this is David Harvey and you're
listening to the anti-capitalist
Chronicles a podcast that looks at
capitalism through a Marxist lens this
podcast is made possible by democracy at
work
in the last session I was talking about
relations that existed between elements
within a social system between
technology relations to Nature mental
conceptions of the world social
relations administrative structures
production and the like
um but I ended by kind of saying that um
the nature of the relations
uh needs to be understood uh in terms of
Marx's dialectical thinking which even
for some marxists is a bit of a stretch
so I wanted to concentrate just a little
bit on an idea that comes out
particularly in terms of a study of the
relation to nature which right now
is in the Forefront of a lot of our
interests I think politically and as
well as uh uh socially
and what Marx does is to suggest that
the relation to Nature
is something that he calls a metabolic
relation
and I want to spend a little time
talking about the distinction between a
metabolic relation and an independent
causal relation
because the metabolic relation requires
a very specific kind of approach very
different from this idea of their
independent Billet balls of knowledge
and so on which collide with each other
and the metabolic relation is something
which is very very special and is very
important to understand
in fact what Marx does is to suggest
that the relation to Nature in the labor
process under capital is is basically a
metabolic relation
Now by a metabolic relation he means a
kind of relation in which the existence
of one part
is contingent entirely upon the
existence of another part
the example I would use here would be
something like uh
say uh
uh a b uh and uh all the work uh the B
uh does in pollination
uh you can't have have uh bees without
pollination
and you can't have pollination without
bees there are in fact some other ways
in which you can pollinate but
pollination is basically done by B so
the B and pollination are if you like
contingent on each other and the
existence of one depends on the
existence of the other take away the
pollination and all the bees collapse uh
take away the bees and all pollination
collapses with all sorts of disasters
around the world which is why so many
people are worried about the declining
bee populations in some parts of the
world which has a lot to do with the use
of pesticides so that uh uh I I a
metabolic relation then is of that sort
and and therefore it requires a very
careful analysis and and and while there
is difference there because clearly a b
is different from pollination uh that
the existence of the two is is becomes
becomes absolutely uh comes part and
parcel of each other
now this is uh significant in in in the
sense that
um if a hurricane comes down it comes
along and knocks down a house
then the hurricane is not necessary to
the existence of the house and the house
is not necessary to the existence of the
hurricane in other words you have two
independent forces or two independent
Elements which Collide at some moment
and well a lot of analysis of what we do
is the Collision of those independent
elements but when we get a metabolic
relation this metabolic relation starts
to become very very powerful and very
very different and it dances to
different rules than those which come
out of the independent Collision of
independent forces which you can also
find
so this is what a topic which I think is
worth exploring just a little bit
um because there is also a sense in
which at some point or rather an
independent relation can become a
metabolic relation
in other words it's not as if some
relations out there are inherently
metabolic and some out there independent
uh inherently independent that's not the
case independent relations can at some
point or other get embedded in such a
way as to become metabolic and when they
become metabolic the rules of their
engagement changes drastically now the
the simple answer to the uh example of
this would be the following now somebody
has a headache or is feeling very badly
and and and takes a painkiller
uh and yeah they they they they don't
feel good next day either so I take a
painkiller a day a day this is in
independent relations this type of
person is feeling sick there's
painkillers over there there's no thing
puts them together and says that they're
a metabolic relation but you can see
quickly that at a certain point uh there
will be opioid Addiction in which case
there starts to be a metabolic relation
emerging out of the independent relation
those painkillers and there's somebody
with a pain independent but then after a
while it became habitual and that
therefore the the they became part and
past of each other that the the addicts
could not exist without the opioid and
of course the production of opioids
depended very much on the existence of
addiction in which case we find the all
of this business going on of the
pharmaceutical companies actually
peddling and creating this uh addictive
relation which was had had therefore a a
a a
metabolic form now to break in metabolic
relation is very very different from the
question of breaking an independent
relation with an independent why don't
you just cut off whatever is a negative
and that's it with a metabolic relation
you cut off the opioid and you know the
the person can you know freak out and
die and all the rest of it so so so it's
not so so you need a completely
different approach you have to find some
way of managing uh the dialectical
relation the metabolic relation has to
be managed very carefully and so to
extract somebody from that metabolic
kind of state and and allow for uh the
resumption of an independent form of
relation in which somebody if they are
really feeling got pain from cancer or
something like that they will be able to
have access to an opioid Bill to deal
with it so that is what is done here now
what this has to do with the theory of
capital is this that when Capital starts
off it starts off as something that is
totally independent it's it's somebody
has some money
and they kind of go out in the
marketplace and they hire some laborers
and they got some means of production
and they they they they make something
and they make something for a week and
then they sell it and then they go home
and they they forget all about it
this is independent relation okay
but then what happens is at a certain
point somebody goes into the market and
buys means a production and labor power
and and creates a commodity and and and
and monetizes that commodity so and gets
gets a profit and says okay well I think
I want to go through this again and get
some more profit because you know more
profit is more wealth and power and so
after a bit uh and as Marx kind of says
the definition of capital
is that point at which not when you
first take money and go off and buy it
for things but when there is a need and
and an urge if you like an addiction if
you like put it that way of actually
taking the Surplus value which you
created uh through the production
process and the profit which you gained
and reinserting it back in so that you
start to get the circulation of capital
and the result is the circulation of
capital
is crystallizes out as a metabolic
relation now what this does historically
is this it says that all kinds of things
were going on in society uh and and
people were producing things and there
was some wage labor and there was like
commodity trades and things like that
and so on it was all going on but that
capital is about about value in motion
and it's about it's about the
circulation of capital and that
circulation process is self-replicating
that is it becomes a metabolic relation
and there's a metabolic relation with
nature because the labor process is
about taking labor
and and and putting that labor to work
to transform use values which exist in
nature into something which is a
commodity which is then going to be
useful and going to be sold to onto some
uh some other person
so this is the this is the the world
which we start to see emerging so that
that Marx really talks about uh
pre-capitalism as a process emerging out
of independent relations and the gradual
construction of a metabolic relation
which is very analogous to the addiction
uh that we talked about
opioids and therefore the capitalist is
now engaged in such a way that they
cannot do anything other than take their
profit and bring it back in and start to
create even more value more Surplus
value so you start to get into what
Mark's called the spiral form as opposed
to Simply the circulation process and
the spiral form is the result of this
kind of addiction if you like of capital
and the construction of this metabolic
relation now this is where the theory of
Economics starts to look very very
different because now you're going to
say that capital goes through these
different moments it goes through the
moment of of uh assembly of the of the
raw materials it goes to the moment of
production
it then goes through the moment of
actually uh the selling of the commodity
and it goes through the moment of uh
realization of value it goes through the
moment of consumption and it goes
through the moment of distribution in
other words what Marx does is to look at
the way in which the classical political
economists looked at an economy and they
started to identify production
distribution exchange
realization uh
yeah and and the like all of those
moments within the circulation process
which were part of the totality we
talked about the totality of capital so
the totality gets created in a certain
kind of way and the relations within the
totality are metabolic relations not
independent relations
now Bourgeois economics typically
regards all of these Notions like
production consumption exchange
distribution and so on as as actually
independent in fact just a production
and it uses a positivist framework to
look at the way in which these elements
interact
and and then therefore it is actually
missing the main point which is that
these these elements do not relate to
each other as independent uh and and
they relate to each other as a metabolic
relation so that this idea of a
distinction between a metabolic relation
and an independent relation is terribly
important an independent relation can
work through positivism empiricism and
and standard scientific methods
and on the other hand the the metabolic
relation cannot be handled that way the
metabolic relation needs a different
mode of analysis it needs a
relationality understanding how it is
that uh the the the the the the the the
value which is Incorporated in the means
of production gets replicated in the
commodity which then gets realized in
the market which then circulates back in
and therefore it is a self-expanding
system
so I would want to argue that Marx's
historical materialism is about
analyzing a totality
and analyzing a totality with the idea
that all of the elements in that
totality are bound together in terms of
a metabolic relation and so it marks a
certain point talks about the metabolic
relation to Nature as being significant
but at a certain point he also talks
about social metabolism
which is the way that the metabolic
structure of capital works now as I
argued in the opioid case
the the the the the ability to to get
out of
uh addiction
is is something which is entirely
different from Simply you know cutting
off the The Independent Source by
ceasingly opioid production for example
it's entirely different from that and
therefore we need a different technique
a different entirely dealing with in the
same way the the opioid addiction had to
be dealt with in a different way
um a non-independent way so we have to
look at the non-independent way in which
capital works and it's therefore the
formula when we talk about capital in
motion we're talking about Capital
moving through these different moments
and as it moves through these moments
these moments actually uh are predicated
on a metabolic relation with other
moments in other words you can't have in
in this system Marxist system you cannot
have an analysis of production that does
not actually incorporate and I say
incorporate rather than relate to
incorporate uh
consumption and does not incorporate
realization
and does not incorporate exchange so
that for Marx the the act of production
is already predicated upon an act of
realization and an act to sale in the
market and and an act of reinvestment so
that the circular process is is is is
locked together
through this idea of a metabolic
relation and so that metabolic relations
start to become Central to the way in
which Mark sets up his political economy
now this is something which you know
conventional economists which wouldn't
know what to do with them
they really don't know what to do with
contradictions and they don't know what
to do with dialectics and all the rest
of it but Marx is is really trying to
create an alternative uh set of mental
conceptions if you will which are going
to actually reflect uh the way in which
uh the elements within the totality of
capital work together and become part
and parcel of each other and actually
construct the metabolic relation now
that then means that at a certain point
if we want to think about the conversion
of a capitalist system
into a socialist system then you've got
to be able to intervene in the metabolic
relation we've got to find a way of of
breaking apart a lot of that metabolic
connectivity and we've got to think
about ways of perhaps rendering
independent certain elements are within
the construction process and that is
what one of the features of Marx's
theory is about is to how to take the
pieces break them from the metabolic
connection and start to actually then
create an alternative World in which we
would still continue to actually think
about the relationality between the
different elements of the sort that we
were talking about last week the
elements of Technology the elements of
mental conceptions the the elements of
uh administrative structure and so on
which to me right now is a critical
problem because as I argued last week I
think one of the biggest barriers to
actually
even a conventional economic change
which is going to be able to deal with
some of the problems of uh of of of of
climate change the one of the big
biggest barriers is is the interstate
system and the way it's constructed and
and the coercive laws of competition
between uh States and between power
blocks that those that's one of the
biggest things uh and then of course
there's the politics of daily life and
the politics of social relations and the
politics of Technologies in relation to
Nature and all of those kinds of things
that we need to to rethink uh a lot of
our approach uh to to to all of that so
this is uh just one of the ways in which
we if we shift from this uh kind of a
totality idea with different elements
within the totality but then we start to
think about the nature of the relations
operating within the totality which are
not simply causal structures and or even
feedback structures they're they're
they're actually metabolic relations and
metabolic relations have a different
have a special quality that needs a
special kind of handling and the
thinking in terms of the metabolic
relation uh becomes rather critical both
politically but also in terms of looking
backwards and trying to explain how do
we got to our current situation thank
you for joining me today you've been
listening to David Harvey's
anti-capitalist Chronicles a democracy
at work production a special thank you
to the wonderful patreon Community for
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