Called by the destiny of the win
Day 759, 16:53
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Silas Soule
Called by the destiny of the win
Vincent Nolan's thoughtful 3-part series on socialism, especially the last part, which touched on the question of technology and capitalism, got me thinking again about the despotic nature of capital.
Here's the question I have...
Can (and should) technological development be understood, in the main, as something artificial? That is, like capital itself, as primarily a self-preserving response from capital that has no concern whatsoever for human existence? And if so, then is eRepublik essentially anti-human?
Well it beats the heck out of me, but I've found that a reading of the Australian mathematician Michael Eldred's analysis of the essence of Marx's critique of capital as a guide to the phenomenology of bourgeois society may help to set-up the stage for considering such questions.
Michael Eldred, a thoroughly modern Marxist?
"
A quick summary of Eldred's take on Marx...
According to Marx, the essence of capital is the endless, limitless valorization of value, an essence which sets itself up "behind the backs" of people. His critique of political economy is not a theory of the capitalist economy per se. Rather, it is a questioning of the essence of capital as a non-human machination. Value is neither money nor capital but the essence of valorizing, which makes everything that exists appear as valorizable.
The essence of capital is not anything capitalist. It is neither money nor the lust for money, neither something objective nor subjective, but a calculating, 'gainful' mode of revealing that everything has the potential for winnings. Humans are called on by the destiny of the win and compelled to think in a thoroughly calculative, albeit incalculably risk-taking, manner that sets up everything in images and representations of potential for gain. The win holds sway as the essence of historical truth.
Use for humans is not the criterion, but use for a circuit of valorization, i.e. for the win which turns endlessly within it, throwing off more winnings. The win entices and ensnares humans in a competitive struggle for winnings in the broadest sense, where they struggle with each other, and in this way, the win valorizes humans and everything that can be won from human beings as gain and success.
Everything is gathered into the win. Capital uncovers all beings with regard to their value for the sake of winning. Money itself as the representative of wealth in general is the universal key to what is valuable by means of exchange, and, expressed dynamically, the movement of money is capital, which sets all beings into motion for the sake of winnings.
There is hardly anything, not even the sky, that cannot be valorized, even in a narrow economic sense (e.g. air traffic corridors).
So, on the deepest level Marxism reveals itself to be not so much a critique of one class by the other. Rather, the radical critique of modern political economy shows that all the subjects, including the ruling class subjects, are dragged into the circling of valorization, so that all of them can and must be regarded as mere "character masks", as personifications of value-forms.
Furthermore, striving for gain to the silent call of the win does not mean that the people employed in the win necessarily experience their employment as uncanny or exploitative. Rather, they may experience their work as fulfilling despite or because of the prevailing oblivion to being. The revolutionary path can therefore not be just a matter of criticizing the fast life in the cogs of the win as "false living" by way of cultural critique, but of seeing that in the relentless totalization of this way of existing we are exposed to it blindly and thoughtlessly, without a prospect of gaining an insight into a greater, open dimension arriving from afar.
By seeking to create a federation of communes and thus refusing to "win" the game according to its pre-configured model, yet having enormous fun in the process, perhaps that far-flung dimension can be glimpsed?
And by gaining such a glimpse, do we not, in fact, win immensely more than a game?
"Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?" - Diogenes, 412 - 323 BC
Vincent Nolan's thoughtful 3-part series on socialism, especially the last part, which touched on the question of technology and capitalism, got me thinking again about the despotic nature of capital.
Here's the question I have...
Can (and should) technological development be understood, in the main, as something artificial? That is, like capital itself, as primarily a self-preserving response from capital that has no concern whatsoever for human existence? And if so, then is eRepublik essentially anti-human?
Well it beats the heck out of me, but I've found that a reading of the Australian mathematician Michael Eldred's analysis of the essence of Marx's critique of capital as a guide to the phenomenology of bourgeois society may help to set-up the stage for considering such questions.
Michael Eldred, a thoroughly modern Marxist?
"
😉oing phenomenology means learning to see in an age in which we are struck by blindness." -- M. Eldred
A quick summary of Eldred's take on Marx...
According to Marx, the essence of capital is the endless, limitless valorization of value, an essence which sets itself up "behind the backs" of people. His critique of political economy is not a theory of the capitalist economy per se. Rather, it is a questioning of the essence of capital as a non-human machination. Value is neither money nor capital but the essence of valorizing, which makes everything that exists appear as valorizable.
The essence of capital is not anything capitalist. It is neither money nor the lust for money, neither something objective nor subjective, but a calculating, 'gainful' mode of revealing that everything has the potential for winnings. Humans are called on by the destiny of the win and compelled to think in a thoroughly calculative, albeit incalculably risk-taking, manner that sets up everything in images and representations of potential for gain. The win holds sway as the essence of historical truth.
Use for humans is not the criterion, but use for a circuit of valorization, i.e. for the win which turns endlessly within it, throwing off more winnings. The win entices and ensnares humans in a competitive struggle for winnings in the broadest sense, where they struggle with each other, and in this way, the win valorizes humans and everything that can be won from human beings as gain and success.
Everything is gathered into the win. Capital uncovers all beings with regard to their value for the sake of winning. Money itself as the representative of wealth in general is the universal key to what is valuable by means of exchange, and, expressed dynamically, the movement of money is capital, which sets all beings into motion for the sake of winnings.
There is hardly anything, not even the sky, that cannot be valorized, even in a narrow economic sense (e.g. air traffic corridors).
So, on the deepest level Marxism reveals itself to be not so much a critique of one class by the other. Rather, the radical critique of modern political economy shows that all the subjects, including the ruling class subjects, are dragged into the circling of valorization, so that all of them can and must be regarded as mere "character masks", as personifications of value-forms.
Furthermore, striving for gain to the silent call of the win does not mean that the people employed in the win necessarily experience their employment as uncanny or exploitative. Rather, they may experience their work as fulfilling despite or because of the prevailing oblivion to being. The revolutionary path can therefore not be just a matter of criticizing the fast life in the cogs of the win as "false living" by way of cultural critique, but of seeing that in the relentless totalization of this way of existing we are exposed to it blindly and thoughtlessly, without a prospect of gaining an insight into a greater, open dimension arriving from afar.
By seeking to create a federation of communes and thus refusing to "win" the game according to its pre-configured model, yet having enormous fun in the process, perhaps that far-flung dimension can be glimpsed?
And by gaining such a glimpse, do we not, in fact, win immensely more than a game?
"Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?" - Diogenes, 412 - 323 BC
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Comments
USSRmaxxxx?
Fuck Phoenix this is awesome. I just completely love the way you write, you should be an author.
Thanks, but I hope I made clear that most of this is just paraphrased and edited-down from Michael Eldred.
great read!
woop! \o/
great article Phoenix, I liked the phrase oblivion to being. A nod at existentialism perhaps?