SO~IO.CRITICISM

1111 rl III Il\.'l it)lI: SI)I."iu-Cril iciSlI1('1:111,11: OIlCIII:I &l:rulI\r",»sl: l;:lillurJ

Pierre MachereyHenri Mitterand

2

6

21Fredric Jameson

29SO58

Jean DecottigniesDaniel~ SallenaveFran~oise Gaillard

6882P.Kuentz

Jacques Leenhardt94105Jean Fran~ois Lyotard

Jean Baudrillard

The Problem of RenectionColonial Discourse in The Journey ;'1to the End of

the NightThe Ideology of Fonn: Partial Systems in IA Vielle

Nile -

Propos TheoriquesFonnalism, Marxism, PsychoanalysisLiterary Code(s) and Ideology: Towards a

Contestation of SemiologyA Reading of Ideology or an Ideology of Reading?Toward a Sociological Aesthetic: An Attempt at

Constructing the Aesthetic of Lucien GoldmanThe Tooth, the PalmToward a Critique of the Political Economy of the

SignEntretien

IIIHenri Meschonnic.Jean-Jacques Thomas 11-7

Jaanes Cortese122

Joel Roache133

Phyllis Zukennan146

80urgeoisMyth and Anti-Myth: The Western Heroof the Fifties

"What had made him and what he meant:" ThePolitics of Wholeness in 'How Bigger' was born

Ideology and the Patriarchal Family: Nerval andFlora Tristan

First Aesthetic Meditation on Capital:'tlle.ana Rodriguez &' Marc Zimmemlan 160

187209

Bette LustigRubert LevineF. C. St Aubyn

Ltldovic Janvier: A Newer NovelistRepression in Clige.rEast Meets West: Michel Dutor's "Dans les

flammes" 222

Rtvicws 231Books Received 234Contributors 236

SUB-STANCE is a review dedicated to the discussion and dissemination of contem.p<>rary critical th~()ry and literary texts. SUB-STANCE proposes the reexaminationof classical literary tl!xts in dle light of developments in contemporary disciplines.SUB-STANCE welcomes the participation of all those-students and teachen-inter-ested in making known dleir present research and results. SUB.ST ANCE will publishin each issue a section devoted to a single author, critic or problem.

-

First Aesthetic Meditations on Capital 161

Is there an insumlountable split between the structuralist and anti-structuralistMarxists? Are there means available or forseeable for a possible integration anddevelopment'! aile recent effort (among many others) is found in the ungoing work ofl'rlJdric JalI1IJStlll. CliplJci:llly if u husis ClIUIc.! bl: '{ltlllc.! fur rlJcl)l1cl:ptllulizillg Ilis 1111al.gellt:ral chupter ill 'Iis hlxlk lll1 Westt:m Murxism (Lukacs, 81l>Ch, Sartre al1d FrunkfurtSchl)lll mt:mbt:rs) ill ligllt uf Ilis culnplementary study uf lom1alist and structuralisttheory 1-so that his perspectives on combined diachronic/synchronic analysis,culminating in tile qut:stion of the .relatio!1 between commodity and artistic form,cuuld achieve a mure richly il1strun1ental syntllesis.8 But perhaps of even greatersignificance fur a general theory and critique of contemporary capitalist society(including artistic 1(lmls) is the work of Jean Baudrillard,9 especially ifhis work can bert:conceptualized ill ternls of hnmanuel Wallerstein's tlleory of the structuring andfunctioning of a worldwide capitalist system, and then applied to given forms insub-systel11S of lonns within this world system. to

To give schematic expression to the synthesis of sources utilized for our:tl:stlletic meditatil)l1s allll Iheir possihle development: Baudrillard makes the followillgMarxist-tending elaborations on Saussure:

Signifier F Signified; Wage F Labor; Use-value F Exchange-value

- Signified- SignifierWageLa1)Of

Exchange-valueUse-value f Symbolic exchange=

The slasl! above (I) indicates "the radical exclusion of the symbolic exchange from thefield of value," the separation of sign from the object world; that is,

Sign F ReaJity

Thus, Baudrillard gives a semiotic conversion to the implicit Marxist view thatexchange-value represents, but is not equal to (f:) use-value:

Signifier II

SignifiedExchange-value

Use-vallie=

Appealing to other structuralist perspectives, we may say that dte movementfrom C-M-C to M -C-M'signaJled a "crisis ofrepresentation,,12-a movement frommetaphor to metonymy,I3 as unequalized equivalent expression of dte fact ofC:lpil:llisl dt:vclopl\l~III'~ pt:rpt:lllal 11ccessity (as basil; to its strucillre) to proollceil1$l:lbility ul1d 1:11:ll1g~ ill unlt:r 10 surviye.14 111 Althllsst:ri311 tenns, capitalistml.'lllIlymy i~ IIII.' h:l~i~ Ilf III~ v~ry sYI1c11ro11Y of Capit:llism I 5; until mpillre,

l:ol1lrudil;liol1~ :lrt: 111.'1I1r:llii!cd il1l(1 polarities which muilltuil1 tht: slructure.16 The veryfal:t that Base f Supt:rslrlll:tllre maintains the distortions enabling the relation between:I developing ul1d ch:ll1gil1g C:lpit:llist base and a wide v:lriety of superstructures which:Ire not homult.g()US but in flll1ctiol1al relation to it 11-and which gives possibility tomUV~ll1el1t ill Iht' $t:rvil:t' l1ul I» pr:lxis, but its l1egati()11 or cooptation, assuring the

First Aesthetic Meditations on Capital 163

)-

A commll<lity is ... Oln object olltside liS, a thing thOlt by itsproperties satisfies hllinan wants The nature of such wants, whether... they spring from the ston13ch or fancy, makes no difference. (p. 35)

Aesthetic fom1s are also objects outside us, supposedly satisfying wants springingfrom fancy. We could carry sllcll a definition to a much more precise and technicallevel. But here Marx warns, the subjective nature or basis of the use of the object is notimportant. Why? Becallse it is in its f\!nction as a vehicle for exchange value that theCOlllllludity as a culIlIIll>dity I~)cratus u"der capitali5l1l. It must satisfy a bask: orinduced need to qualify as a commodity. But once doing this, the exchange valuefunction predontinates--and this is the tie to capitalist production. Capitalistproduction prevails over other productions, including the artistic. Objective exchangevalue predominates over use value, and in fact alters need and use value. Undercapitalism, needs and demands (the cry in the marketplace) are de-natured, and whatremains as the "natuml" or "species" impulse or need is compounded with historic,I.'apitalist-induccd needs tu sllcll ~~egree as to have Ijttle significant relation to itspre-capitalist antecedant. The "sllbjective", the human become subverted, polarizedfrom tile objective. The objective fom1 represents, but is not commensurate with thesubJective except to the degree that it alters or distorts the subjective in confonnity

with itsel[Thus, it is capitalism and not Marx that makes the subjective inconsequential-or

rather seems to: gives the slIbjective no real weight in its phenomenal manifestation.Capitalism is a prt>c:ess of representation which is not equivalent-:it is an alienatedrepresentation, distorting man's relation to nature, to his production, to his feUows. Apolarity is created (capital/labor; producer/appropriator). Unity and identitytendencies are disrupted; and even as capitalism attempts to foster an identity with itsown distorted image, it presents a distorted identity. This is so because theself.perpetuating mechanism of capitalism is the distortion of and the oscillationbetween identity and non-identity. If it were "pure identity", the would-be inadequateillccillive luwOlrd rrulillctiv~ licveh)rllll)nt for profils and therefore capilaliSlu, that~y~It:11I rc4uirillg t:1)lllillll..llli~c4I1ilitlr:lliuli :IS Illc ulily tlasi~rur its ~Iasis. II is 1101 inslirvivais or residues pl:r SI:. that thl: system creates non-identity. The system must keepIl:ss alienated hwuan aspects Ollive even as it distorts them as the basis for wants whichit "urchestrOltes", plOlYs with, creates new cummodifies for.

Thus tile only pOlrtial identity of subject and object and the non-immediacy ofidentity are crucial notions for the concept of representation in capitalism and

Cupita/.24 They are tendencies which become dominant and must be reconstructed inrough relation to different moments in the development of capitalism itself.

Finally, the excllallge value of a commodity-its objective, phenomenalrunil- tOlkes over dl)millOlnCe from 1111: subjective pole (of the broken totality or IInityuf liSt: alld I:xl.'lIallge valll~ ill till! I.'ommudity), Olnd bl:comes :I vehicll: for itself. This ismerely another way uf stOlting what we have already said: in capitaljsm's dominantexpressjve funn, une i!spect dominates and conditions the other. Bourgeois analysjs1.:31\ discover the two poles-the second submerged and perverted, but present-but itwill take the subjective, in its distorted guise and subservient place, as its essence-it

f'irst Aesth~tic Meditations on C;apital 165

which seems a market phenomenon is intrinsic in prodllc/ion, and it is not establishedbut only realized in the market. The market is where its representation is specifiedvis-a-vis other commodities. Price is the often incommensurate representation ofex~hange value. flllt it is not its essen~e, but rather the conventional presentation inljllantities of tll~ univ~rs.1l commodity, money, of the human labor (itself increasinglyquantifiable under capitalism), or the socially necessary labor time to produce and getthe product to its P()Ult ()f realization as a commodity with a money price on themarket. Price then is the phenomenal form of exchange value which is the phenomenalform of value: price F exchange value F value. But value is itself structured in terms ofthe chain of fomls in which it is distortedly manifest. That is, the conditions andljuality urlabur arc Jramalically transfunned by the displacement of dOininance andprunacy from production to profit in the market. Social alienation, initially generatedby productive alienation and appropriation, comes to be die dominant form ofalienation under capitalism, negating some of the positive potential induced bycapitalism in tem1S or worker consciousness and potential praxis. The Lukacsian~rilique of reiticaliull is, fur whatever its faults, not a mere reading of surfaces, burtheexpression of a real displacement effect whkh goes beyond what Lukacs himselfenvisioned in its negative effect on wOrkers under capitalism, but which itself neverbecomes total, but displaced}5 The non-ilrunediacy of identity necessary for thecontinuance ur capitalism also potentiates its demise by the space potentially left for apraxis from somewhere.

First: the valid exchange-values of a given commodity expresssomething e'lllal; secondly, exchange-value, generally is only the modeof expression, the phenomenal fonn, of something contained in it, yetdistinguishable from it. (p. 37)

Represent r; = expressive fonns r what they express-quantitatively or

qualitatively. In Marx, there is no identity theory-no simple theory of reflection or

equivalence. Complete identity under capitalism at any rate is contrary to thellt:.llnitioll or capitalisllI. Bllt t,)O, to imagine a coniplete non-identity in conf,)nnity

with the needs 01' capitalism is to imagine a system in whicl\ there would be no

possible threat or movement out of capitalism. Surely the threat and movement serve

to enforce capitaliSin. But the crucial point to grasp is the point when the threat ceases

to be functional, when metonymy threatens to break into diachrony.

In any event, the comm(>dity as the heart of Capital, as the proper point to begin

an analysis of capitalism, ilnplies a complex structural-historical theory of symbolic

relation and actioll: how the kernel of capitalism production is the basis of its

development anll collap~. Again: the analysis of the commodity is the model for the

symbolic analysis ,)r uther lonl's; further, it is the basis for tI\e analysis of lesslltHllill:lllt (e.g., clltlllr..l. ..rti~li.:. t:tc.) fum,s whi.:h are analyzed durillg a period when

capitalist (I:ommollity) prtlllll.:lioll prevails over all modes of production. What is forn1

but the crystali~ati(11I uf c(lngelation of action? What is a commodity but the primary

crystalization of the prin1ary structured and limited action (production for profit) of

the capitalist systeln? What are ideological and artistic ronns under capitalism but thecrystalization of artistil: octiun under the sway of the primary action of the prirnary

)

167First Aesthetic Meditations on Capital

unquantifiable to some degree homologous with the quantifiable? Isn't a Goldmannianapproach which plays up the homological (even if to ultimately point towarddifference) nlCrely a .:apittllalion to the process or quantifying which occurs in thebtl\trg~ois tklitl"'! 2K Wllal tlf III~ paradoxes of Illimber, tulle wId geometry in KalKa,"org~s, Ctlrtazar" Of th~ dlivc tt)ward the fantastic in literature? The use of numberin an attack on "umber'! The question is, what in a writer's world view or world mayprovide a valid basis for the struggle against quantifICation?

To the degree that Marxism r~resents (f, but merely seems to represent) theextension of the scientistic or quantifiable (all society is to be a factory, say thern)urgeois critics), the bourgeois artist rejects it and seeks an alternative humanism-ajtlum~y to tll~ ~a!il, ttl Pari!i, tilt: Ivory Tt)wer: his stru~le against alienatitln is

alienated,Bourgeois criticism is the effort to scientize or quantify the apparently

unquantifiable residue projected by the artist, Hence its supportive role vis-a-viscapitalist technocracy under advanced monopoly capital conditions. It played this roleall ttlO pOt)rly in tll~ past, but !lOW has Int>re $()phisticated means for doing so:structurJlist analysis. And to make the effort aU the easier: the structuralist novel.

Marxist criticism is no passive polarity-finding "understanding", but atransrormative analysis-to penetrate the polarities to a dynamic hidden whichdynamizes the polarities, to the pr.txis which has created but which may yet burstasunder these polarities, This criticism subverts the hypostatic form of the literarywork (the equilibr.tted, perfected form which will "ive eternally") and fmds thehidden or repressed st)urces of transformation. Hence the project of Te/ Que/: to makeuse of and yct alienate the structurJlist project, and thus to "struggle against thehypostatized result of a genisis eftaced.,,29

If ... we leave out of consideration the u~ value of commodities,they have only ol1e common property left, that of being products oflabor Along with the u~ful qualities of the products themselves, weput out of sight both the u~ful character of the various kinds of labourembodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour~ there isnothing left but what is common to them all~ all are reduced to one andthe saine sort of labour, hun1an labour in the abstract. (p. 38)

As capitalism inst;llls itself, abstraction is made of aU relations, "from thematerial elentents and shapes that make (a] product a u~-value." A process oftral1~-valuation is underway. The dOinination of one phenomenal form puts out of sigh tthe existence of other objects as "material things." And these things are no longerregarded as "the product of any other definite kind of productive labor."ln the 19thCentury. we see the rise of Artist as the last Artesan, and simultaneously, we see thethreat tu his "l!t!lil1itt! kiltd uf pr()l!lIctive lubor." Marx has opened us out to thedYIIOlmics ()f Art 1111(I&:r (';Iritalislll, ;llId the hostility ()f Iht! lutter t() the rornter.

... The residue of ... these products ... consists of tl1e Sameunsubstantial reality ill eal;h, a mere congelation of homogeneoushum:ll\ I:lb()ur, of I:lbollr.power expended without regard 10 the mootof its expenditure. All... these things now tell us is, that human

169First Aesthetic Meditations on Capital

A u~ v:aJue ... II:IS vulue only because human labor in the abstracthas been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude ofIhis value to be measured?.. By the quantity of the value-creatingsubstance, the labour, contained in the article. The quantity of labour,however, is lneasured by its duration, and labour-time finds its standardin weeks, days, and hours. (p. 38)

Art is a congelation of human labor, facilitated by a certain development anddivisu}1l in tile labor prol:css. But how can we measure the value of the art work,within the frameworl< of tile labor theory of value? It would seem an impossibleMarxist problem.

Marx him~lf tllu~111:11 'III tllc issue, mosl directly ulld l:ullsistc.'lItly in his 77leoriesof Surplus Vahle. Here he indicates that when Milton wrote Paradise Lost and sold itfor L5, he was an unproductive laborer, while under capitalism the artist is increasinglybrought under the conditions of a capitalist market, by demands induced by priorproduction whiLi) then condition the presentation of tile artistic product, but also itspruduction.~ Thus "Capitalist production is hostile to certain branches of spiritualproduction, for example, art and poetry .,,31 And according to Sanchez Vazquez, whohas examined the matter, the hostility of capitalist production to art rests not on anysin1ple relation between material and intellectual production (MalX attacked thisnotion in bOtll the Gnlndrisse Introduction and Theories), but on the conditions ofcapitalist production-which implies a tendency toward a direct negative relationbetween economy and art, with the uneven development between art and materialproduction not having to do so mucl\ with the relative autonomy of art, but the verychuracter of tllis materiOlI production itself. In other words, tile development of art andits particular mOlnifestations (including the drive to establish internal autonomy for thegiven work or art system) is governed by the conditions of capitalist production; therecan be "great art" under ~:apitalism, but this art is achieved only to the degree that agiven artistic production C:lII escOlpe the grip of capitalist production.31

WI.' will I'l.'tlim tllllli:\ :\ulljl.'l:t, hilt il Sc.'l.'ms clcllr Iltllt thl.' que~liolllll' the vllhl~ of

iI W'lrk of urt iI~ ilrt t:Ullllllt hI.' dl.'t~rmill~d by lubllr tim~. EV~ll if w~ w~r~ tl) clllIsidl.'rthe socially necessury lubor lime to produce a Picasso painting, even if we were toconsider ~ Piccuso's years of training, the time embodied in the works he studied, inthe production of the genre or genres, etc., upon which he worked Even if onecould theorize such factors, hl)w could one calculate them? How is the price of awl)rk d~temlin~d'? Wltilt i~ tlt~ rdatil)" of pr-=e and value? The work of art takes itsl>l:lc~ l)n th~ IlIark~t in tltc mid~t of more calculable valu~s; its prk:~ is detennined inrelatil>ll to till.' pricc~ of 'ItJll.'r I."ollunoditles in the cl)nunodity circuit. But to mak~vulue d~temlilluliolls rcquirt.'S tl)l)ls we do not poss~ss, IIllr can we envision them at this

point.

Some rcorl~ might tJ\ink that if the value of n commodity isdetermined by tlte quaJ\tily of labour spent on it, the more idle andunskilflll the lubollrl.'r, the more valuable wollid his labour be, becauseJIIore tlJllc Wl)tlill hc rcqllired in its production. (p. 39)

First Aesthetic Meditations on Capital

Refusal, the Ivory Tower if necessary).b. A playing off (a preserving in negating or a more successful negating throughpreserving)-a dialectical relation to commodity fonns and their structuralequivalents internalized in the art work itself.

The model for the latter altemattive is Brechtian theater (especiany in its laterdialectical phase, with its tension/tussle of alienation/non-alienation)-not his earlierleft extremist Street Scene model.33 Also, while surrealism generally fits the firstalternative (in its rejection of direct political content) some surrealist ventures-thosepreserving a negating object (ultimately, the commodity world): the light and heavydice, etc.-correspond to the second.34

By ";lbsulute pllrily", art may pose as a model of transcendence, prefigure autopi;l beyond prehistory), but such art lnay well lose its link to existing conditions;and by not expressing the struggle of distorted freedom and necessity overtly enough(attempting the disappearance of even the trace of a degraded reality, in theachievement of ;I perfect ideosyncratic inviolable fonn) , may completely lose itsc;lp;lcity to ellg;lg~ ;IllY re;ll, concret~ historical struggle. (Hefe-;only the Marxist critit:can transfonn the work by an illumination that makes the work an instrument ofstruggle.) Fllrther, the very perfection of the completely distanced form-bound by itsintem;llizetl t:l)()rdill;lles. di$t;lllt:etl ;Inti closed off from any direct tie to the real-onlydllplit:;ltes tlt~ strul:tllr:ll situutiol1 of advanced n1Onopoly capital and the internalizedsystem of tJ1e commodity circuit itself. As a perfected fonn, such art m~y achieve afollowing-i.e., can be a source of profit-and become the necessarily deviantconunodity the artist has attempted to have his work elude being.

The only partial separation, the imperfect internalization of the struggle itselfseems the preferable method of a Marxist aesthetic (Brecht again): fonns never funyradicalized, refllsing submission to capitalism and complete identity with anopposition which may be distorted by capitalism's dominance; fonns inwardly openedto all entrance from a reified world, and outwardly opened to expell (displace) thisnow critiqued, ironized and alienated reification. But the critique is never completed;the chain of displacements can extend beyond the historical moment of the work; theimmanent structure of the work provides this: it is not so generalized that it loses clearrelevance to the most progressive possibilities visible in the moment of its production;it is not so specific that it loses the possibility of multiple relevance to futurepossibilities in the midst of distinct productions. Thus it is not purely mimetic ornon-mimetic--it is not pure. Art as pure creation is mere capitulation to the narrowvistas of praxis for a given class at a given moment; the only progressive role it canserve is the exasperation and rejection it may induce, the Marxist critique of it it maycan forth. The Brechtian open form needs no Marxist critique; it contains it-and thebasis of th:lt critique's further development in relation to future conditions oft:;apit;llism. Till: l"i/;SUI' u',..lr,.. uf tll~ first ft)rn1 is U drive for insulated stasis; of th"set:und, comb:ttive dynamism.

1~i1,h ur these lIlIits is the same as any otJlef I so (Olf as it has theI:haral:tl:r of thl: OIvl.'rilgl: tOlbllur-puwer o( society I ilnd tilkes effect us

First AestJletic Meditations on Capital 173

c"IC/ltl prtJtlt.l:litlll lilliC 1\1 ~III:I. u tlt:grt:c Ihut theru mOlY bu 110 WilY [tJr him to ruuliLehis product or get the going market equivalent in price for his labor-this tied to ourconcept of "deepening".

Commodities ... in which equal quantities of labour areembodied, or which can be produced in the saine time, have the samevalue. nle value of olle commodity is to the value of any other, as thelabour-time necessary for the production of the one is to that necessaryfor the production of the other. (p. 39-40)

What does this mean for the artist, considering the questions of training,"deepening" in the elaboration of his product, whether embodied in his work or hisI:apucity of upprtJpriuli\III'! Two responses: (I) All this is "mechanistic and vulgar";(2) Why "mystify art"? The point is not to mystify. But there can be no doubt thatthe work. of art is a production, subject to given conditions of production. The labortheo.ry of value cannot grasp art becau~ that theory is one which grasps production tothe degree that it approaches or extends out of the bourgeois form. Thus, the labortheory can only grasp url to tJle degree to which art becomes subsumed under

capitaliSln.36Even when writers were paid by the word and chapter in serialized forms of their

books-even when these conditions became major detenninant.t of artistic forms-theartist tried to coopt these factors, juast as capitalism tended to coopt him. But to saythat artistic production is other than material commodity production is not toestablish any theory of relationship by which to deal with works which resist or do notseem to be completely determined by commodity production. This theory of relationis what we are after. Marx also wished to find the basis for such a theory:

The unequal relatil)n between the development of material productionand art In general, the conception of progress is not to be taken inthe sense of the usual abstraction This conception of [unequal]development appears to imply necessity. On the other hand,justifica tion of acciden t. How.(Freedom and t)ther p()illls)(The effect of me"ans of commullication.)World Itisttlry tl\l\.'s mlt ulwuys appear in histury as the result of worldhistury.37

Did Marx fuld thc: basis'! One thing seems of little doubt: the rapidity of"spontaneous appropriation" of a reifJed reality (the milnesis of the phenomenal,eternal-seeming hypostatization of historical-human dynamism as determined by thedomination over all social life by the commodity form) conditions the writer (and hisown petit-bourgeois interests may conspire here) and in fact narrows as it creates hismarket--.and makes his ~lItry into the market all the more problematic orstructllred.Artisti,' revolt is strul:tur~d, positioned, limited-even as a field lor its expression ispushed open. The opellillg is olle serving only "repressive desublimation"-and if not,if the revolt goes beyond the severely limited sphere allowed for it, the sphere is thenclosed (censorship, varyillg degrees of fascism), and the opening has only functioned asone for alerting the cnC:IIIY, It is then "coopted" or, ifnot cooptable, suppressed. Onefinal note on this pl)illt: Ih~ "rellections" and products of reification serve directly to

First Aesthetic Meditations on Capital 175

.z .0 .-.E-o-(i!:

8

"

AL

F0RMATJ0N

SUIllt:

orChanged

MARKI~ CONSUMPTION RI~PRODU(,VflONlABOR (ALIENATION) ~ EXCHANGE OF I;ORMS ~ OR

(1;1~T1SHISM) (REIFICATION) MODII:ICATION

OR RECEPTION

CAI>ITALIST PRODUCTION

Under capitalism, f\)mls are "resultants" of alienated praxis, quantified andr~il1~d into hum\Ig~II~\)lIS labur time. The :llienation or hypostatization of praxis into:l"v:Jlllc" whil'11 is III I)\.' S\.'I.'n \)lIly as qll3111ily is :lchieved by fonns IIlId~rl':lpilalislll:lls\I, Illc \lislllrli\11I \)r lI~g:llioli \)f rllture prnKis. The reilicalioll ~m:Jllilliligfrom the commodity and its fetishism (--) works on the reception and consumptionof artistic forols ( )-an effect more powerful than its inverse ( ), the effect of theart form on other commodities; and this reception- consumption process sets up oraffects (--) the reproduction or changed production (change signifying a movementfrom metonymy to gemline diachrony) of the social formation and its own processesal the next "m\)melil" ill the cycle or historiclal trons(onllation of prodllction.

As for tile :lrtistic roml itself:

(J

"c.,

177First Aesthetic Meditations on Capital

The analysis of these perspectives affects our conceptualization of both".;ommercial art" and "elite art"; the latter is in a dialectical relation to the former,yet always seeking to transcend and break Ollt of that relation, which is structured inpart by the need created b.I' commodity production for a product which is not or doesnot seem to be a commodity-in production terms: by a need for supposeddisalienation, which actually maintains and extends (i.e., reproduces) the sources ofalienation in production itself.

).

'I'Ili~ prlH.llIl'liVl:lll'~~ i~ dclcnnilletl by vuritlll$ t:irl:llmstullt:e$,allIUlIgst ulhcrs, hy Illc :lvl:r:lge amoullt uf skill uf the wurkmen, the~Ialc uf ~i\:II':C, ,lIlll Ihc dl:grc~ l)f prat:til:al applic::ltilm, the sut:ialurgall~:lliul\ uf prIIJu.:tit)lI, Ihl: ~xtC:l\t and t:aput:ilities l)f th~ menllS ufproduction, and by physical conditions. (p. 40)

The theury of the relations among these factors, or rather tJle movement towardestahlishillg a theory l)f these relations is what marks a Marxist structuralistIlisiori.:i:olll. Ilcrc w~ III:IY \\Illc 4!I-,It thc lletcmlinutit)lI$ l)f prl)ductivencss al~l)determine what may b~ luusely designated a$ the "diaJl1etri,,'S" of artistic foffils-theirsupposed resistence to science, technology, etc. But of course the highest forms ofavant garde art incorporate the new technology-supposedly to transcend them, if onlyby irony or by making them the means of a mystification{when they are presumablyinstruments of clarification and objectification). They are highly technological formsthemselves-those of Borges, Cortazar, Carpentier, Marquez, etc. That is,'now in themidst of programmed economic underdevelopment, a highly developed LatinAmerican literature emerges, a literature of technically sophisticated structural forms,which like most "exotic" Latin American commodities, are destined for export.

Structuralist analysis is the result of scientific developments made possible bycapitalism, even as they make capitalism possible. This analysis rests on the techniqueof the object of study, and the presumption that this technique merely establishes atransformational relatioll to a deeper and more general metastructure. Withstructuralism, artists create more consciously structured forms, and the validity ofstructuralist analysis easily confirms itself by working on such obliging objects.Underdevelopment is tIle achievement of a highly developed technology operating incapitalist conditions; "uneven development" is not an "exception to be explained",but the result and nel:essity of capitalist production. It is no surprise then that thellisplal:ement l)f l:apit,llist rl:lati()lIs uf exploit:ltion :lnd illlmiseration leads tl) allispla<:cmellt ill li.:lit)l\allll:gcml)IIY tu a gruup uf "creatl)rS" givell privileged positiunalld pcrspel:tivc tl) tr:lllsl:!lc tit" full weight :lnd ililplications l)f capitalist culturalrelations intu exqllisill:ly wruugllt lillguistic cunstructs, In fact, the "boOin" of LatinAmerican literature w~ Itave witnessed in recent years may be understood as a neworganization in all inlemational division of labor, corresponding unevenly to a newstage in the necessarily uneven development of capitalism.

Here w~ hav~ Cl)ml: upon wh:lt is for lIS the genuine meta-structure: F;ct;onal1".,II1,c";("': III Illl' w:lkl' II!'C'III):!,.1 rn,lif"ralil)n 1111<1 illtclIsilit:ulilln llf Lutill Amcri,;all~XI\r~~siY~ li)rlll~ 1111t!~ lil'lllIl'lIlly Irt!ulllltt bill rurl.'ly ubi" 10 IrullS\:l.'lIcJ tl1uir l)WIIIICg;llillg Wllrk 1111 III~ III\.'IIIC Ilr lr,lj"';lllry llf rcvohltll)lIury possibilities. (.,.;/;,'ul

79First A~sthctic Meditations on Capit:ll

)

given structures and \.'ollditions t» prtxluction and property. Art fomls have thusexpressed aspects of existellce which distinct social fonnations placed in relief but did

not otJlerwise allow ror.Tied to productive utility, the function of art becalne subject to it-an "impure"

social function. As utility (that is, llSe value and the needs objects with use valuesatisfied) became compounded with and subordinated to exchange value, so thefunction or art becalne entwined and dislocated: the distortion of use value and needsunder capitalism leads to a distortion f>r artistic production and the artistic function.The possible supersession or this distortion of art resulting from the. relativesubordination and transfomlation of use value through its compounding withexchange value (the latter being the only means of realizing the former) rests onconditions enabling a working througJl the mediations of this distortion to what stillexists or potentially exists in terms of "non-alienated" or "alienation-resisting"qualities under a given status of capitalist development. That is, the dialectics of theuse value-exchange value relation imply some potential preservation of disalienationeven in the ct)mmodity rom1ulation and thus in capitatiSin itself: capitalist alienationnecessitates the maintenance of a non-alienation to be worked upon. But thisnon-alienation is itselr dislorted or so historically and structurally detennined that anytalk of tJ1e preservation of a "human essence" in Frommian, Marcusean or "Marxisthumanist" temlS is higJ11y suspect or too vague to adeqQately produce conceptualinstrumentalities in the direction of praxis.

Under less developed capitalism, under less economic alienation, this aestheticuse vallie ct)lIld be still quite great and relatively independent of eKchange, since thertlrt:c or ct:tlntlmit: rcialilllls was IItlt as h.:uvy IIpon art, and sillce the vcry pre-capitalistsllpcl"Strllt:ttlrdl "ali~lIutitllls" thems.:lves were mea liS or eKpre~illg totality. That is, Ulesser development of human material production meant a closer symbolicapproximation and appropriation, throUg/1 myth and ritual, of the existent sense of

totality than po~ible under capitalism in its apogee.TIle very proliferation and apparent diachrony of forms under liberal capitalism

is :1 vl.'ritable Ill.'g;ltitlll t)f tmc creative possibility and.developmellt; a sign of eKtended,Jivi~ivl.' alicll:llillll :llItl;1 Jl'~lll.r:lI"IIIIIVCr gcllllilic 110lL'lihilily. TII': rclurll 10 ~Yllcllmllil'clllpll:1...i~ Itlday (t:omp:lr;lhlt: It I p:l$1 1.'11 It II ral 10taliluri;lIIi~\\Is) is u mark tlf :I drivl.'toward homology which may be a token or a .breakdown h1 the capitalist worldsystem, even as capitalism deepens its shadow in the sectors of the world still mostrully under its sway, producing a reification of consciousness in depth.

The masters or artistic runns in "a dying culture" (cf., by displacement to theThird World, a Borges) are masters of the labyrinths, fictions and games ofIItlthil1gt1CSS. Agaill, us witll strllt:turalist prdxis, the only potential transcendantlilnctitlll t)f tJl.:ir :Irt (wJlil.'JI is Itlnnally \'1 I.'t)tlpt :1111.1 lIegute every »tllL'libll.'trallSt:l.'lIl.Iallcc tlr hreakollt) i~ thl.' rl.'l)l.'lIitlll ;Iguill~t IItltJlh1gnt.'S~ it \\lay stir hI IIII.' \\Iilll.I~tJr rl:uder~ (but wJl:lt rl.'alll.'rs" ) wllu \\lay rejel.'t, culIll:sl, ur rebl:l agaillst il. There is aIl:n~l)n in this directil)n in a Cortal.ar or in a Genet. But the dominant mode of artisticproduction (i.e., fiction) is still a capitalist mode, which limits, distorts and uttimatelycapitalizes the tension toward breakthrough generated within it: a distorted ideologicalimage t)f opprl.'~itln, prt)dllced by oppressor-dominated means or production, teads to

181First Aesthetic Meditations on Capital

When the work of art (a use value serving the need for sensuous appropriation bythe artist, and the need to experience this appropriation by others) becomes caught upin a circuit that goes from production to exchange and back-that is, once the usevalue of the object becomes subservient to exchange value-that work and its veryproductive process enter a quantitative reified world alien to its original and potential

nature and function.The work of art is a product made for others, crystalizmg the possibilities

generated by the work llf others; but it is not a commodity until it has beentrdnsferred by means of an exchange-that is by what constitutes an appropriation ofsllrplus value in a g!ven S()ci:Jl fl)nnation. A work of art's value in terms of quantifiablel::Jpitalist labor rel:Jtions is ..Ii~n to its nature; but the fact is thitt tllitt nature becomesincreasingly conditioned by such value detenninations-or by what is left over fromthe expenditure of otller products more readily figured in tenns of labor time. Andonce its production-the artist alone, the artist employing a staff, a publishingI:l)mp..ny m()lInting rCprtlllllctil)n. prt..llotion and distribution costs, etc.-becomes inpart detemlined by sltcll fal:tors, art tends toward closer and closer relation with tht:commodity fonn itself and loses its "pure status" as use value.)

Nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If thething is use1ess, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does notcount as labour, and therefore creates no value. (p. 41)

Value only appe:Jrs when the product is ex~\anged. That is, first of all, theartist's labor which is not ultil"at.:ly realized in the exchange moment is not labor.Only that labor which is actualized in exchange constitutes value. Surely it is more"profitable" for the artist to organize his work for an efficiency determined bycapitalist relations. Second, under capitalism, the work of art's use value can onlyrealize itself by relating to the commodity circuit. This is a vicious circuit: art which isnot :J cOI"modity cannot even realize its anti-commodity status in a world dominatedby capital. Even granting a preservation of need und.:r capitalism, the only way for thework to fight or counter I:ommodity hegemony is for it to be a commodity-that is tobe the very thing it may be trying to strugle against. While a thing can have use valuewithout being a commodity, needs expressing and leading to the production ofI:OInmodities are subjel:t in capitalism to commodity production, and thus the art

work gets caught ilp in Ihis ncl:cssily.The artistic foml is :Jnt>ther means of representing the social totality, like the

commodity. It is th.: expression of human labor and need, the concentration of manydl:tenninations. But just as the commodity is both a crystaliz~tion and distortion ofhulnan labor, so is the artistic form. That a modern work may be coherent it) its~xpression of incoherence, even "b<!autiful" in its expression of modem ugliness, is notto disprove the hostility of capitalism to art, but to d~monstrate that the quality and"b<!auty" of our art is Ihc result of a baleful, and ultilnately crippling struggle againsttile st>urce of tllis hostility. Ultiln:Jtely, however, while artistic coherence'or beautyIIl!g:tt~s the furc~ llf capititlism ill ~ume lJistallced, symbolic and even symptomaticway, it simultaneously rl.'prc~nts that force. The artistic lonn must both relate to and

183Fir~1 A~~lhetic Meditations un Capital

b. S,": M.lr,.II"', (i'IIII/IT'-,'I,..hlt;,"1 (11hl R..,'(llt (H(~tun: IJe.lclIIl Prt:ss, 1972), o:spo:cially ChOlpl.:r3; 11t:llri Lt:f.:I,vrt:, ..II(-th-iti .hl slrn..tllral;SlIle tl':lris: 1\lItllrupus, 1971); I.a Jm dc l'his/()ire(P:lris: I.:diliulis dt: Milluit. 197\); The Sociology of Karl Marx, trOlIIS. NonnOln GutternlO111(N.:w York: ROIllllulII Iluu~, 1966); /.ollguoge et societe (Paris: GOIllirnOlrd, 1966);hllr(H./llctiulI Ii fa Illuderll;te tP"ris: I:ditions do: Milluit. 1962); o:tc. Lucien GoldlllOllin.~lar-\"isme et Sl.-i..,IL'es hllillailles (P"ris: G"lIilnarll, 1970); ('llnual (;etltion in Modem Societ)',trOlns, IJart (;r"hl); Stnl,turl'S m(,lltales et L',eatioll L'ulturt"le (POIris: 1-:11 itiol1s OInthropos, 1970).Ernst MOIool.il. 11le J.onllatifJlI uf ti,e /:'COllUlllic 1'I1IJlIght uf Karl Marx, trOlI1S, 8riOln PeOlrso:(N.:w York: Monthly Revio:w Press, 1971), IstvOln MeszOlros. Marx '$ Theory of Alienation (NewYork: HOIrper & Rt)w. 1970), especiallY pp. 109.110. Bertell Oilman, Alienation (London:Cambridg': Univ.:r$ity Pr~$$. 1971), especially pp. 154-227. Karl Marx, Crundrisse:Introdtlction to the Critique of Pulitical b'L.Oflolny, tran$. and foreword by Martin Nicolaus

(Milldl.:s.:x, ll,~.: p.:nguin, 1973),

7. 111e t\"O books by 1'.redrio: J:lmeson :Ire: Marxism all(/ fontl lPrinceton: Princeton UniversityPreS!;, 1971) and 111e Prisol/-l/ouSt of J.oIlguage (Prin(.-elon: Princeton University Press, 1972).

8. A sto:p in tl~_lJiro:.:tiull is Jamo:sun's arti.:le, "NarrOilive Stnlcture in Max Weber," ill Nnv

(;t'nllDtl Critique. Numb.:r 1 (Milwauk.:e, Wisl.'Onsin: Winter. 1973).

9. See ~Spt.'\.;;al\y J.e .\'yste,//(' des ubj('f$ (Paris: G:lllim:lrd, 1969); Pour une critique de "econvf,liepolitique du sigl/s (P:tri~: G..Uimard, 1972) :lnd J.e MiToir de Ia production (Tournai, Belgillm,

1913).

\,fo

12. 111i" i... .,"r M;lr~i...1 W,IY .,r IIlId.:r"lilIiJilig III.: rcliltiulls o:lIilrl J ill l:ullcilult's Les "'/OIS ell,.)"

ch"s,'s tl'ilri,,: (;illlillI:lr.l. 1')1,61.

I). '111 is is " M;lr\j,,1 r",..,lilljt 1.1 J;lkO'!I""II'" I:IIIII"IS lli"liIlO:li'lll ill hi" IIIIW ..:I..s"i.., "rli.:re, "'\I,h.."i;1:IS ;I lill1\lIislio: !'rllll!"III," ill 1(01111:111 J.lklllo"'l11 ,,"lI Mllrris 11"III.!, """,dlllllt'l,tou of 1.41//,1,"'0]('"11111.! II"~III.!: MIIIIIIIII, 1'J5b) "S Sivl.!lI " SI~o:i;11 Iwisl Ihrllllgh AllhllSSl.!r's "pprlll,ri"liolll IIf

I """""'S "III,roll,ri"lio,",,1 J"koIIoStIlI'S ':"""'I.!pl,

14. 1',;111;11'" III~ 1,,;,,1 I~ml I,.r 11Iic'i 1'1I~1I111II~1I'1i1 wlIllkI II'; "\li"'-"'luilibriulli b:ll:lll\."';" \."1'. I-:m,;"t

I:~.t~r, "'I"~ l'~a"'IIII'" 1'~r"I'~':liv,;~ ill III,; UII.t,;r.t.:v.:lul),;.t C'lulllri~,,". in ~/mltll/.~' R"V;~I",

May 1,)75,V'lluIII~27,1I".I,I'.15.

IS. Allhll:is.:r, I.ire "I.e (iI"it,"", V,.I. II, 1111- 57-58, I m.71. SI-oI: ;l1~u M:Jllril:l: (illdl:lil:r, ".'iySII:III,Slm..'llIrt: .,"d (',mlra,li,,'li,," ill I)as Ktlpita"', Irall~. I'hilill Url:l.:lI, iI\ IlIIr'HIr,c(;"" (0

First Aestheti\: Meditations on Capital 185

InSt)f;lr ;IS Slll"h :lllt)t'trilll' \!1",'"rOlg\!$ in t\!lIect II OIls in th\! b\!li\!f thOlt with a little ingenuity theirOIIIOIlysis l)f histt)ricOII r\!OIlity cOIn bc manufOlctured inside their own heads, it reinforces their

I1ccupOltil)nal idcOIlism by isl1lO1ting consciousness frl)m the resistance of the infrastructur;lll'UlltCXt OInd thc $t)\.'ial ground it$Clf; as a metht1d, therefor\!, thc search for homologies is opentt) ideologicOIl, a$ w~1I OIS theur~ticOlI, criticism (JiIffi~son. Prisonhouse p. 214)." But see note24.

29. Goux, "Numisffi..lillues", Pari II (Tel Que/, No. 36), p. 74.

30. K;lrl Milrx,l1It'orie~ o{Surphls Vahle!, vol. I (Moscow: Progress, 1963) p.401

31. IbM/. p. 285

32- Adolfo Soino;h~z V;iZ4UCZ, Art and S(J(.-ielY, pp. 157-62.

33. Cf. 8ertolt 8reL'ht, Brecht 01/ Ti,eotre, trans. John Willett (New York: Hin and Wang, 1964),pp. 278 and 121-30. See also Louis Althu~ser, J.or Marx, trans. Ben Brewster'(New York:Random HouS/:, 1970), pp. 142-51.

34. On ~"rrcali~m and commodities, see Jean-Patll Sartre, What is I.iterature? (New York: Harperand Row, 1965, pp. 171-191); Walter 8enjamin, "Paris-Capital of tile Nineteenth Century" inNnv LeJi Rel/ie,v, no. 48 (March-April 1968), p. 88;Jameson, Marxis,n and Fonn, 95-106. See"Iso the "I:ootnote~» to Herner, "Tel Qllelldeology" (see not.: 5), p. 138.

35. K;arl Miltx ;and I:rederick I:ngeb, 771t! Genna" Jdeology, ed. C. J. Arthur. For the GnlndrisseIntroduction, see pp. 106-7.

36. I:or ;In ~I;I\lor..liulI or Ihi... poilll, ~e The Germoll Ideology, p. 108, al1d n,eories of SurplusValue, pp. 284-5.

37. Grlillurisre. p. 109.

38. 011 Ihis issul: ur rUlll:lil)/I, $l'l: 1':llgl:ls 10 Sl:hmidl, M;arx ;alld Ellgels, Selected Works, pp. 686-88;Ulld Murx, Theories. pp. 386-8. 1'11: rl:lulions belwcl:n roml. runl:lion, $Iructure and "possiblepruxi.,," ;arl' wI:ll urlil:ul;ll~d ill 1.I:rl:bvrl:'s rl:cenl w()rk-~r. 11()11: 6.

39. On Ihuw n'OIllcrs, MOIrx ,,')n'~ "lus..'Sllu" .:lcOlr, maluro: fumlulalion in Theor;es-o:spe.:ially, p.405. In the Grnndr;sse Illtroduction, Marx says: "Production not only provides the material tosat~fy a lIecd, but ... Ihc no:ed for the n1aterial The need felt for the object is induced by theperception of Ihl: objc.:t. An objet d'art creates a public that has artistic taste and is able too:njoy beauty-and tho: samc can be said of any olho:r product. Production accordinglyprodu\.~ not only an ubjee:t for the subjee:t, but also a subjee:1 for the object." Capitalistproduction produ\."es a reilicd subject.

40. Thc critiqucs u( Pruudhu,,'s polaritics, ctc., appear, c~rtai"ly, in The Pol'erty of Plli/osDph)',but also ill Murx's Icllcr tu P. V. Allllellkov, in Selected Wurks, 669-79--;1 must text fur theMllrxist stru~tuf"oIlist ~IlCO\lntcr, as is Marx and Engels' jt!ering purody of Hegelianabstructiollism, :IS " .:at ~atillg u mouse is shown to be bused on the "self-consumption ofnalure-cf. The (ierlnilll Ic/er>/ogy I)arllll, quotcd in the edition cited (note 35), p. 6.

41. I.'or;a line crilhlue or Iho: diffi,;ully ill ululing strnctur;alisln and Marxisln, alonglh.:s.: lin.:s, 5e':I.".:i"n Sev" , "M.\lht)()" ''If"':I"fille \II method" diillectiqu\l", in I.R Pe,rsee, Paris, Octob\lr,1967. No, 135 (NIIIII.:ru "I'.:.:i:tl: Slrucluralism.: 1:1 lII;arxi"III\:),