The commodity is not the origin from which capitalism truly unfolds back.
Evidence
Against this, Marx himself observes that commodities ‘cannot themselves go to market’. The commodity requires human action beyond its production, for it cannot mediate itself. The metaphor of the germ cell may seem trivial, but as Jürgen Ritsert comments, it actually leads to a substantial pitfall in the reading of Marx: … Among other things, the faulty metaphor of the ‘germ cell’ causes one to overlook a further barrier to comparisons with Hegel on the problem of origin. In Science of Logic, Hegel writes that advancement in philosophy actually consists in a ‘a retrogression and a grounding, only by virtue of which it then follows as result that that, with which the beginning was made, was not just an arbitrary assumption but was in fact the truth, and the first truth at that’. … Yet Marx’s conception of capitalism as a whole does not return to the point of origin the way it came. The commodity … is not what the elaborated representation would designate as the central element of society, its ensemble of dominant relations or qualities, its principium synthesis or some other such phenomenon to which society fundamentally goes back. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1163
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies the ‘germ cell’ metaphor debate in Marx reading and what the commodity is NOT for Marx.
- XREF: Connects to the standard reading of Capital as beginning with the commodity as a ‘germ cell’; Ritsert’s critique parallels debates in value-form theory. — connects to: Economic change does not directly supply the content of capitalist ideas; Capitalism is a symptom of something deeper and unnameable in Western civilization — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1427; Capitalism was shaped by preexisting European civilization, not the reverse (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- Capitalism was shaped by preexisting European civilization, not the reverse
#corroborates(0.85) - Economic change does not directly supply the content of capitalist ideas
#expands(0.82) - Commercial capital accumulation does not imply a capitalist mode of production
#corroborates(0.82) - Capitalists are opportunistic adapters, not the germ of a new rational order
#corroborates(0.80) - Capitalism is a symptom of something deeper and unnameable in Western civilization
#expands(0.78) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1427 - Colonial capitalism arises from conquest and unfree labor, not free markets.
#expands(0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 589 - Capitalism breaks with prior production yet continues domination over objects
#qualifies(0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1602