In this important book, Rebecca Carson develops the concept of "immanent externalities" to grasp the non-capitalist life processes produced by—and necessary for—capitalist reproduction. Immanent Externalities thus considers the category of reproduction by means of a philosophical re-reading of the three volumes of Marx's Capital. In doing so, the book locates capitalism's fundamental contradiction as that between the reproduction of profit-driven activity and ecologically situated human life, suggesting new orientations for theory and practice today.
Rebecca Carson is a Tutor at the Royal College of Art. She has published widely on Marx and reproduction, including the articles "Fictitious Capital and the Re-emergence of Personal Forms of Domination" and "Non-capitalist Domination, Rentierism and the Politics of Class".
Publication date: June 25, 2024
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Fictitious Capital and the Re-emergence of Personal Forms of Domination
Introduction
1.1 Fictitious Capital
1.2 Fictitious Capital and Value Form
1.3 Social Reproduction and Personal Domination
2 Money Form
Introduction
2.1 Political Subjectivity and the Monetary Link between Italian Operaismo and Capital Logic
2.2 Money as Money
3 Fetish Character
Introduction
3.1 The Presupposition of Reification and The Money Form
3.2 Personal and Impersonal Forms of Domination
4 Time and Schemas of Reproduction
Introduction
4.1 The Circulation of Capital
4.2 Interruptions and Differential Temporal Forms within Capital’s Reproduction
4.3 Marx’s Presentation of The Metamorphoses of Capital and Their Circuit
4.4 Marx’s Presentation of The Turnover of Capital
4.5 Marx’s Presentation of the Reproduction and Circulation of Total Social Capital
4.6 The Three Circuits of Capital
4.7 The Role of the Credit System within Capital’s Reproduction
4.8 Expanded Reproduction
4.9 A Complete Concept of Money for Understanding Capital’s Reproduction
4.10 Non-capitalist Variables within Capital’s Reproduction
Conclusion
5 Marx’s Social Theory of Reproduction
Introduction
5.1 Capital’s Life Process
5.2 Intersubjective Structures
5.3 The Category of Reproduction in Hegel’s The Science of Logic
5.4 Concrete Reproduction of Human Life and Nature
5.5 Marx’s Two Concepts of Life
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
“Carson blazes a path with a crucial, rigorous analysis that combines social reproduction theory with the capital-logic approach, proving rather than showing the contradiction between capital and life.”
—Marina Vishmidt
“Carson's work is an original, and scholarly, investigation of the relation between social reproduction and capital's reproduction of itself.”
—Christopher J. Arthur, author of The Spector of Capital
“Carson combines erudition and insight, conceptual sophistication and bold engagement, to offer an understanding of the new capitalist logic where the violent clash of extremes: the "life" of financial accumulation and the "life" of bodily reproduction, is pushed to its limits. Her theory will be passionately discussed, for the greatest benefit of scholars and activists.”
—Etienne Balibar
“[A] potential starting point for future strategic interventions in Marxist ecology and Marxist feminism. The book has much to contribute to debates around financialization, social reproduction, and, most importantly, the increasing interrelation between the two.”
—Sean K. Isaacs, Spectre
“Immanent Externalities is a crucial development in value-form theory. It both adds an astute original contribution to the debate on credit money, the circulation of capital, and their relation to social reproduction, and provides a clear critical overview of many of the most complex discussions in contemporary Marxist theory.”
—Elliot C. Mason, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books