[Reader-list] discussing residue

[pratap pandey]

Dear Rana, and all interested in discussing residue,
What's interesting about this discussion on capitalism's residue/s is that we are probably trying to give a different name to a phenomenon that has been much-talked about. We are trying to systematically understand the logic whereby capitalism has consistently produced "left-overs" (disgusting term; but I think its all right to use disgusting terms for a fact that is disgusting. Who likes to be a by-product?). It seems clear that capital cannot function without selection, without productive heirarchies, without a vertical ladder of consumption that always clarifies who it is that will fulsomely consume (benefit). In short, there is no capitalism without the 'necessary' by-products. That is to say, by-products in neccesity. Of neccessity, somebody must bear the brunt of capital's transformations (in productive capacities, interactive relations, ways of defining reality). I think the question we are trying to ask is, not so much "who bears the brunt", but rather, "how is the brunt borne?" What is born, in that which must be borne? 
This is not merely a matter of "logging-in" into existent stratifications. Capital creates classes, which is to say it transforms productive relations in society -- we know this. The interesting question, I think, your posting raises is: how are we to conceive of "affected populations"? In other words, the concept of "relations of production" must now be opened out in order to explain a phenomenon that affects "populations" (what kind of social group is this?). Is it possible to consider that metaphor of transformation ("mode of production") in a way that sutures its contradictions to this, Other, transformation we are talking about?
We seem to be talking about a determinate transformation in economic capacities that actually produces, not so much an structural Other (class society, or labour that of neccesity becomes politically conscious), but an structurated Other whose relations to "mode of production" are of a different order (of determination).
(Its interesting to examine how Marx actually manages to make labour the Other of capital: if labour is the Other of capital, then it is always the produced [to that extent, 'naturally' or 'logically' produced] Other. The capacities of this Other are peculiarly determined by capital. Most importantly, what labour can ethically do is completely determined by what capital does, and can do. Labour must do what capital doesn't: this reflects a shift in Marx's own thinking on the presence of the human being in capital relations, even a confusion, for the alienated human in his early writing is the exact opposite of the naturally/logically transformation-driven labourer in his later writings)
It is now known that it is not automatic for capital to produce its Other, labour that comes to possess (of neccessity) a transformative capacity that runs athwart the ambitions and manipulations (including State formation) of capital. But -- and this is where 'residue' raises its powerful and beautifully disgusting head -- is it automatic in the unfolding of capital to produce affected populations? That is to say, can we seriously conceive of "mode of production" without taking into consideration "modes of re-population"?
[This places upon us the pressure to define the word "population" in such a way that it no longer carries the baggage of desperation and hopelessness it usually does in any discourse (official, sociological, economic, historical, anthropological; the life-style discourse, the "panacea" discourse, the discourse of differences betwen the First and Third Worlds) in which it figures. It places upon us the pleasure of grappling with the question: what does it mean to become more fully human? What does it mean to populate?]       
I think we are grappling with a startling question: exactly what is the Other of capital? Is it "labour" or is it "people"? What does it mean "to work", as opposed to what does it mean "to populate"? Wherein lies human agency?
At issue here is the anthropological/metaphysical question of the very human desire to become more fully human. At issue here is whether this 'desire' must be understood in purely psychoanalytic terms, or in terms that searches after the connections between choice, world-making, and historical change. That is to say, we may be instituting a mode of analysis that derives its materiality from an ecological ontology that considers the human being as always-already inseparable from nature.
It is certain that humans (even cruelly) like to transform. What happens, then, when you are unable to transform, but find yourself taking upon you transformations of which you do not possess complete knowledge (or even a theory, or a myth, or a narrative, to go by)?
It can be suggested that capitalism's productive, and reproductive, tendencies are peculiarly determined by a relentless repetition-syndrome (a fold-over syndrome). At the heart of every working of capital, lies the desire to primitively accumulate. It is this primitive-accumulating motor that drives capital. It exists in every stage of capitalism. It exists wherever capitalism reaches, or breaches.No matter how sophisticated the working of capital is, it must be driven, at some level, by primitive accumulation.
Primitive accumulation (re-conceptualised) is a population-imperative. That is to say, it is a survival-imperative. This is where capital and people clash, for good or for worse.
Let's think on it (not primitive accumulation, but residue).
pp                 
 Rana Dasgupta <rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com> wrote:hi pratap

an initial engagement only with your mail, partly
because i need to try and understand bits of it more
fully.

you are right to try and pin down what is meant by
'residue'. both of the meanings you put forward are
close. i think we are talking about the 'necessary
by-products of a process'. 

if we are to believe the dialogues in pulp fiction
then there is a build-up of red meat in the gut of a
burger-eater over time that can neither be absorbed
into the body nor passed out. this 'residue' of the
whole system of digestive processes is something that
can be ignored for long enough that all the inputs and
outputs of the system can be believed to be in perfect
balance. it can however reach a stage where the
system itself is thrown into crisis.

the idea of speaking of the 'residue' with reference
to the market is to try and call into question the
idea that the system can exist in a state of perfect
balance, and to bring a systemic understanding to many
of the isolated incidents (refugee camps, jail
populations etc) that have been mentioned in this
discussion. there is a disgusting overtone to the
word which is not unintended.

but your criticism is well-founded and needs to be
taken seriously. in actual fact we are talking about
a global underclass and we do not need to find more
ways of naming that class as 'detritus'. perhaps we
should be talking, not about 'residue' but about the
*process* by which residue is generated?

R

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