John Holloway on Capital

[DanielMuffinburg]

From what I gather, what Holloway is saying is that Capital = Definition X, however, if you define Capital as Definition Y, then Marx actually makes sense. Does this make any sense to any of you? It doesn’t make any sense at all. He is redifining capital to fit Marxism.

@Holloway

IN THE OBVIOUS, common sense interpretation, the sentence 'capital moves means that capital, normally in one place, gets up and moves. British capital is exported and invested in Africa. Japanese capital moves out of Japan and flows into the United States. Capital is understood as basically fixed, but capable of motion. Capital is attached but capable of detaching itself. Thus: Volkswagen has a car factory in Puebla, but we know that it (a German company) can close its factory and move its capital elsewhere. Capital is capable of movement, but it is defined first in terms of its attachment: attachment to a company (Volkswagen), attachment to a branch of industry (the automobile industry) and attachment to a place (Puebla, Germany). Thus, following the same reasoning, capital invested in the textile industry is often referred to as 'textile capital , capital in the banking industry as 'banking capital , capital owned by Mexicans as 'Mexican capital , by US Americans as 'US capital , etc. Although the capacity of capital to move, or to detach itself from a particular owner or branch of economic activity, is never put in question, the movement of capital is secondary to its initial definition in terms of attachment or fixity.

In all of these examples, capital is treated as a thing, a thing that can be owned, a thing that is normally attached to a particular place, company, branch of economic activity; a thing that can be moved, from place to place, from company to company, from one branch of activity to another.

All this is obvious; but once we try to deprive capital of its thinghood, it becomes less obvious. Why should we try to deprive capital of its thinghood, why is the obvious analysis of the movement of capital not sufficient? The answer is surely that it depends on what we want to understand. If we want to understand capitalist development as economists, or if we want to understand the way in which capital dominates society, then there is probably no reason to question the thinghood of capital. If, however, we want to understand not the domination and reproduction of capital, but the vulnerability and rupture of capital, if, in other words, we want to understand not how capitalism works, but how it can be destroyed, then we need to open up the thinghood of capital, to break its facticity, to break the illusion/reality of 'capital is, capital moves, capital rules, that’s the way things are . That is why Marx devoted much of his life to showing that capital is not a thing but a social relation, a social relation which exists in the fetishised form of a thing.

If capital is understood as a social relation rather than a thing, then what does it mean to say that 'capital moves ? The answer is now less obvious. How can a social relation move? The movement of capital can only refer to the mobility, or perhaps better, flux or fluidity of the social relations of capitalism, the relations of power under capitalism.

Source: Capital Moves by John Holloway

[Jon_Irenicus]

Yeah, it’s pretty much semantics. I wonder if the “general semantics” high priests approve. I really don’t see what the above few paragraphs have elucidated, as they seem to be bringing to fore the matter of ownership of capital, which is indeed a relation, and yet is still alterable in the sense that capital can undergo changes in ownership. Capital is still a thing, an object, what they are referring to are ownership relations more generally, regardless of what the blather might hint at.

[hayekianxyz]

Reminds me of what Garrison calls Keynes definition of socialism “capitalism without the flaws”.

[billott1]

This is as far as I can tell a statement of the obvious. The author does not like capital because it can move? So his solution is simple: Redfine capital into something that can’t move. Of course this is nonsense. I could define up as down and then throw a ball that never lands.

The best definition I have is a paraphrase of the Misean definition: Capital is the stuff created or purchased through savings used to satisfy the desires of a consumer. This is not what has the author angry.

The concept of capital being privately owned is what has the author angry. If one person owns the stuff and a foreigner values the same stuff more than money while the owner values the money more than the stuff then there is a trade where both the owner and foreigner are better off. This is what the author refers to as the movement of capital. This perfectly moral and ethical and efficient transaction is somehow none of the above to the author as they want to somehow restrict this. Instead of saying so, that would make the people who own the stuff angry, the author tries to hide it in redefining capital.