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Multiple Histories of Capital

  In his chapter on Marx’s critique on capital, Dipesh Chakrabarti ( Provincializing Europe : Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton 2000) tries to deal with the idea that provincialized Europe has a universal and overarching character. Marx criticized capital on two categories: the abstract human and the idea of history. As historicism assumes that capital arose in Europe out of the Enlightenment rationalism and humanism, it constitutes a unity both in time and space. For Chakrabarti, and Marx, the main reason behind this assumption is the need for a homogenous and common unit for measuring human activity. This measurement will of course be designed to reduce diversity and human belongings into one category called ‘labor’. Abstract labor, therefore, is to destroy differences among workers. Abstract labor is abstracted from any empirical history, it is like a ghost. However, paradoxically, capital is in need of a human, concrete, labor in advance in order

Great Britain's Great Decision

Great Britain banned slavery in 1833 because laborers when motivated by salary were working harder than slaves who were motivated by punishment. It wasn't a coincidence that Britain's Industrial Revolution has started right after that time. Slavery wasn't profitable any more. In the same period, slaves living under Ottoman rule had rights as this: No owner can free a disabled slave as compensation for his (owner's) legal faults. The protection and survival of such a disabled slave was ensured that way.