Capital: The Hegelian Subject

Capital: The Hegelian Subject

Benjamin at No Useless Leniency:

One way to return to the question of capitalism and agency posed by the work of Deleuze and Guattari is via the work of Chris Arthur, Roberto Finelli, and Moishe Postone. Each argues that Marx analyses the operations of capitalism as instantiations of the Hegelian dialectic. This means that Capital is the (Hegelian) Subject. To summarise Chris Arthur’s useful discussion:

1. capital subsumes singulars under the universal of value
2. capital is a self-valorising system of accumulation
3. capital is a concrete universality

Check out the rest of the post for a discussion on Capital and agency.