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/190/ Top 5 Fetishes ft. Elena Louisa Lange (Patreon)

Published:
2021-05-04 06:00:03
Imported:
2024-07
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On class reductionism, commodity fetishism, and value theory.

To discuss Covid, the state as 'PMC leviathan', and the politics of value theory, we’re joined by philosopher Elena Louisa Lange, who also explains why class reductionism is not a theoretical position or a mere mistake, but a social reality. We also address the value of 'going back to school', take on the new Leftist 'holy trinity' of class-race-gender, and hear from Elena why we need to theorise the world before we change it.

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John Kennedy

I have only listened to this ep once (apparently it gets better each time), but on first listening I found it disappointing. I felt that the guest didn't give a satisfactory explanation of heavy concepts/questions from Capital when pushed. One example: why doesn't the act of exchange create value? What about cashiers, do they not create value? It is not sufficient to state that this isn't Marx's position. I find it hard to believe that Haider doesn't understand 1. that exploitation under capitalism is a historically specific form of exploitation 2. the difference between the exploitation of labour by capital and racial oppression - this is not exactly a good faith interpretation of his work, and not the impression one gets from reading his book Mistaken Identity. Her response to the question on gender seemed to be to tell women to go out and do something about it. Are we to take from this that sex is in fact a salient difference within society which generates oppression semi-autonomously (e.g. random sex-based violence)?

dshamz_

I agree with a lot of what Lange says here about identity politics and the labour theory of value, but I’m confused about her argument regarding the ideas of the middle class being hegemonic. If the middle class can only attach itself parasitically to the political projects of the bourgeoisie or proletariat (depending on their relative strength), then how can it’s values be the dominant values in neoliberal capitalist societies? It seems to me that the values that Lange attributes to the middle class would also have to be the values of the ruling class for Marx’s classic materialist statement on ideology, that ‘the dominant values of a society are the values of its ruling class’, to hold. Why does the parasitic relationship of the middle class to the ruling class that Lange outlines invert this? I think there’s a danger in a lot of the current conversations around the PMC to attribute more power to them than they really have, even more than the class that actually rules. Maybe this is an overly functionalist take, but it seems to me that the PMC don’t actually lead, but are in a position of relative influence because of the disorganizing role they play for capital with regard to the working class. But I don’t follow her argument that appears to place the PMC in a dominant role.

W
>>59182919

(in regard to the recent 'Sarah' incident in London...)

Sensible Captain
>>59286481

The difference between the class interests of the PMC, which implies a cultural hegemony over the working class, and the lack of a political project related to it, is crucial. You can argue that the PMC is exactly the class whose ideas are the dominant ideas, but it fundamentally lacks a political vision - 'political' in the sense of politics proper, not anti- or post-politics (in fact, the most you can say about the PMC's political project is that it's post-political). If you understand the difference, you understand why the PMC is both hegemonic in cultural and social terms, while it completely lacks a political or economic compass.