1/21/2014 5:06:00 PM Pos100 notes Slave meanwhile doesnt participate in the world that he hac created So at some point,

when they serve me food, and sees herself at the food she serves, the slave comes ot the insight of the recognition a deep contradiction in the slaves existence; the slave created the world, but the slave isnt taking part in the world; the slave realizes that the world out there, the world of the master, the world enjoyed by the master is n here; but I am not able o consuem ot; but I am unable to enjoy this world; and so this slave encounters a contradiction of his existence; for some philosophers who talk about knowledge as if it was cumulatively acquired, hegel says no, thats not how absolute comes about; absolute knowledge occurs at a moment of contradiction hegel- not accumulation of knowledge in history, but the contradiction of one stage by another stage; this is what hegel calls the dialectical progression of history; its not innovations that propel history, but the push and pull, the tensions, between contradicting knowledge; the contradiction that manifests itself in the figure of the slave looking at the world but realizes that he doesnt participate in that world; and thats whats going to make the slave rebel against the master; arrival of absolute consciousness to the slave; slave gets that in the position against the master why doesnt history move in a smooth accumulation of things? hegel looks at the French revolution history progresses through amity, but through revolutions, and even in the sphere of scientific reasoning, the changes in the understanding of how the world operates is properlled by these contradictions dumb and stupid guy says about hegel: the thesis + antitheses syntheses but something else that isnt talked about: the movement from a to b isnt entirely linear because B is derived from a; it isnt an improvement, but a complete turnaround of a; b isnt a completely new thing, but the opposite of a that is already in a; the big synthesis therefore, is already there are the very start; synthesis is the summation of all the contradictions in history that takes root in the very first stage of history; hegel: spirit of the age isnt something that we move towards but is something that merely unfolds in the course of history; it is already here;

the future isnt something faraway, its already here because it is the opposite or the contradiction of what is going on in the present. Hegel calls this spirit of the age as the geist or the volk which is nothing than a secularized version of the Christian concept of redemption (hegel is a theologian himself) he projected the theological message of redemption into world history; redemption isnt something that God will give us, it is already something he gave to us and human history is just our working along that path of God; Jojo Agamben: for us Christians, time has already ended; what we are living in is the time that remains; our time is done, were merely serving the time left to us; the time redemptive selfis already assured and so were just unfolding this time as we move along. hegel says that the spirit of the age is no other than our human IDEA human experience is compelte; there is already fullness in our human endeavors IDEALISM in hegels philosophy; we dont subject humane xperience to cutting up we encounter human affairs ina total and complete manner, and we dont have to experience everything before we realize what it is marx will become dissatisfied with Hegels dialectics and the idea that ideas move us its not ideas that move the world; what moves the world are the material basis of human existence; it isnt passion and zeal that moves us, but the need to survive. We change things because the present historical change is no longer capable of sustaining our life, and thats why hegel can say that ideas move the world because he doesnt need to think about his daily living because he wasnt poor or struggling; sentimentality is for the bourgeoisie; not ideas, but the collective need to survive daily life; the material fabric. love letters between Hannah arendt and Heidegger; martin Heidegger was arendts professor in phd school; Heidegger had a wife already at that time; so for people who read arendt there is sadness in her writing because she was a kabit; other love letters: marx and jenny

So now, move on from hegel to marx: Manifesto of the Communist Party A SPectre is haunting Europe a hobgoblin is stalking Europe; the hobgoblin of communism; Jacques Derrida wrote an entire book simply reflecting on the line of spectre is haunting europe his first line was mind boggling, was bullshit; --an example of spectrality; what does it mean to be spectral? What marx is doing here is that he is making a comparison between a spectre and communism; spectre is like a ghost what happens and what does it mean to encounter ghost? Derrida then talks about marx and then hamlet; 1/24/1 Passage establishes what about the socialist experiment? 'A spectre is haunting Europe gives us a picture of what the communist project is like for Marx -- a ghost that haunts us; we considered what that experience is like; departure point is the thoughts of Jacques Derridas preamble of spectrality o ghost a thing of the past; an object of the future; a ghost then is anything except the now; what happens when we encounter the ghost in the now? o According to Derrida, this now becomes disjointed. This experience he derives from Hamlet (shakespreare) when the appearance of the ghost, hamlet declares that time is out of joint; disjointed: unhinged, unconnected; derrida vis a vis Shakespeare reflecting on the first lie of the manifesto, being haunted or stalked by a ghost = unhinged from where you are now what happens when you are disjointed? When something previously connected or something that works suddenly becomes unhinged? if the ghost is a thing of both of the past and the future, what does it compel you to consider? o these liberals want to exorcise the ghost but we shouldnt, why?

o Greeks perception of the time: in chronological: chronos just a passage, recording of time as a diruption: kairos you have to declare, conjure, to say it; the time is now this is really what constitutes the time of

the present the arrival of the ghost forces us to deal with what is going on now if communist idea is a ghost, then it has avery modest objective: socialism merely wants us to deal with the now; it simply compels us to ask a question that some other people find difficult to ask; that question is a simple one: whats going on? Whats our world today? this is what happens when were unhinged; this asking of whats going on, what is the assumption there? When were unsure; when theres a problem, when there is a crisis; o Things we previously hold onto slip from our hands o crisis greek: krisis the origin of the other English word, Critique intimate relationship then betweent he art and practice of criticism and the declaration that the time is out of joint; that there is a crisis criticism isn't just lambasting; it is an

honest questioning of what's going on it forces us to deal with our present Marxist imperative is precisely that: live in the present o To question, to do something in the now o living in the present = accepting the reality of the indeterminacy of the present; that the present cannot b defined clearly; if we define the now it becomes the past; if we predict, its the future o marx simply wants us to simply and finally live in the now I want to live finally o constant presencing what is this present that were talking about? If its about this present were experiencing, we have to ask: if the present of the present is something to question means there is nothing self evident about the present; it requires a collective and cooperative undertaking; we have to gather and create, recreate this present were speaking of when we speak of social realities, we start talking about the issues we need to talk about but the Marxists take a step back and question what is the ground were raising these questions; Marxist must commit himself to the idea that this ground is something that is constantly changing; the very possibility that allows us to raise the question of what is now, that very possibility, very ground, is changing, is shifting; it isnt simultaneously determined; Dialectics o history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles o different classes in conflict with each other is this just a pattern? No, its the truth of all societies hegel truth, but its the spirit of the age; marx says, yeah, but its not spirit of the age; for him, its the class struggles that define societies; marx isnt

interested in societys bareness; he is interested n the way that societies histories are defined, proliferated history of society socialists who acknowledge or deal with the histories of societies, are they social workers? Are they NGOs? No. Marx isnt interested in the proletary, but in the way their history is usually defined; history of all hitherto existing societies it is at foremost, at its core, an intellectual project; it requires a certain kind of intellectual activity; not just building arms and NPA (why theyre so unsuccessful is because theyre no long recruiting intellectuals in their party), while communist parties and socialist parties are so wrong because their intellectual traditions have stagnated no longer producing intellectual work that deal with the way that society is to be analyzed, the way we raise the question of what is going on. For the communist community of the Philippines, that question has been answered already and there is no worth in being questioned anymore not an updated view; the Marxist project is an ability to detect these patterns, to write about these and to make an evaluation that if you look of what is going on and assemble all this data, it will show you that they are all reflective of an ongoing class antagonism; that the very antagonism, very struggles we see between oppressor and oppressed are not just trivial matters, the style of writing, of culture, but these fights re fights that can be crazed to contestation of the classes character. ex. Traffic: there is this because of capitalism; because of the bourgeoisie; this is how it is supposed to be for a

socialist; womens oppression: its because of capitalism o ex. Friedrich Engels talks about marriage holy family, for instance 1st point: women do valuable labor only its hidden (makes the husband productive, etc), but the employer doesnt factor that in the pay for the husband; isnt that unfair? And why is this possible? Because of capitalism it only pays the visible labor 2nd point: why do families want children? In a capitalist society, kids = heir of the craft, trade; continuous production of kids = production of the firm; needs to ensure that the kid is his what allows that: laws and social practices and social norms that put the woman in a subordinate position; womens oppression, therefore capitalism capitalism creates structures and institutions that perpetuate the very oppression of the women labor of love what marx warns us against; these sublimation of obvious things obvious na unfair, but we tend to rationalize it as it being natural = ideology; ideology masks reality; makes us think of an obviously self-evident condition and describe it in different manners, such as love marx wants us to pay attention to spectacles, to appearances

o freeman and slave.. etc = class = a function of ones position; social positions or social ranks wants us to pay attention to these spectacles and appearances, but we have to remember that they are merely appearance that reflect a hidden truth; that they conceal a reality that we have to uncover; o Marxism seeks to uncover the reality that exists behind the spectacles o current events: EPIRA electric power industry reform act privatize the NAPOCOR reason why our electric generators and distributors can set the price of electricity at their whim these are spectacles; task of the Marxist analysis is to uncover whats going behind these 1/27/14 what produces history: not ideas, but class struggles; class relations are not just economic, but are also social and political physical and social level vis a vis political relations; freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian social functions, part of a hierarchy; what does it mean to analyze histoy as a mpvement of class struggles? what constitutues ones position or class? How do we know that? Marxists see class relations under a tripartite system that cpnstitutues any economic order; economic order can be analysed through its mode of production (how do you accumulat; how do you ensure that everyone is able to sustain and reproduce ones life) means of production (tools,, elements, the mechanisms by which resources are accumulated and distributed in society); arising from the mode and means of productions are the relations of production (defined and characterized by ones position vis a vis ownership of tge means of production; ownership/nonownership of the means; this is where we locate class. o whether you own the means of production, or you dont o when means of production can no longer sustain mde of production, then those who participate in relations of production can intervene and affect the way that means of production is organized which eventually changes the

mode of production; may change or create a brand new mode of production thats why changes in our politics, society, arent so much a ideas from powerful people, but are ideas thata rise in changes with the means and mode of production; the idea is needed by the means of production as a new way of organizing itself as a new means of production ex kind of order in 1940s where working class had more power than he upperlcass was because the state supported the working class; because the working class had the power to organize economic sources that the state needed; Keynesian (challenged laissez-fair, no-state intervention; basic assumption of the Keynesian theory: need a state intervention to stimulate the market; otherwise: great depression= self interest dictated that you wont put your money in the banks; for Adam Smith, state intervention is artificial;; Keynesianism rested on the ability of the working classes to intervene in the market; working classes in terms of their capacity to manage the means of production (where there was a change) the working classes could only be favored by the state then because the kind fo accumulatio strategy employed by many capitalists was labor intensive as a means of production construction, exports, etc; laborers expertise was needed to run a firm/factory, and so they were given the power to establish unions and relations with management; but as some point in 1980s, its no longer labor intensive; you dont need people to interct anymore; a new kind of accumulation happens if we simply had capital and internet to use; the rise of investment led capitalism; financial capitalism from the kind of industrial capitalism we saw before; financial capitalism doesnt nee workers and can be done by anyone; a restructing of the

economic oder happens; because of this, at the start f the new millennium laborers got lay-offs; if in he 1950s and 1940s the workers could own the means of production, now, they cant. and that changes the mode of p; historical changes happen because major classes in society take on power balances, and these shifts in power balance leads to social, historical development marx: pay attention to the gradations in ranks and classes and how they are defined; kantian: bourgeois willbring in peace and an end to class antagonisms; but we seeit didnt; it only simplified class antagonisms: we have two great camps in society: proletariat-who dont own anything, and the bourgeois who owns the means of production; criticism: marxists reduction of our identities into our classes; obfuscating of classes is the issue we fail to see how our ideas may be determined by our position and socio-economic class; we are in a sense defined by our material basis; we seem to naturlize capitalism, but we forget that it too was established through class struggle; bourgeois had a hard time penetrating the society; capitalism isnt a natural thing; its not something ordained by god thats why we cant think of another alternative order; capitalism was able to entrench itself through revolution, but why are we averse to revolution? capitalist do not just operate on the economic level but also in the political sphere; every development in the bourgeois correspond to an advancement of that class in terms of politics; forms of political of the bourgeois: an oppressed class under the feudal nobility in history, capitalists participated in politics in various forms; 1-oppessed, 2 third estate of the monarchy (taxes), 3 counterpoie to

nobility, 4 bourgeois becamse politically powerful (political interests are really governed by corporate interests in house of cards) the executive of the modern state but a committee for managing the commn affairs of the whole bourgeois; here is the idfference between Marxist and the liberal: state processes are neutral and may obtain an objective assessment liberals; Marxists: state will always take the side of the bourgeois; it has to be concerned with the entire urvival of the whole bourgeois class itself; bourgeois canot exists without constantly revolutionising the instruments of producution and thereby the relation of productn and with themthe whole relations of society. Paragraph; all fixed, fast-frozen relations, with thei train of anxient and evenrable prejudices and opinions are swept away; means of production keep changing fast; what marx is telling us is: its not just on the level of priduction, but also on the level of social and political relations; hard to make a commitment with institutions; o capitalist society: groundless social encounter; nothing to hold on to; logic of capitalism is expansion: to expand in terms of coverage, to the extent that it may reach our consciousness; historical materialism absence of change, given the change in productive forces, will ead to revlution; it burst asunder the feudal system because ethe abilities and forces of production under feudalism were so advanced that it could not longe rustsain feudalism; hence the need for a new mode of feudalism;

but this wont happen to capitalism it has something new: the very fact that before any change happens, capitalism creates its own change; people look at external sources of capitalist crisis, but from amrx we learn that capitalism creates its own crisis; why firms etc are in crisis arent because of external reasons, but because of capitalism itself; it produces its own crisis, thats why its very difficult to go against it;

debate groups: group 5 tj, ian, bea, trisha, mikka crisis brings about change; history moving from a materualist/dialectical perspective, what moves history are contradictions or crises in a particular historical stage the kind of society that you have what firm needs to perpetuate itself; social relations, not just marriage, but alos language for instance (i.e., English as a learning comm.. English is used in trade; it allows market participation) analysis of a super structural level (society) and the firm/market economy (base) the events that take plae in superstructure are rooted in the base of the firm to perpetuate itself; changes in social relations require changes in firms; change in eonomic base happens beaise of the increasing productivitu in the forces o production continuously revolutionizing production methods logic of historical change = bursting asundr of the exisiting historical stage; bourgeois class emerges in the bursting asunder of ht eold feudal

order; logic behind bourgeois == constant productivity; increasing productivity; continuous accumulation and development of productive forces what did this is to efface it and destro it; because the kindof logic of the bourgeois is the continuous development of productive and need as a specific social arrangement to harness forces; social arrangement in turn becamem the object of social and politicial constitution and free

competition socio-political consitution: the liberal state and establishment of proper relations -free competititon has to be regulated by state that guarentees the resources are protected (free competition pushes development) need a liberal democratic state to guarantee this continued accumulation by the bourgeois DIALECTICAL materialism the synthesis of the Marxist theoru of change bourgeois brings about development that eventually becomes uncontrolled and too great; very basic social order cannot even hold sway over this developing/overproductive power property relations distinct character of modern society because property was not an inherent human right, but a privilege; system of property relations; capitalism creates its own crisis because thats how you produce and develop society, how you provide incentives; o boom and bust cycle the economic bubble or peak where people invest and hard to break from; 1970s and 1980s debt crisis, and middle east oil crisis; bubble: oil 95-98 asian financial crisis 2000s-2014 has euro crisis o society in moments of crisis is put bac in barbarism a universal war or devatstaion cuts off supplies why? too much civilization; too much means of subsistence, too much commerce power is too great, it destroy; conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them how to overcome crisis? Enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces need to phase out to produce a revlution of tech conquest of new markets and exploitation of old ones not just physical markets, but also colonization (search of new labor,

surplus) and virtual speculative expansion o death markets in Africa financial instrument where you invest in mortality rates; trade in funeral services o voodoo economics of black african states expansion of the logic of the market o these weapons to bring feudalism down are now turned against bourgeois demand for continuous production is now turning against burggeois; these forces which previously belonged in the hands of the bourgeois are now in the hands of the moder proletary o o alienation and commodification of labor: the trgets of Marxist critique of capitalism in proprtion as the bourgeois capital is developed in the same proportion is te proletariat . laboring classes get work hat assure they will have money farther away from capital formation = farther away from earning more repulsive the work is, the lesser the wage is (as in, the lower rank you have or the harder your work is, you own a meager pay; vs a person who just sits there and signs documents but earns millions) recognition that capitalism: you live so long as you find work, you find wor only so long as your labor increases capital thats the injustice beign suffered by thse engaged in work thats not near the very creation of financial capital today; what is the state of this laboring class in capitalism? In capitalism, laborers sell themselves piecemeal they are a commodity

commodification of labor in capitalism there, we see not concrete or specific labor; hiring managers dont look at what you did in the past but what you can do and how willing you are to do things not stated in your speculations

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