Marx

Annotations:

• Christ is projected by human beings as the ideal mediator, whom we must worship, from whom we have our being, without whom we are worthless, and above all as the one who mediates between us and god and enables our salvation. So also does money become a quasi-divine mediator: before it too we must kneel, we gain our worth from money, its pursuit becomes our goal in life, and it mediates between objects and us.

1. C-M-C = direct form of circulation. We sell commodities in order to buy more. Money acts as a kind of middle-man. Use-value.
2. M-C-M = buy in order to sell; money is capital. We exchange money for money, for more money. M-C-M', where M' = M + excess (Surplus-value). Exchange value.
   1. Money = Value
      1. Money represents the value of labor, but wage laborers work to get money; it thus becomes a representation that brings into being what it represents: it is easy to see it as the source of that value, or as value

Annotations:

• the quantity of labor needed under the average conditions of labor productivity existing in a given country at a given time.

1. Use value
2. Exchange value
   1. Labor Theory of Value: common quality of commodity is Abstract labor
   2. Determined by the quantity of labor necessary to produce it.

1. Commodity Fetishism: prevent people from seeing the truth about economics and society: that one class of people is exploiting another. Hides labor.

   Annotations:

   • “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof” A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.
   1. Charles de Brosses term for fetish claims fundamental relationship to the study of the history of religions.

      Annotations:

      • An object attributed with superhuman and magical powers and thereby worshipped (in other words, an idol). 
      1. "An object attributed with superhuman and magical powers and thereby worshipped (in other words, an idol)."
         1. Commodities gain life of their own and begin to interact like social beings; human social relations become like relations between things.
            1. The more the worker puts into the product he is making, the less the worker becomes. In the end, the product becomes hostile, alien and independent at the expense of the worker.
               1. Commodities mark History: By placing an object in specific historical context, religious artifacts act as windows onto a particuar religious world
   2. Marx reduces creativity to two modalities: production and revolution

1. Material objects are transformed by becoming objects of desire or value, a value that often seems somehow displaced, inordinate, or innapropriate
   1. The creation of new institutions; human creativity is a dimension of action
      1. Arbitrariness of value
      2. The structural principle that a social field, or logical domain cannot be constituted except in relation to something which is not part of it, something transcendent or any way alien
         1. Objects were the medium
            1. Arbitrariness of value
      3. Actions and creations have power over us
   2. Europeans obsession with issues of value and materiality and lack of interest in social relations as things valuable in themselves,
   3. Africans made fetishes as a means of creating new social responsibilities, forming new associations
   4. Imaginary product based on one's material cosmology
      1. People were the ultimate form of wealth. Material objects were interesting mainly insofar as they became entangled in social relations, or enabled one to create new ones.
         1. The paradox of power: only exists if other people think it does
         2. The paradox of creativity: Is non-fetishized consciousness possible?

1. 1. Estrangement from from the product of his work and deprived of the right to own the value of the goods produced by his labour. Objectification.
   1. The worker believes that he is a replaceable tool, and is alienated to the point of extreme discontent. Here, religion enters.
2. Activity dictated by the Bourgeoisie, who own the means of production and extract surplus value
3. 2. Estrangement of the worker from the activity of production. He cannot express his labor as a social aspect of personal individuality
4. 3. Alienation from “species-being,” or human identity. Work essentially = life purpose and core identity of the human being.
5. 4. Alienation of work to other workers: reduces the labour of the worker to a commercial commodity that can be traded in the competitive market. Workers in competition for "higher wages"
6. Social inequality
7. The antitthesis is Freedom

1. Surplus value

1. Slavery

1. Price of raw materials and accessory products
2. Amortization of machinery and buildings (renewal of fixed capital)
3. Wages
4. Surplus value e.g. profit, rent, taxes, etc.

1. Capitalism utilizes religion as a tool or ideological state apparatus to justify this alienation. Christianity teaches that those who gather up riches and power in this life will almost certainly not be rewarded in the next

1. Marx elaborates:
   1. 1. The place to begin analysis is not in the heavens, but here on earth
   2. 2. Such projections indicate that something is wrong here on earth. Placing their hopes and dreams elsewhere = they cannot be "realised" here and now.
      1. The presence of religion = sign of alienation, of economic and social oppression.
   3. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."
2. Religions' deceptions frustrate human attempts to promote and take responsibility for a better society. The false promises of religion delude humans into thinking that they need not, or cannot, improve their own social and economic conditions.

   Annotations:

   •     Hegel: the most real is mental or spiritual. Had difficulty attributing the reality of all things to spiritual or mental consciousness, even when the latter was understood in an absolute sense.   In Feuerbach’s view, religion is both delusional and fallacious. And not only that: its deceptions frustrate all human attempts to promote and take responsibility for a better society. By according highest status to a supernatural deity, humankind remain poor; the hungry stay hungry, society remains in a state of disrepair; and God is given all honor and glory, especially from poor people, and those who suffer most from the pervasive state of disrepair and economic inequality. The false promises of religion delude humans into thinking that they need not, or cannot, improve their own social and economic conditions. Religion is the product of misplaced enthusiasm. The real religious energy ought not to be expended where it can only be wasted, but ought to be direct toward improving the human condition.   Under the idealist transposition, religion is a fabrication, and the instrument of fabrication is simple projection. Human beings project their needs and aspirations skyward. Religion is created and sustained by speculative mental exercises in transcendental extrapolation.     

Annotations:

•     Hegel: the most real is mental or spiritual. Had difficulty attributing the reality of all things to spiritual or mental consciousness, even when the latter was understood in an absolute sense.       This involves (1) making clear the internal rational structure of the Absolute; (2) demonstrating the manner in which the Absolute manifests itself in nature and human history; and (3) explicating the teleological nature of the Absolute, that is, showing the end or purpose toward which the Absolute is directed.”

1. A fetish is a God under process of construction; Distinction between magic and religion become meaningless

1. The processes by which dominant culture maintains its dominant position.