Zizek's (Cockburn's) Lenin

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu May 4 07:56:19 PDT 2000


Reese wrote:


> >Sorry to be predictable but which bits of Marx/Lenin are out of date?
>
>Which bits do you think are modern, mark?

I'm not Mark, but just off the top of my head I'd say the descriptions of factory life, though not literally accurate desciptions of lots of work today, are still fresh evocations of work under capitalism; the stuff in the Manifesto about the revolutionary nature of capitalism (sorry, Lou Proyect); the analysis of the phenomenal categories of profit, interest, and rent originating in exploitation at the point of production is a timeless truth of capitalism; the need to expand, colonize, and transform every corner of the earth and every aspect of social life, ditto; the contradictorily liberating and oppressive nature of capitalism, megadittoes. And the stuff about credit and joint stock companies in Vol. 3 of Capital is remarkably prescient, and better than most of the writing on the subject by subsequent Marxists.

Doug



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