Marx
ed. Engels, trans. Untermann
Capital, Vol. 2
Part 1, Ch. 1, sec. 1
[38] The productive application of his [the laborer's] labor-power is not possible, until he has sold it and brought it into contact with means of production. Before its sale, it exists in a state of separation from the means of production which it requires for its materialization. So long as it remains in this state, it cannot be used either for the production of use-values for its owner, or for the production of commodities, by the sale of which he might live. But from the moment that it is brought into touch with means of production, it forms part of the productive capital of its purchaser, the same as the means of production.
It is true, that in the act M-L the owner of money and the owner of labor-power enter into the relation of buyer and seller, of money-owner and commodity-owner. To this extent they enter into a money relation. But at the same time the buyer also appears in the role of an owner of means of production, which are the material conditions for the productive expenditure of labor-power on the part of its owner. The means of production, then, meet the owner of labor-power in the form of the property of another. On the other hand, the seller of labor meets its buyer in the form of the labor-power of another and it must pass into the buyer's possession, it must become a part of his capital, in order that it may become productive capital. The class relation between the capitalist and the wage laborer is therefore established from the moment that they meet in the act M-L, which signifies L-M from the standpoint of the laborer. It is indeed a sale and a purchase, a money relation, but it is a sale and a purchase in which the buyer is a capitalist and the seller a wage-laborer. And this relation arises out of the fact that the conditions required for the materialization of labor-power, viz: means of subsistence and means of production, are separated from the owner of labor-power and are the property of another.
We are not here concerned in the origin of this separation. It is a fact, as soon as the act M-L can be performed. The thing which interests us here is that M-L does not become a function of money-capital for the sole reason that
[39]
it is a means of paying for a useful human activity or service. The function of money as a paying medium is not the main object of our attention. Money can be expended in this form only because labor-power finds itself separated from its means of production, including the means of subsistence required for its reproduction, because this separation can be overcome only by the sale of the labor-power to the owner of the means of production; because the materialization of labor-power, which is by no means limited to the quantity of labor required for the reproduction of its own price, is likewise in the control of its buyer. The capital relation during the process of production arises only because it is inherent in the process of circulation based on the different economic conditions, the class distinctions between the buyer and the seller of labor-power. It is not money which by its nature creates this relation; it is rather the existence of this relation which permits of the transformation of a mere money-function into a capital-function.
...
The sale and purchase of slaves is formally also a sale and purchase of commodities. But money cannot perform this function without the existence of slavery. If slavery exists, then money can be invested in the purchase of slaves. On the other hand, the mere possession of money cannot make slavery possible.
In order that the sale of his labor-power by the laborer,
[40]
in the form of the sale of labor for wages, may take place as a result of social conditions which make it the basis of the production of commodities,... definite historical processes are required, by which the original connection of the means of production with labor-power is dissolved. ...
The fact which lies back of the process M-C}LPm is distribution; not distribution in the ordinary meaning of a distribution of articles of consumption, but the distribution of the elements of production themselves. These consist of the objective things which are concentrated on one side, and labor-power which is isolated on the other.
The means of production, the objective things of productive capital, must therefore stand opposed to the laborer as capital, before the process M-L can become a universal, social one.
We have seen on previous occasions that capitalist production, once it is established, does not only reproduce in its further development this separation, but extends its scope more and more, until it becomes the prevailing social condition. However, there is still another side to this question. In order that capital may be able to arise and take control of production, a definite stage in the development of commerce must precede. ...
The Russian landowners, who are compelled to carry on
[41]
agriculture by the help of wage-laborers instead of serfs, since the so-called emancipation of the serfs, complain about two things. They wail in the first place about the lack of money-capital. They say, for instance, that large sums must be paid to wage-laborers, before the crops can be sold, and there is a dearth of ready cash. ...
The second complaint is more characteristic. It is to the effect that even if money is available, there are not enough laborers at hand at any time. The reason is that the Russian farm laborer, owing to the communal property in land, has not been fully separated from his means of production, and hence is not yet a "free wage-worker" in the full capitalist meaning of the word. But the existence of "free" wage-workers is the indispensable condition for the realization of the act M-C, the exchange of money for commodities, the transformation of money-capital into productive capital.
At 41 y/o, now with more time passed since my quasi-Marxist upbringing than time spent in it, I am finally slogging through Marx. It is a slog. The formulae mean nothing to me and I fully intend to persevere in that ignorance. Really this is just about putting another notch in my belt. I'll cop to that.
Here in any case is an early occasion for bookmarking an important thread.
I assume I am not the first Knowledge Worker or Cultural Entrepreneur to imagine in the wake of this passage that no one can be "separated" from their "culture" in quite the same manner that Marx here says the prole becomes separated from the means of production. Only a few people manage to sell their cultural productions, but we all retain some "means" of "producing" them. Really we are the means.
This suggests a properly Marxist sense of "cultural appropriation" which might more accurately be called cultural ex-propriation. But to show that this is happening, you need to point to more than mere copycatting; rather, you need to show that (1) someone is eating your lunch, and (2) your "lunch" really, truly belongs to you and not to them. (1) is certainly observable, but not very often. (2) is of course is the question whose mere asking or answering is so much more than we collectively seem able to handle right now.
And yes, the "culture industry" is an industry which "manufactures" its "products." e.g. Film (the medium but also literally the film stock itself) was just plain expensive for a long time.
Hence it is questionable
whether "culture"
can ever
serve as its own
"means of production."
But clearly there is
an opposite extreme from
the dead weight of film capital,
i.e. in those mediums
which
by their technical/material natures
permit of radical DIY "means."
The point of the above passage,
after all,
is that this "separation" of worker from means,
though it certainly
extends its scope more and more,
until it becomes the prevailing social condition
also can
leak like a mfer
.
Culture would seem to be one of those "industries" where leakage is the rule rather than the exception, but only if culture itself is construed as a renewable resource, as a product whose "means" cannot be pilfered, as something that everyone with a mind is constantly creating whether or not they realize it.
Identitarian culture is fragile, fixed, non-renewable. Its fixity is its scarcity, and this is what enables it to be ex-propriated. Therefore people fight viciously over it. They cannot simply make more of it tomorrow.
Despairing for the moment of working through the Marxist canon in any timely fashion, let's play some Blogspot Bingo with this issue and see if anything helpful pops up.