And while every body is different, we can actually set up
what Marx would call a concrete abstraction.
That is an abstraction, a general picture of what all human bodies are about.
And when we start to do that, we will see straightaway
that the human body contains a variety of circulatory processes,
all of which are interacting with each other, and all of which
are also, at the same time possible to identify and examine.
What we will end up with is that the concrete abstraction
of the human body can be broken down into these particular parts.
And we will have neurologists telling us about this part, pulmonary specialists
telling us about that part, cardiologists telling us about another part.
The analysis here then would say what Marx is doing
is talking about capital in a similar kind of vein.
The totality of the formation of capital
is made up of different circulatory processes.
There's a tendency within Marxism to say everything really rests
on the question of production.
That is, the central part here is the creation of surplus value in production.
I think that is a very important role.
But on the other hand, the surplus value produced in production means nothing
unless it's also all these other features are engaged.
The analogy of the human body is, I think here again, useful and instructive.
It's useful and instructive because you don't go around saying,
oh, well, the heart is more important than the liver
or the heart is more important than the stomach or the heart
is more important than the brain.
And if there is an illness in the body, there's only one
real cause of death, which is the fact the heart stops beating.
Well, death is about the heart stopping beating,
but the reason the heart stops beating is because
there wasn't enough oxygen there or there wasn't enough...
the liver failed or the neurological capacities
dissipated or something of that kind.
So when you’re looking at the human body, you tend to look at the different
circulatory processes and to say that all of them are important.
All of them, if they fail, are going to create a serious problem,
a medical problem, and possibly resulting in death
and the same thing applies to all of these moments, as Marx calls
them, in this circulatory process, that, yes,
the surplus value is
created in production, but on the other hand,
it only exists if you can sufficiently go through
all of the other moments, as Marx calls them, in this circulatory process.
So this is the picture that you have.
And it's
a very useful one, I think, to analyze, because when you hit a crisis, say,
like the crisis of 2007-2008, one of the things you would do is to say,
well, where within the system did this crisis really originate?
Where did it come from?
We have to look at all of the possible
points of failure within this, because if any one of these breaks down...
One of the things I always end up doing is, is whenever I'm
faced with particular kinds of difficulty in an economy
and so all the figures start to go haywire and the stock exchange collapses
and all kinds of things of that happen, you have a 1930s style
crisis, I kind of say, okay, let's look at this whole kind of system
and let's see how capital deals with these contradictions, if it does.
So this is, if you like, the
basic system.
Where are the weaknesses in the system?
Where are the contradictions in this system?
And how do the contradictions work?
And under what circumstances can this system work
in such a way as to be operating very smoothly?
Can it be operating smoothly forever?
The answer, I think, is no.