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Jon wrote:
>OK first up I haven't read the article, or collection Yoshie Furuhashi
>mentions so maybe I should. It seems to me that the central claim of
>your quote is that power should be treated as a commodity. If this is a
>misunderstanding then my criticisms are going to be totally misplaced!
Abdul JanMohamed isn't saying that power should be treated as commodity.
One of his points is that a marxist understanding of commodity is missing
from Foucault's account of power, to the detriment of Foucault's social
theory. A different argument, you see.
>One of Foucault's most important inheritances from Nietzsche was that
>power is not a commodity. Power is not owned or possessed but exercised.
A commodity in common sense is merely a thing to be owned or possessed--a
concept that is totally reified. Not so for Marx. The 'commodity' is a
moment in a circuit of capital (M-C-M') as well as an expression of social
relations between human beings. (Commodity fetishism makes the nature of
commodities under capitalism opaque to us: "There it is a definite social
relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a
relation between things" ("The Fetishism of Commodities and The Secret
Thereof," _Capital_ Vo. 1). Most importantly, Foucault would have done
better had he taken account of labor power as a commodity that produces
surplus value:
To obtain surplus value, the owner of money "must ...find... in the market
a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a
source of value" [36] -- a commodity whose process of consumption is at the
same time a process of the creation of value. Such a commodity exists --
human labor power. Its consumption is labor, and labor creates value. The
owner of money buys labor power at its value, which, like the value of
every other commodity, is determined by the socially necessary labor time
requisite for its production (i.e., the cost of maintaining the worker and
his family). Having bought enough labor power, the owner of money is
entitled to use it, that is, to set it to work for a whole day -- 12 hours,
let us say. Yet, in the course of six hours ("necessary" labor time) the
worker creates product sufficient to cover the cost of his own maintenance;
in the course of the next six hours ("surplus" labor time), he creates
"surplus" product, or surplus value, for which the capitalist does not pay.
(From Marx/Engels Archive
<http://csf.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/24/csf/web/psn/marx/Bio/Marx-Karl/Grana=
t/3.
html>
>Secondly to talk of spheres of power eg. economic, artistic, medical is
>an abstraction - occasionaly a necessary one but still an abstraction
>that should not be mistaken for an actuality. I know that its debatable
>as to how wed Marx ever was to some kind of base-superstructure split
>but Foucault in Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality is
>totally beyond that (the Panopticon intervenes/defines multiple enclosed
>spaces; disciplinary assemblages are used in schools, the army then the
>factory). Geneaology as he says is "contingent, ironic, singular" which
>to me is the best explanation for why he does not fall back on Captial
>as an explanatory schema even when it might be convenient - a thrust of
>Discipline and Punish is how the productive forces of populations of
>bodies were increased through disciplinary assemblages after all.
By eschewing an explanation that takes capital into account, in fact,
=46oucault ends up reproducing the abstract separation of different spheres
he might have sought to overcome through his concept of power. What gives
rise to discourse, apparatus, episteme, etc. that Foucault analyzes? How do
they reproduce themselves? Why do they change? What purposes do they serve?
To whose benefit? Who gets controled in the 'Society of Control'? How do we
transform society in such a manner that 'discipline and punish' shall cease
to be its modus operandi? These are legitimate questions that Foucault
merely suspends, by suspending the framework that analyzes capitalism as a
system of social relations, and such suspension is not the same as
overcoming the base-superstructure split (whatever it is).
Yoshie Furuhashi
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Jon wrote:
>OK first up I haven't read the article, or collection Yoshie Furuhashi
=20
>mentions so maybe I should. It seems to me that the central claim of=20
>your quote is that power should be treated as a commodity. If this is
a=20
>misunderstanding then my criticisms are going to be totally misplaced!
=20
Abdul JanMohamed isn't saying that power should be treated as
commodity. One of his points is that a marxist understanding of
commodity is missing from Foucault's account of power, to the detriment
of Foucault's social theory. A different argument, you see.
>One of Foucault's most important inheritances from Nietzsche was that
>power is not a commodity. Power is not owned or possessed but
exercised.=20
A commodity in common sense is merely a thing to be owned or
possessed--a concept that is totally reified. Not so for Marx. The
'commodity' is a moment in a circuit of capital (M-C-M') as well as an
expression of social relations between human beings. (Commodity
fetishism makes the nature of commodities under capitalism opaque to
us: "There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes,
in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things" ("The
=46etishism of Commodities and The Secret Thereof," _Capital_ Vo. 1).
Most importantly, Foucault would have done better had he taken account
of labor power as a commodity that produces surplus value:
<paraindent><param>right,right,left,left</param>To obtain surplus
value, the owner of money "must ...find... in the market a commodity,
whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of
value" [36] -- a commodity whose process of consumption is at the same
time a process of the creation of value. Such a commodity exists --
human labor power. Its consumption is labor, and labor creates value.
The owner of money buys labor power at its value, which, like the value
of every other commodity, is determined by the socially necessary labor
time requisite for its production (i.e., the cost of maintaining the
worker and his family). Having bought enough labor power, the owner of
money is entitled to use it, that is, to set it to work for a whole day
-- 12 hours, let us say. Yet, in the course of six hours ("necessary"
labor time) the worker creates product sufficient to cover the cost of
his own maintenance; in the course of the next six hours ("surplus"
labor time), he creates "surplus" product, or surplus value, for which
the capitalist does not pay. (From Marx/Engels Archive
<<http://csf.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/24/csf/web/psn/marx/Bio/Marx-Karl/Gran=
at/3.html>
</paraindent>
>Secondly to talk of spheres of power eg. economic, artistic, medical
is=20
>an abstraction - occasionaly a necessary one but still an abstraction
>that should not be mistaken for an actuality. I know that its
debatable=20
>as to how wed Marx ever was to some kind of base-superstructure split
>but Foucault in Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality is=20
>totally beyond that (the Panopticon intervenes/defines multiple
enclosed=20
>spaces; disciplinary assemblages are used in schools, the army then
the=20
>factory). Geneaology as he says is "contingent, ironic, singular"
which=20
>to me is the best explanation for why he does not fall back on Captial
>as an explanatory schema even when it might be convenient - a thrust
of=20
>Discipline and Punish is how the productive forces of populations of=20
>bodies were increased through disciplinary assemblages after all.
By eschewing an explanation that takes capital into account, in fact,
=46oucault ends up reproducing the abstract separation of different
spheres he might have sought to overcome through his concept of power.
What gives rise to discourse, apparatus, episteme, etc. that Foucault
analyzes? How do they reproduce themselves? Why do they change? What
purposes do they serve? To whose benefit? Who gets controled in the
'Society of Control'? How do we transform society in such a manner that
'discipline and punish' shall cease to be its modus operandi? These are
legitimate questions that Foucault merely suspends, by suspending the
framework that analyzes capitalism as a system of social relations, and
such suspension is not the same as overcoming the base-superstructure
split (whatever it is).
Yoshie Furuhashi
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Jon wrote:
>OK first up I haven't read the article, or collection Yoshie Furuhashi
>mentions so maybe I should. It seems to me that the central claim of
>your quote is that power should be treated as a commodity. If this is a
>misunderstanding then my criticisms are going to be totally misplaced!
Abdul JanMohamed isn't saying that power should be treated as commodity.
One of his points is that a marxist understanding of commodity is missing
from Foucault's account of power, to the detriment of Foucault's social
theory. A different argument, you see.
>One of Foucault's most important inheritances from Nietzsche was that
>power is not a commodity. Power is not owned or possessed but exercised.
A commodity in common sense is merely a thing to be owned or possessed--a
concept that is totally reified. Not so for Marx. The 'commodity' is a
moment in a circuit of capital (M-C-M') as well as an expression of social
relations between human beings. (Commodity fetishism makes the nature of
commodities under capitalism opaque to us: "There it is a definite social
relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a
relation between things" ("The Fetishism of Commodities and The Secret
Thereof," _Capital_ Vo. 1). Most importantly, Foucault would have done
better had he taken account of labor power as a commodity that produces
surplus value:
To obtain surplus value, the owner of money "must ...find... in the market
a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a
source of value" [36] -- a commodity whose process of consumption is at the
same time a process of the creation of value. Such a commodity exists --
human labor power. Its consumption is labor, and labor creates value. The
owner of money buys labor power at its value, which, like the value of
every other commodity, is determined by the socially necessary labor time
requisite for its production (i.e., the cost of maintaining the worker and
his family). Having bought enough labor power, the owner of money is
entitled to use it, that is, to set it to work for a whole day -- 12 hours,
let us say. Yet, in the course of six hours ("necessary" labor time) the
worker creates product sufficient to cover the cost of his own maintenance;
in the course of the next six hours ("surplus" labor time), he creates
"surplus" product, or surplus value, for which the capitalist does not pay.
(From Marx/Engels Archive
<http://csf.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/24/csf/web/psn/marx/Bio/Marx-Karl/Grana=
t/3.
html>
>Secondly to talk of spheres of power eg. economic, artistic, medical is
>an abstraction - occasionaly a necessary one but still an abstraction
>that should not be mistaken for an actuality. I know that its debatable
>as to how wed Marx ever was to some kind of base-superstructure split
>but Foucault in Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality is
>totally beyond that (the Panopticon intervenes/defines multiple enclosed
>spaces; disciplinary assemblages are used in schools, the army then the
>factory). Geneaology as he says is "contingent, ironic, singular" which
>to me is the best explanation for why he does not fall back on Captial
>as an explanatory schema even when it might be convenient - a thrust of
>Discipline and Punish is how the productive forces of populations of
>bodies were increased through disciplinary assemblages after all.
By eschewing an explanation that takes capital into account, in fact,
=46oucault ends up reproducing the abstract separation of different spheres
he might have sought to overcome through his concept of power. What gives
rise to discourse, apparatus, episteme, etc. that Foucault analyzes? How do
they reproduce themselves? Why do they change? What purposes do they serve?
To whose benefit? Who gets controled in the 'Society of Control'? How do we
transform society in such a manner that 'discipline and punish' shall cease
to be its modus operandi? These are legitimate questions that Foucault
merely suspends, by suspending the framework that analyzes capitalism as a
system of social relations, and such suspension is not the same as
overcoming the base-superstructure split (whatever it is).
Yoshie Furuhashi
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Jon wrote:
>OK first up I haven't read the article, or collection Yoshie Furuhashi
=20
>mentions so maybe I should. It seems to me that the central claim of=20
>your quote is that power should be treated as a commodity. If this is
a=20
>misunderstanding then my criticisms are going to be totally misplaced!
=20
Abdul JanMohamed isn't saying that power should be treated as
commodity. One of his points is that a marxist understanding of
commodity is missing from Foucault's account of power, to the detriment
of Foucault's social theory. A different argument, you see.
>One of Foucault's most important inheritances from Nietzsche was that
>power is not a commodity. Power is not owned or possessed but
exercised.=20
A commodity in common sense is merely a thing to be owned or
possessed--a concept that is totally reified. Not so for Marx. The
'commodity' is a moment in a circuit of capital (M-C-M') as well as an
expression of social relations between human beings. (Commodity
fetishism makes the nature of commodities under capitalism opaque to
us: "There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes,
in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things" ("The
=46etishism of Commodities and The Secret Thereof," _Capital_ Vo. 1).
Most importantly, Foucault would have done better had he taken account
of labor power as a commodity that produces surplus value:
<paraindent><param>right,right,left,left</param>To obtain surplus
value, the owner of money "must ...find... in the market a commodity,
whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of
value" [36] -- a commodity whose process of consumption is at the same
time a process of the creation of value. Such a commodity exists --
human labor power. Its consumption is labor, and labor creates value.
The owner of money buys labor power at its value, which, like the value
of every other commodity, is determined by the socially necessary labor
time requisite for its production (i.e., the cost of maintaining the
worker and his family). Having bought enough labor power, the owner of
money is entitled to use it, that is, to set it to work for a whole day
-- 12 hours, let us say. Yet, in the course of six hours ("necessary"
labor time) the worker creates product sufficient to cover the cost of
his own maintenance; in the course of the next six hours ("surplus"
labor time), he creates "surplus" product, or surplus value, for which
the capitalist does not pay. (From Marx/Engels Archive
<<http://csf.colorado.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/24/csf/web/psn/marx/Bio/Marx-Karl/Gran=
at/3.html>
</paraindent>
>Secondly to talk of spheres of power eg. economic, artistic, medical
is=20
>an abstraction - occasionaly a necessary one but still an abstraction
>that should not be mistaken for an actuality. I know that its
debatable=20
>as to how wed Marx ever was to some kind of base-superstructure split
>but Foucault in Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality is=20
>totally beyond that (the Panopticon intervenes/defines multiple
enclosed=20
>spaces; disciplinary assemblages are used in schools, the army then
the=20
>factory). Geneaology as he says is "contingent, ironic, singular"
which=20
>to me is the best explanation for why he does not fall back on Captial
>as an explanatory schema even when it might be convenient - a thrust
of=20
>Discipline and Punish is how the productive forces of populations of=20
>bodies were increased through disciplinary assemblages after all.
By eschewing an explanation that takes capital into account, in fact,
=46oucault ends up reproducing the abstract separation of different
spheres he might have sought to overcome through his concept of power.
What gives rise to discourse, apparatus, episteme, etc. that Foucault
analyzes? How do they reproduce themselves? Why do they change? What
purposes do they serve? To whose benefit? Who gets controled in the
'Society of Control'? How do we transform society in such a manner that
'discipline and punish' shall cease to be its modus operandi? These are
legitimate questions that Foucault merely suspends, by suspending the
framework that analyzes capitalism as a system of social relations, and
such suspension is not the same as overcoming the base-superstructure
split (whatever it is).
Yoshie Furuhashi
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