[iDC] Re: a critique of naturalized capitalism

[Nicholas Ruiz III]

Hi Ryan/all:

We should note here that certain factions of genetic
Code are more represented by Capital, than others.
Most analyses of Capital are myopically obsessed with
this small part of the world equation of exchange;
indeed, it is the part most often categorized as some
form or other of 'capitalism'...in any event, the part
of 'it' we are most affected by in life.  Polity
involves this segment of exchange, modulating its
activity, while modulated by it.

Many are under the spell of history, which provides
Capital with a birth, a Beginning, but Capital was
always present in its basic form: a capitalizing Code.
 We might even say, in our lighter moments, that
Capital is the dream of the Code; its macrolevel
extension in to the world, from its micro/molecular
proximity in the biological cell.  Where Culture
dreamed of beauty, Capital yearned to be effective. 
At last, Capital learned to effect beauty, so as to
assimilate beauty as a veneer.  

Today, Capital is beautiful—operationally, and that is
the aesthetic we revere; the beauty of utility.  The
problem with the recognition of Capital’s enduring
omnipresence is that there is no one to indict of the
crimes Capital commits—do we indict ourselves, that is
to say, human society? And then, do we punish
ourselves?  After all Freud, already tried to issue
such a judgment:
 
"But with the recognition that every civilization
rests on a compulsion to work and a renunciation of
instinct and therefore inevitably provokes opposition
from those affected by these demands, it has become
clear that civilization cannot consist principally or
solely in wealth itself and the means of acquiring it
and the arrangements for its distribution; for these
things are threatened by the rebelliousness and the
destructive mania of the participants in
civilization."   

What Freud missed here is that the human instinct is
precisely to work at something (even nothing); there
is not a renunciation of instinct in that activity,
but rather an embrace of an instinct to survive, to
produce, to replicate (and if not replicate, certainly
to copulate—where replication becomes incidental for
most of the species)—that is the Code’s agenda—the
Code is as the Code does.  In addition, civilization
can consist of Capital accrual and defense—and it has
and does so—increasingly, via the “world-widening of
the world” (i.e. globalization).  It is not wealth
that most seek, but rather, production of a life or
lives.  

Capital makes itself known, among other ways, as a
function and a tool of precisely the “rebelliousness
and destructive mania” of which Freud speaks.  Though
circumstances are novel, the inception point of all of
this is not contemporary, nor modern, or medieval, or
even ancient. We are merely molecular progeny in
perpetual flux. Our possibility came into being from
the point at which molecules began to self-organize,
conserve, replicate: that is the beginning of
utilitous Code, a material manifestation of which
today, is Capital; notice how it too, self-organizes,
conserves, accumulates, replicates, etc.  It is in
that sense, that Capital, and increasingly today,
global Capital, represents and implements the Code,
and is a tool of it.  


NRIII

 
--- Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Apr 7, 2007, at 8:25 AM, Nicholas Ruiz III wrote:
> 
> > I'm not sure I understand the question...could you
> > elaborate a bit...?
> >
> > NRIII
> 
> i'm questioning the use of the phrase "decided by
> virtue of our birth  
> as living capitalized beings, driven by the currency
> of the Code..."
> There are two paths that seem to be suggested by
> this language, but  
> correct me if i'm wrong:
> 1. This (capitalism) is Nature as code, an
> indifferent system that is  
> not explainable through social/cultural systems, but
> is a phenomenon  
> of the Universe that is reducible only to observable
> mechanisms.
> 2. This (capitalism) is Nature as metaphysical
> "Code", written into  
> the specifically "human nature" as sin is attributed
> to all humans  
> "by virtue of our birth" in Judeo/Christian terms.
> 
> Either way, capitalism (as both an ideology and
> material system) is  
> unavoidable and evolutionary, as well as totalizing.
> As if there is/ 
> cannot be other ideologies/systems parallel to it,
> that are not  
> merely false or mythical.
> If this is the case being stated, i'm not sure what
> the meaning of  
> the term "capitalism" might be, as in either case,
> it becomes  
> synonymous with "Nature" and/or "Human."
> Obviously, i would disagree with such an assertion -
> hence my  
> recalling of Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory (which,
> to simplify, is  
> the notion that the behavior we call "selfish" or
> "self- 
> interestedness" (the traits, not coincidentally,
> most celebrated by  
> capital) is "hard-wired" into us genetically).
> If what's being stated is not this, and is just
> using the language of  
> "Code" (the capital "C" is part of what caught my
> attention) and  
> "genetic protocol" rhetorically and metaphorically,
> then i think it's  
> a bit problematic as a critical gesture, as it
> evades critically  
> through naturalization. It seems, to me, to dismiss
> the importance of  
> the political, rather than locating it.
> best,
> ryan
> >
> >
> > --- Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> On Apr 2, 2007, at 11:03 AM,
> >> idc-request at mailman.thing.net wrote:
> >>
> >>> Herein lies the importance of the political.  It
> >> is
> >>> not that we will not be capitalists--this has
> >> already
> >>> been decided by virtue of our birth as living
> >>> capitalizing beings, driven by the currency of
> the
> >>> Code; that genetic protocol of environmental
> >> utility
> >>> and capitalization.  Every breath we take is a
> >>> capitalization on the environment we exist
> >> within...
> >>
> >> does the word "capitalism" mean anything specific
> >> here?
> >> sounds like a "selfish gene" argument to me.
> 
> 
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Dr. Nicholas Ruiz III
Editor, Kritikos
http://intertheory.org