I agree that they are not the same thing, but rather are related concepts, related because they capture aspects of one whole - unproductive consumption of the surplus.
>The above speaks of the relationship between social surplus and the erotic,
>with irony and style that would appeal to the unemployed, underemployed,
>and otherwise alienated youths who have little money but plenty of time to
>spare.
Idle labour - the obverse of idle capital.
> (This is the angle I think Jim is missing, probably because he's
>financially better off than I am.)
It's a relief to hear that I'm financially better off than someone.
>In this age of "workfare," the above sentiment is almost (though not quite)
>subversive.
Just two sides of the same coin in my reading.
BOX: Marx and surplus labour time
‘In capitalist society spare time is acquired for one class by converting the whole life-time of the masses into labour-time.’ Capital, Vol. I p496
‘the specific economic form in which surplus is pumped out of the direct producer determines the relations between rulers and ruled’ Vol III p 791
the capitalist gets rich, not like the miser, in proportion to his personal labour and restricted consumption., but at the same rate as he squeezes out the labour-power of others, and enforces on the labourer abstinence from all life’s enjoyments.’ Capital Vol. I p557
In message <l03130305b1712a72b0ba@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
<dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>Just whom do you have in mind here as the theoreticians of identity?
But the defining characteristic of all of these relations is that they are forged in the realm of consumption. The relationship that cannot be so challenged in this theoretical approach is the relationship that underpins all the others, the relationship of Capital itself.
We can see this blind spot in the writings of Judith Butler. For Butler identities are always unstable, never fixed:
"If there is, as it were, always a compulsion to repeat, repetition never fully accomplishes identity. That there is a need for repetition at all is a sign that identity is not self-identical. It requires to be instituted again and again, which is to say that it runs the risk of being de-instituted at every interval" (1991: 645).
But Butler’s desire to de-institute identity rests on an assumption that the surplus provides the basis for the experimentative performance of identity. In the next breath she asks, but fails to answer, the right question: ‘So what is this psychic excess, and what will constitute a subversive or de-instituting repetition? First it is necessary to consider that sexuality always exceeds any given performance, presentation, narrative...’ (1991: 645).
The excess is simply there. It does not need to be explained. Like Georges Bataille’s erotic uselessness, Butler’s sexuality naturalises the surplus that makes it possible. This is a theory that assumes what it ought to explain, the excess, not relegate it to the theory-blind realm of always.
-- Jim heartfield