Dark Age Marxism

This is a recording of a talk given on 4th November 2022 in Oxford. I discuss the spooky relationship between Victorian spirit summoning and the “phantom-like objectivity” of value.

This is a ghost story, and like all good ghost stories, it’s true.

Talk (40 mins)

"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. So far as it is a value in use, there is nothing mysterious about it, whether we consider it from the point of view that by its properties it is capable of satisfying human wants, or from the point that those properties are the product of human labor. It is as clear as noon-day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by Nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him. The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than “table-turning” ever was."

Marx, Capital, Volume 1, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof”

A 30 mins talk on the history and significance of spirit possession, and why the modern commercial subject is also possessed. Talk given in Oxford on 11 May 2023.

Erratum: the first recorded case of spirit possession was from ~4000 BC in Ancient Egypt.

Remarks on the missing theory of semantic reference in economic theory.

Being, Nothing and Becoming in the structure of the primes.

Part 2 of 2.

Being, Nothing, and Becoming interpreted in terms of the simplest possible feedback equations.

Part 1 of 2.

A popular objection to Marx’s labor theory of value is that human labor alone doesn’t create profits: labor must be mixed with capital and land to produce useful output; and, anyway, machines can replicate many tasks that humans perform — there’s nothing special about human labor. Take a human taxi driver. Replace them with a robot taxi driver (some future version of self-driving cars). There’s no difference. The robot passes a Turing test for being a taxi driver. And the company still makes a profit. Hence, human labour is not the sole cause of profit, and the labour theory of value is false.

In this talk I explain why this view is wrong, but nonetheless gives us a useful entry point for gaining a deeper understanding of Marx’s theory of surplus-value, and why the origin of profit is human labor alone.

In the talk I (i) briefly review Marx’s theory of surplus-value, (ii) explain why materialists accept that, in principle, all human capabilities can be automated, (iii) describe a Turing Test for Marx’s theory of surplus-value, (iv) emphasize the importance of understanding that Marx’s theory of surplus-value is irreducibly dynamic in nature, (v) discuss the ideological inversion that causes people to think that machines can create value, (vi) discuss the macroeconomic data that reveals a clear empirical signature that labor creates profit, and (vii) close with some speculations on what may happen when humanity, driven by the blind imperatives of the alien demiurge, is finally forced to abolish itself.

At the top of the pyramid is a baleful eye, Capital — a real God, the demiurge of the world — that controls every aspect of our lives. Marx scaled the pyramid and gazed into the depths of the horror. Human cognition against alien cognition. Rationality against irrationality. Did Marx retain his sanity, or did he lose it?

A 40 minutes introduction on the genesis of Marx’s transformation problem.

Short talk that summarises the 1930’s book “The Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution”, followed by brief critical remarks. Useful, I hope, if you’d like to get a high-level summary of its main propositions.

This is a recording of a talk given on 9th June 2022 in Oxford. I discuss the two sides of Newton: the enchanted medieval Christian — believer in occult spirits that move the universe — and the disenchanted early modern scientist — believer in mechanisms, laws and the experimental method. I discuss Newton’s Arianism and his speculations that a Cosmic Christ maintained the laws of nature both in the macrocosm (the incorporeal transmitter of action at a distance) and in the microcosm (the alchemical spirit or “fire at the heart of the world”). But his decades as Master of the Royal Mint did not yield any significant economic theory. For Newton the commercial world — populated by chiselers, counterfeiters and market hagglers — was already disenchanted, almost godless — and therefore no hidden spirits maintained its motion. This modern myth, of an entirely secular realm of economics, persists to this day.

40 minutes talk.