Heterologias

le Kapital est foncièrement impérialiste : non pas simplement au sens où il a besoin d'écraser des peuples à sa périphérie, mais il a besoin d'une périphérie en général, et il a besoin de la pomper, et ce, sans le dire, i.e. de faire des prélèvements d'énergie où que ce soit dans le système solaire, dans l'air et dans l'eau, de faire entrer dans son propre circuit en faisant croire au miracle de la croissance autonome de ce circuit. Ce qui est frappant, c'est que dans le sens de la sortie, dans le sens de la jouissance, il va aussi y avoir quelque chose : la perversion, c'est le détournement par rapport au circuit de la reproduction.

Etiquetas: Bataille, Body, Deleuze, Economics, Freud, Klossowski, Lyotard, Marx, Sade, Sexuality

One of the richest and most eminent American merchants, a certain Edward Albert Filene, Vice-Chairman of the International Congress of Chambers of Commerce, is now touring Paris, Berlin and other big European centres to make personal contact with the most influential people of the commercial world.

At the banquets arranged, as is fitting, by the richest people of Europe in honour of one of the American rich, the latter is developing his “new” ideas on the world power of the merchant. Frankfurter = Zeitung,^[1] the organ of German finance capital, reports in detail the ideas of this “advanced” American millionaire.

“We are experiencing a great historic movement,” he proclaims, “that will end in the transfer of all power over the modern world to representatives of commercial capital. We are the people who bear the greatest responsibility in the world and we should, therefore, be politically the most influential.

“Democracy is growing, the power of the masses is growing,” argued Mr. Filene (rather inclined, it seems, to regard those “masses” as simpletons). “The cost of living is rising. Parliamentarism and the newspapers, distributed in millions of copies a day, are providing the masses of the people with ever more detailed information.

“The masses are striving to ensure for themselves participation in political life, the extension of franchise, the introduction of an income-tax, etc. Power over the whole world must pass into the hands of the masses, that is, into the hands of our employees,” is the conclusion drawn by this worthy orator.

“The natural leaders of the masses should be the industrialists and merchants, who are learning more and more to understand the community of their interests and those of the masses.” (We note in parenthesis that the cunning Mr. Filene is the owner of a gigantic commercial house employing 2,500 people, and that he has “organised” his employees in a “democratic” organisation with profit-sharing, etc. Since he considers his employees hopeless simpletons, Mr. Filene is sure that they are completely satisfied and infinitely grateful to their “father-benefactor” ....)

“Wage increases, the improvement of labour conditions, that is what will bind our employees to us,” said Mr. Filene, “that is what will guarantee our power over the whole world. Everybody in the world who is at all talented will come to us to enter our service.

“We need organisation and still more organisation—strong, democratic organisation, both national and inter national,” the American exclaimed. He called upon the commercial world of Paris, Berlin, etc., to reorganise international chambers of commerce. They should unite the merchants and industrialists of all civilised countries in a single, mighty organisation. All important international problems should be discussed and settled by that organisation.

Such are the ideas of an “advanced” capitalist, Mr. Filene.

The reader will see that these ideas are a paltry, narrow, one-sided, selfishly barren approximation to the ideas of Marxism propounded over sixty years ago. “We” are great masters at upsetting and refuting Marx; “we”, the civilised merchants and professors of political economy, have refuted him completely!... And at the same time we steal little bits and pieces from him and boast to the whole world of our “progressiveness”....

My worthy Mr. Filene! Do you really believe that the workers of the whole world are actually such simpletons?

W. [V. I. Lenine], "The Ideas of an Advanced Capitalist", Rabochaya Pravda, No. 4, July 17, 1913. Tradução de George Hanna, Lenin Collected Works, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1977, volume 19, pages 275-276.

Etiquetas: Bourgeoisie, capitalism, Colonialism, Communism, Democracy, Economics, Engenheiros, Filene, Gillette, Lang, Lenine, Marx, Mass Media, novos religiosos da utopia laica, Politics, Revolution

"No concílio do Vaticano de 1870, a Igreja já estava aburguesada e teve de rever a sua doutrina tradicional para proclamar o dogma da infalibilidade do Papa.
Que o Deus dos Céus, criador de todas as coisas, seja o detentor da verdade é, feitas as contas, lógico e ponto de fé; mas a afirmação de que um homem nunca se engana está eivada da doutrina burguesa do Iluminismo dos enciclopedistas e livre pensadores, incarnado pela deusa Razão que ilumina a humanidade, força as convicções, transforma o mundo e dá a volta ao Universo, pela virtualidade dos princípios sagrados de liberdade, igualdade e fraternidade da Revolução burguesa de 1789.
À medida que as ideias todo-poderosas descem sobre a terra, vão sendo personificadas pelo grande Arquitecto dos pedreiros-livres, pelo Papa, pelos Chefes de Estado capitalistas e pelos marxistas aburguesados, por Marx, Lénine e Estaline.
Marx não queria que se falasse de marxismo mas sim de socialismo científico para evitar que se atribuísse à sua pessoa o que é património teórico do proletariado.









Roger Dangeville, "Apresentação" introdutória a Marx-Engels, A Comuna de Paris de 1871, Lisboa, Serviços Sociais dos trabalhadores da C.G.D. Secção Cultural, 1976. Tradução da edição francesa de Nuno de Brito

Etiquetas: Authority, Bourgeoisie, Democracy, Enlightenment, Marx, novos religiosos da utopia laica, Politics, Pope, Reason, Religion