Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
guise. The vision is a broad one and allows for all manner of political struggles,
inclusive of labour struggles, to be viewed as environmental issues. Grasping these
points goes some way towards explaining Marxism's historical ambivalence about
fi xating on environmental concerns (see Benton, 1996b). They seem a step removed
from where the real action takes place, seem more the provenance of a politically
fi ckle middle class, and are easily co-opted by bourgeois forces wanting to defl ect
attention from themselves. In particular, environmental problems are framed ideo-
logically as something 'we' are all in together (Waterstone, 1993; Enzenberger,
1996). The sections below will have more to say about this.
The Strange Case of Value versus Wealth:
M
. . .
C
. . .
M
+
Δ
and
'delta' Ecologies
The foregoing might give the impression that capitalists primarily aim to orchestrate
production and command nature (inclusive of labour power) to do their bidding.
It might be thought that Marx excoriated capital based on its objective to master
the environment of humans and non-humans, all to accumulate wealth. This would
not be quite right. Within capitalism, Marx argued, the objective is not to accumu-
late material wealth but to continually generate so-called surplus value. This distinc-
tion is a crucial one. It is because of the need for surplus value that there can never
be enough material wealth. It is why arguments that capitalist societies can be taught
to contain their material acquisitiveness, can learn that enough is enough, fail
(Postone, 1999). (They must, according to James O'Connor, be badgered into con-
tainment by social movements. See below.) Under capitalism, Marx argued, the
point is not to accumulate goods, and even less to fulfi ll all needs. The point is to
expand value. But what
is
this 'value'? This is not an easy question to answer, but
we can get at least some insight by approaching the issue simply, which is what
Marx does at the very beginning of
Capital
.
Unlike the fi rst section of this chapter in which I began with the idea of a labour
process that brings us, our intentions, and our ideas into an active relation with a
more-than-human world, the analysis of capitalism as such begins with the com-
modity. The commodity, for Marx, stands at the center of the more-than-human
world that capitalism has wrought. Why? Partly, because it is commodities with
which we most directly provision ourselves. We obtain clothing, food, and shelter
after these have been placed on the market as commodities. And partly because it
is primarily commodities that we are labouring to produce when we work at our
jobs. A little less clear perhaps, but also quite obvious, is that commodities are not
only produced, and not only consumed; they are exchanged for other commodities,
with money as the means of exchange. We need to follow this thread. The site of
exchange is what we call the market, and all-important there is the matter of who
is bringing what to market and for what purpose. Workers bring their labour power
(a commodity) and in exchange for their exercising it they typically are paid a money
wage, which they then use to purchase needful things, other commodities. Note that
this is an exchange of qualitatively different things: labour power for money, money
for needful things. This is a useful exchange of differences precisely because it
cumulates in life support. The notation Marx uses to describe the exchange of
qualitative differences is
C
. . .
M
. . .
C
(Commodities, Money, [other] Commodi-
ties). Now, supposing there are just two social classes (a reduction that Marx makes
to illustrate his case), this leaves capitalists, the ones who pay the workers, to con-
