these forces • what is our experience and understanding of “freedom” that brings us to overlook systemic occasions for domination and to focus, instead, on disembedded agency?

4. Review • The Course • the formation of the world system • defense of the world system • crisis of the world system

5. Review • Expectations • reading and discussing in English • participation and engagement; we know by doing; we change when we know what we are doing • grasp and shape the end of capitalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina

6. Review • Gymnasium in a Box • about how small, out of the way, unattractive, sparsely settled places change the course of history • about freedom/necessity, slave/master, private/public, economic/political, work/leisure, power/knowledge • about how we can prevent the public from putting good men to death

7. Preview • We are moving toward the crisis of declining rates of profit that took hold in the late 1960s • We are moving toward the completely integrated world of knowledge and power that emerged in the 18th century in western Europe; we are moving toward Hegel’s Self-Moving Substance that is Subject

8. Preview • But, in order to reach that point we need first to observe the mechanisms behind the composition of this world; we need to look at the invention of time • D Landes, Revolution in Time (Darijan Ajdin) • EP Thompson, Time, Work Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism (Адис Садиковић) • I Kant, Prolegomena (Emin Eminagic)

9. Revolution in Time • In 1200, it is difficult to think of a more backward, fragmented, unattractive place than Europe – cold, rainy, inhospitable • Contrast Europe with the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258), or the Song Dynasty (960-1279), or the Mayas (1000 BCE - 1000 CE), or the Wagadu Empire (750-1078)

10. Revolution in Time • We like to think of capitalism as hard-wired into our being; • But in order to think this way we ascribe to non-capitalist social formations attributes that would have led to their demise: greed, selfishness, life-death conflict, hoarding, deceit; • or, as Aristotle put it, the unending pursuit of ever more zeros in place of material wealth

11. Revolution in Time • Capitalism is not the same as greed, selfishness, life-death conflict, hoarding, deceit – which have been with us forever, but which all social formations have strongly discouraged • . . . because their widespread persistence would have led to the destruction of these social formations

12. Revolution in Time • When the escapement mechanism is carried from China to Europe, did its bearers intend to utterly destroy the ancient Christian religion, tear apart the traditional family, lay waste to monarchies, eliminate traditional social status and class, or create modern democracy, science, nationalism, or mass movements?

13. Revolution in Time • When cloistered monks used clocks to announce times of prayer, did they intend to utterly destroy the ancient Christian religion, tear apart the traditional family, lay waste to monarchies, eliminate traditional social status and class, or create modern democracy, science, nationalism, or mass movements?

14. Revolution in Time • We like history that has a purpose, a directional dynamic, a meaning . . . • What was the purpose or meaning of adopting the escapement mechanism that marched out equal units of abstract time?

15. Revolution in Time • Why did this new technology catch on so quickly in Europe? • Who resisted adopting the new technology and why?

16. Revolution in Time • If there is a continent-wide “western” or “European” culture, when did it appear and why?

17. Work Discipline • Is there anything “natural” or “inevitable” or “virtuous” to governing our actions in accordance with equal units of abstract time? • What counter evidence is there to the belief that abstract time is “natural,” “inevitable,” or “virtuous”?

18. Work Discipline • What evidence is there that individuals resisted the drive to subject themselves to abstract time? • Are there pockets of “time” and “space” not dominated by abstract time? • Are these pockets sufficiently dense or practically dominant to override abstract time?

19. I Kant, Prolegomena • By the time we reach I Kant, the world is already thoroughly dominated by the new form of social mediation

20. I Kant, Prolegomena • The isolation of immaterial value from its material form of appearance • the disappearing wounds of the risen Body of Christ • the emergence of a new experience of precious metals • the disenchantment of the Body and Blood of the Holy Sacrament • the dematerialization of the Christian Faith

21. I Kant, Prolegomena • Where does freedom reside for I Kant? • Where does freedom reside for most people?

22. I Kant, Prolegomena • By the 18th century, social subjectivity in Europe is mediated by the value form of the commodity – which already dictates how bourgeois Europe experiences its world; among other evidence . . . • . . . the evidence for this is Kant.

23. I Kant, Prolegomena • Is “Kant” or the “west” or “Europe” or “the Enlightenment” responsible for this dramatic transformation in social subjectivity? • What is responsible?

24. I Kant, Prolegomena • We are trying to understand our social and historical ontology from the inside; • So was I Kant; and, as we will see next Wednesday . . . • So were A Smith, GWF Hegel and K Marx • They are not ideological enemies; they are colleagues in a common quest

25. Preview • We need volunteers for A Smith, GWF Hegel, and K Marx • I cannot meet on Monday; I am in Austria; presenters can meet with me Thursday, Friday morning, or Tuesday evening. • The social history of critically Marxian interpretive categories