sorry! I missed your response b/c I didn't recognize your from name, c b. :)
This will have to come in parts, I think, but I pointed to what Heartfield said about the use of direct coercion v. the indirect compulsion of the market. I think Carrol is referring to that, and to Postone development of this distinction in a chapter called 'Abstract Labor' in a section called 'Abstract labor and alienation'.
Postone's argument is that capitalism is a new development. By that he means that, in earlier forms of social domination, the compulsion is a function of direct, personalized, concrete forms of domination. He opens by saying this:
"Proceeding from the category of the commodity and the initial determination of labor as a social mediation, Marx then develops further determinations of the capitalist totality by unfolding the categories of money and capital."
This social mediation, though, is not one in which individuals are located in relation to one another. Rather, this social mediation is unlike earlier forms because it takes on a "life of its own." As such, it is completely independent of the "individuals it mediates. It develops into a sort of objective system over and against the individuals, and it increasingly determines the goals and means of human activity." (p 158)
And this is where I think it's interesting, if only because I've been
arguing with Carrol about this for years, and now he's starting to get it!
:) Postone says next, "Marx's critical theory...entails a complex analysis
of the reciprocal constitution of system and action in capitalist society
which does not posit the transhistorical existence of that very opposition
-- between system and action -- but grounds it and each of its terms in the
determinate forms of modern social life."
So, you see, Postone is not at all interested in developing a conception of absolute totalizing structure where individual action accounts for nothing. But moving on, about the totality, which is new, he writes,
"this form of domination is not grounded in any person, class or institution;"
I'll stop there, to let it sink in. His position here is taking a side in the basic arguments we have repeatedly on this list. I'll try to, as Jenny wrote recently, run some examples through my claim as we go along, but for now, I want to look at what else Postone says:
(so this domination is impersonal, abstract, objective; it is not grounded *IN* a person, class, or institution; rather,):
"its ultimate locus is the pervasive structuring of social forms of capitalist society that are constituted by determinate forms of social practice.[1] Society as the quasi-independent, abstract, universal Other that stands opposed to the individuals and exerts an impersonal compulsion on them, is constituted as an alienated structure by the **double character of labor in capitalism.** (my emph) The category of value, as the basic category of capitalist relations of production, is also the initial determination of alienated social structures. Capitalist social relations and alienated structures are identical."[2]
OK. now here he also says something that piqued my interest as it, again, speaks directly to pervasive arguments on this list. in this case, the argument about whether objectification of one's body/mind/whatever is something we should encourage people to do in spheres of society where we are usually not supposed to. Bluntly, the sex worker wars! ha ha! :) Obviously, Postone is not running his claim through this example, but I think it speaks directly to it when he writes:
"It is well known that, in his early writings, Marx maintains that labor objectifying itself in products need not be alienating, and criticizes Hegel for not having distinguished between alienation and objectification."
But this depends on how you understand labor -- how you conceive of the relatonship between alienation and objectification -- says Postone.
"If," Postone insists, "one proceeds from a **transhistorical notion of 'labor,'** (my emph) the difference between objectification and alienation necessarily must be grounded in factors *extrinsic*(P's emph) to the objectifying activity -- for example, in property relations, that is, in whether the immediate produces are able to dispose of their own labor and its products, or whether the capitalist class appropriates them."
But, but, but... Postone rejects this approach -- because he rejects any notion of a transhistorical notion of labor. Thus, he continues:
"Such a notion of alienated labor does not adequately grasp the sort of socially constituted abstract necessity" peculiar to capitalism. To illustrate he writes, "In Marx's later writings...alienation is rooted in the double character of commodity-determined labor, and as such, is *intrinsic* (his emph) to the character of that labor itself. Its function as a socially mediating activity is externalizes as an independent, abstract social sphere that exerts a form of impersonal compulsion on the people who constitute it. **Labor in capitalism gives rise to a social structure that dominates it. This form of self-generated reflexive domination is alienation."
"Such an analysis... implies another understanding of the difference between objectification and alienation. The difference...is not a function of what occurs to concrete labor and its products; rather, his analysis shows that *objection is indeed alienation -- if what labor objectifies are social relations.* (his emph) This identity, however, is historically determinate; it is a function of the specific nature of labor in capitalism. Hence, the possibility exists that it could be overcome."
I will skip over some more and maybe come back to it later, because I will leave you with the money shot:
"The abstract domination and the exploitation of labor characteristic of capitalism are grounded, not in the appropriation of the surplus by the nonlaboring classes, but in the form of labor in capitalism" (p 161)
and with that, I must head off to work. Hi ho, hi ho... hmmmm snow white. dwarves. the wicked queen. cute lil butterflies... dot dot dot
* {1}in his footnote for this sentence, he says that this is the opposite of what Foucault is up to in _Discipline and Punish_
[2] he tells you to go read Bertell Ollman on alienation, esp pp 157, 176 :)
"let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."
-- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws