The Absent Body of Labour Power: Uno Kōzō’s Logic of Capital
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Gavin Walker in
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Abstract
The debate around labour power, and particularly regarding its status as the ‘most peculiar’ of commodities, has been widely revisited in contemporary Marxist thought and critical theory. This concept, which has often resurfaced in works by Negri, Spivak, Virno and numerous other contemporary thinkers, has a long prehistory in the work of Marx and subsequent Marxist theorists, perhaps most importantly in the work of Uno Kōzō, arguably the most influential and widely known Marxist thinker in modern Japan. Uno’s work, and particularly his major theoretical works of the 1950s, developed an entire logical analysis of the peculiar position of the labour-power commodity within capital’s drive, noting that this site marks the place wherein capital’s logical interior and its historical exterior interpenetrate each other, generating a volatile force of excess at the core of capital’s supposedly smooth and pure circuit-process. By developing around this point an extensive theoretical discussion of its dynamics of impossibility or irrationality, centred on a term – muri – that he raises to the level of a concept, Uno formulates a series of original theses in methodology, on the concept of population, and particularly around the figures of the logical and the historical in the critical analysis of capitalism. Focusing in particular on this ‘impossibility’ or muri that is nevertheless constantly ‘passing through’ the capital-relation, this essay investigates the entire range of Uno’s analysis, revealing not only a crucial thread of theoretical inquiry that remains contemporary for us today, but also another set of possibilities linking the critique of political economy to the renewal of revolutionary politics.
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Adachi Mariko ‘Arata na keikenteki sho-ryōiki toshite no ‘jinkō’ no mondai’ New Experiential Fields in the Question of Population Marukusu riron kenkyū Investigations in Marxist Theory 2007 Tokyo Ochanomizu Shobō
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Althusser Louis Elliot Gregory Machiavelli and Us 1999 [1995] London Verso
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Aoki Kōhei Makoto Itō & Setsuo Furihata ‘Komyunizumu kara komyunitarianizumu e: gendai shakai tetsugaku ni okeru Marukusu, Uno riron no kōzō’ From Communism to Communitarianism: The Structure of Marxist and Unoist theory in Contemporary Social Philosophy Marukusu riron no saikōchiku: Uno keizaigaku o dō ikasu ka The Reconstruction of Marxist Theory: How Can Unoist Economics Be Revived? 2000 Tokyo Shakai Hyōronsha
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Badiou Alain L’être et l’événement 1988 Paris Seuil
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Badiou Alain & Balmès François De l’idéologie 1976 Paris Maspero
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Badiou Alain & Critchley Simon ‘Ours is Not a Terrible Situation’ Philosophy Today 2007 51 3 357 365
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Bidet Jacques Bidet Jacques & Kouvelakis Stathis ‘Kōzō Uno and His School: A Pure Theory of Capitalism’ Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism 2007 Leiden Brill Historical Materialism Book Series
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Deleuze Gilles Hand Séan Foucault 1988 [1986] London Athlone Press
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Engels Friedrich Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England Marx-Engels-Werke 1962 [1845] Volume 2 Berlin Dietz Verlag
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Engels Friedrich The Condition of the Working Class in England Marx Engels Collected Works 1975 [1845] Volume 4 Moscow Progress Publishers
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Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse Part One: Die Wissenschaft der Logik in Werke in zwanzig Bänden: Theorie-Werkausgabe 1971 [1830] Volume 8 Frankfurt am Main Suhrkamp
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Kawashima Ken C. ‘Capital’s Dice-Box Shaking: The Contingent Commodifications of Labour Power’ Rethinking Marxism 2005 17 4 609 26
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Laibman David Value, Technical Change, and Crisis: Explorations in Marxist Economic Theory 1992 New York M.E. Sharpe
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Lenin Vladimir Ilyich ‘The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve’s Book (The Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature)’ Collected Works 1976a [1895] Volume 1 Fourth Edition Moscow Progress Publishers
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Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Philosophical Notebooks Collected Works 1976b [1895–1916] Volume 38 Fourth Edition Moscow Progress Publishers
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Marx Karl Lohnarbeit und Kapital Marx-Engels-Werke 1962a [1849] Volume 6 Berlin Dietz Verlag
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Marx Karl Das Kapital, Volume 1 Marx-Engels-Werke, Volume 23 1962b [1867] Berlin Dietz Verlag
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Marx Karl Das Kapital, Volume 3 Marx-Engels-Werke, Volume 25 1962c [1894] Berlin Dietz Verlag
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Marx Karl Kritik des Gothaer Programms Marx-Engels-Werke 1962d [1875] Volume 19 Berlin Dietz Verlag
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Marx Karl Wage Labour and Capital Marx Engels Collected Works 1977 [1849] Volume 9 Moscow Progress Publishers
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Marx Karl Zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie (Manuskript 1861–1863) Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Division 2 1982 Volume 3.6 Berlin Dietz Verlag
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Marx Karl Ökonomische Manuskripte 1857/1858 Marx-Engels-Werke 1983 Volume 42 Berlin Dietz Verlag
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Marx Karl Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 [Grundrisse] Marx Engels Collected Works 1987 Volume 28 Moscow Progress Publishers
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Marx Karl Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx Engels Collected Works 1989 [1875] Volume 24 Moscow Progress Publishers
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Marx Karl Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863 Marx Engels Collected Works 1994 Volume 34 New York International Publishers
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Marx Karl Capital, Volume 1 Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 35 1996 [1867] New York International Publishers
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Marx Karl Capital, Volume 3 Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 37 1998 [1894] New York International Publishers
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Nagahara Yutaka Warera kashi aru mono tachi: han-shihonron no tame ni We, the Defective Commodities: For an Analytics of Anti-‘Capital’/ism 2008 Tokyo Seidosha
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Oki Kōsuke ‘Shihonshugi no materiariti’ The Materiality of Capitalism Gendai shisō: Revue de la pensée d’aujourd’hui 2004 32 5 121 135
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Oki Kōsuke Yojō no seiji keizaigaku The Political Economy of Excess 2012 Tokyo Nihon Keizai Hyōronsha
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Ōuchi Hideaki et al. Uno Kōzō: chosaku to shisō Uno Kōzō: Work and Thought 1979 Tokyo Yūhikaku
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Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty ‘Limits and Openings of Marx in Derrida’ Outside in the Teaching Machine 1993 London Routledge
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Uno Kōzō Shihonron gojūnen Fifty Years with ‘Capital’ 1970 Volume 1 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō Keizai genron [first version] Uno Kōzō chosakushū 1973a Volume 1 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō Keizai genron [Iwanami zensho version] Uno Kōzō chosakushū 1973b Volume 2 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō ‘Rōdōryoku naru shōhin no tokushusei ni tsuite’ On the Specificity of Labour Power as a Commodity Uno Kōzō chosakushū 1973c Volume 3 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō ‘Rōdōryoku no kachi to kakaku’ The Value and Price of Labour Power Uno Kōzō chosakushū 1973d Volume 4 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō ‘Keizaigaku ni okeru ronshō to jisshō’ The Structure of Theoretical Proof and Empirical Proof in Political Economy Uno Kōzō chosakushū 1973e Volume 4 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō ‘Shihonshugi no seiritsu to nōson bunkai no katei’ The Establishment of Capitalism and the Process of Dissolution of the Rural Village Uno Kōzō chosakushū 1973f Volume 8 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō Shihonron to shakaishugi Uno Kōzō chosakushū 1973g Volume 10 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō ‘Shihonron no kakushin’ Capital’s Nucleus Uno Kōzō chosakushū 1973h Volume 11 Tokyo Hōsei University Press
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Uno Kōzō Uno Kōzō chosakushū Collected Works of Uno Kōzō 1973i Tokyo Iwanami Shoten eleven volumes
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Uno Kōzō Sekine Thomas T. Principles of Political Economy: Theory of a Purely Capitalist Society 1980 Brighton Harvester Press
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Virno Paolo Il ricordo del presente: Saggio sul tempo storico 1999 Turin Bollati Boringhieri
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Walker Gavin ‘Shihon no kigenteki iki: hida toshite no rōdōryoku’ Capital’s Originary Threshold: Labour Power as Fold Muri to iu iki to kyō no seisan The Threshold of Impossibility [muri] and the Production of the Commons 2010a Part 1, Jōkyō May: 120–34
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Žižek Slavoj The Parallax View 2006 Cambridge, MA. The MIT Press
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1.
Engels 1962, p. 487; Engels 1975, p. 563. Translation modified.
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2.
Uno 1973c, p. 495.
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3.
Bidet 2007, p. 730.
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4.
Marx 1996, pp. 760–1.
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5.
Bidet 2007, p. 740. My italics.
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8.
Lenin 1976b, p. 317. See on this point Uno 1973g, in particular pp. 4–7.
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9.
Marx 1962c, p. 839; Marx 1998, p. 818. Translation modified.
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12.
Lenin 1976a, p. 437.
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13.
Uno 1973h, pp. 32–4.
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14.
Marx 1977, p. 203; Marx 1962a, p. 401.
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15.
Marx 1996, p. 178; Marx 1962b, p. 182.
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16.
Marx 1994, p. 247; Marx 1982, p. 2288.
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17.
Marx 1994, p. 243.
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19.
Virno 1999, pp. 120–41; Spivak 1993, p. 108.
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20.
Uno 1973a, pp. 134–5.
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21.
Marx 1962b, p. 181; Marx 1996, p. 177. Translation modified.
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22.
Virno 1999, p. 127.
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23.
Uno 1973g, p. 9.
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24.
Uno 1973a, pp. 134–5. On this passage, see Yutaka Nagahara’s many writings on the term ‘muri’, now collected in Nagahara 2008, especially pp. 169–81. I would like to note the importance of the phrase ‘actually commodified [genjitsuteki ni shōhinka shinagara]’, and point out that Uno here refers implicitly to the Hegelian concept of ‘the actual [das Wirkliche]’ in the adverbial form genjitsuteki ni, which connotes a wide-ranging conceptual field: the real, working, operative, etc. In this sense, ‘actuality [wirklich; Wirklichkeit]’ indicates something ‘for-itself’, something that gathers contingencies around it, and makes them operate in accordance with an interior force of pulsion or drive. This is one of the reasons that ‘actuality’ in this sense is a decisive concept in relation to capital, and holds an important place in Uno’s thought. I cannot expand on it for reasons of space here, but elsewhere I take another opportunity to develop Uno’s implicit discussion of actuality in relation to the dual roles of Hegel and Spinoza in his work.
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25.
Uno 1973a, p. 138.
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26.
Marx 1962a, p. 214. As noted earlier, it should be remembered that the phrase ‘labour power [Arbeitskraft]’ only appears in these manuscripts after Engels’s editorial intervention in the 1891 republication.
-
27.
Uno 1973c, p. 487. In Japanese-language Marxist theory, the original German abbreviations W = Ware, G = Geld, Pm = Produktionsmittel, A = Arbeitskraft, etc. are usually retained, but I have changed these to the standard abbreviations in English: C = commodity, M = money, MP = means of production, LP = labour power, c = constant capital, v = variable capital, s = surplus value.
-
28.
Uno 1973c, p. 487.
-
29.
Marx 1962b, p. 181; Marx 1996, p. 177. Translation modified.
-
30.
See here Uno 1973c, pp. 488–90.
-
31.
Marx 1962b, p. 185; Marx 1996, p. 181.
-
32.
See here Uno 1973e.
-
33.
Uno 1973b, pp. 76–7.
-
35.
Marx 1962a, p. 616; Marx 1996, p. 585.
-
36.
Oki 2004, pp. 130–1. This essay has now been included in Oki’s new and important book, Yojō no seiji keizaigaku [The Political Economy of Excess] (See Oki 2012), which develops numerous important and original theses related to the work of Uno.
-
37.
Laibman 1992, pp. 50–1.
-
38.
Marx 1987, p. 383; Marx 1983, p. 368.
-
40.
Uno 1973c, p. 497.
-
41.
Marx 1996, p. 176; Marx 1962a, p. 180.
-
42.
Marx 1987, p. 337; Marx 1983, pp. 323–4. Here, let me note an important conceptual and terminological point: the careful distinction between ‘limit’ [Grenze] and ‘barrier’ or ‘border’ [Schranke], which in turn concerns the essential relations governing the tendency [Tendenz] of capital’s ‘drive’ [Trieb], a sequence closely related to the concepts of ‘antagonism’ [Gegenstand] and ‘contradiction’ [Widerspruch]. I develop this point in relation to Uno’s work in greater detail in my current book-manuscript.
-
43.
Marx 1962b, p. 630; Marx 1996, p. 599.
-
44.
Laibman 1992, p. 51.
-
45.
Uno 1973h, p. 34.
-
46.
Žižek 2006, p. 298.
-
47.
Uno 1973f, p. 42. This point is closely related to the central status of the agrarian question in Uno. See Walker 2012b.
-
48.
Marx 1987, p. 425; Marx 1983, p. 408.
-
49.
Adachi 2007, p. 274, my emphasis.
-
50.
Uno 1973c, p. 502.
-
51.
Marx 1962b, pp. 630–1; Marx 1996, p. 599.
-
52.
Uno 1973a, pp. 134–5.
-
54.
Uno 1973d, p. 132.
-
56.
Uno 1973c, p. 497.
-
58.
Aoki 2000, p. 183.
-
60.
Uno 1973e, p. 19.
-
61.
Hegel 1971, p. 235 (§ 114).
-
63.
Badiou and Critchley 2007, p. 363. For another point of entry into the question of Badiou’s relation to Marx, see Walker 2012c.
-
64.
Badiou 1988, pp. 397–8.
-
65.
See Uno 1973c, p. 497.
-
66.
Marx 1996, p. 573; Marx 1962b, pp. 598–9.
-
68.
Badiou and Balmès 1976, p. 67.
-
70.
Marx 1989, p. 88; Marx 1962d, p. 23.
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The Absent Body of Labour Power: Uno Kōzō’s Logic of Capital
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Gavin Walker in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
The debate around labour power, and particularly regarding its status as the ‘most peculiar’ of commodities, has been widely revisited in contemporary Marxist thought and critical theory. This concept, which has often resurfaced in works by Negri, Spivak, Virno and numerous other contemporary thinkers, has a long prehistory in the work of Marx and subsequent Marxist theorists, perhaps most importantly in the work of Uno Kōzō, arguably the most influential and widely known Marxist thinker in modern Japan. Uno’s work, and particularly his major theoretical works of the 1950s, developed an entire logical analysis of the peculiar position of the labour-power commodity within capital’s drive, noting that this site marks the place wherein capital’s logical interior and its historical exterior interpenetrate each other, generating a volatile force of excess at the core of capital’s supposedly smooth and pure circuit-process. By developing around this point an extensive theoretical discussion of its dynamics of impossibility or irrationality, centred on a term – muri – that he raises to the level of a concept, Uno formulates a series of original theses in methodology, on the concept of population, and particularly around the figures of the logical and the historical in the critical analysis of capitalism. Focusing in particular on this ‘impossibility’ or muri that is nevertheless constantly ‘passing through’ the capital-relation, this essay investigates the entire range of Uno’s analysis, revealing not only a crucial thread of theoretical inquiry that remains contemporary for us today, but also another set of possibilities linking the critique of political economy to the renewal of revolutionary politics.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 570 | 95 | 6 |
| Full Text Views | 166 | 15 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 158 | 31 | 0 |