‘The Marxian Singularity’.
Dear Readers,
In the Grundrisse manuscripts, as well
as elsewhere, Karl Marx wrote about the way in which fixed capital is the ‘epitomeous’
form of capital, coming to dominate capital-mass in the epoch of the ‘“real
domination”’ or “real subsumption” of the labor process by capital, the epoch that
begins with a prevalence of the “relative surplus-value” form of surplus-value
production, and which Seldon also identifies as the “descendence phase” of the
capitalist system. Marx also wrote there
about how fixed capital lawfully tends to develop into “an automatic system of machinery”,
as the incarnation and objectification of the very essence of “the capital-relation”
itself in the shape of the physical embodiment of capital as fixed capital.
In the third volume of «Das Kapital»,
Marx wrote of what Seldon calls ‘The Marxian Singularity’, and which others have termed “The Automation Crisis”, in these words
--
“A development of the productive forces
[M.D.:
E.g., a penultimate level of growth of industrial productivity via “automation”] which would diminish the absolute number of laborers, i.e.,
enable the entire nation to accomplish its total production in a shorter
time-span would cause a revolution
[and would thus also constitute an
historical boundary, a productive force upper bound and limit, of the capitals-system;
an end of the very possibility of the continuing the capitals-system; of
the capital social-relation-of-production as predominating social relation of
social reproduction -- M.D.] because it would put the bulk of the population
out of the running”.
[Karl Marx, Capital, volume III, The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole,
International Publishers Co., Inc. [NY: 1967], p. 263, bold italic shadowed
emphasis added by M.D.].
It might be instructive, as a “thought-experiment”, to note
what happens in the ‘Marxian ratios’ -- the “dimensionless” value proportions
central to the Marxian “law of value”, and to the Marxian theory of the
capitalist system as a whole -- in a scenario characterized by an extremity of
automation. Such a scenario would be
modeled “in the limit” as “Variable capital-value”, V --
the aggregate of the values of wages or of living human labor-power commodities
purchased to form part of “productive capital” -- goes to 0.
A. Let us first apply this limit-process to the
Marxian value-profit-rate ratio -- the ratio that resides at the very heart of
Marx’s theory of the historical dynamics and ‘meta-dynamics’ [Seldon] of “the
capital relation”, and of its lawful fate -- in its “purely”-quantitative,
classical form:
lim . S’
. = . 0 . = 0
V --> 0
(C + V) C
-- wherein S’ goes to zero together with V,
because no “necessary labor” also means no “surplus-labor”, hence no “surplus-value”,
S,
hence no net “surplus-value”, S’. And
no net “surplus-value” means no profit, hence, before long, no capitalism.
It is also interesting to see what happens in this V --> 0
limit to that form of the Marxian value-profit-rate ratio which arises by multiplying both the denominator and the
numerator of the ratio as given above by 1 in the form of ((1/V)/(1/V))
-- the form in which both the “organic composition of capital” ratio, C/V,
and the (net) “rate of surplus-value” ratio, (S’/V), figure explicitly,
as ‘sub-ratios’ --
lim . (S’/V) . “=” . oo . “=” . oo .
V --> 0
((C/V) + 1) (oo + 1) oo
“=” ‘“indeterminate”’.
We might visualize this scenario-idealization, of ‘automation
extremity’, as one in which --
* All agental production work, which
no longer figures as “living [human] labor”, is performed by AI ‘‘‘Android
Robots’’’, whose costs of reproduction do not figure as V, but
might, rather, be assimilated to C, or;
* All such production work, which,
again, no longer figures as “living [human] labor”, is performed by genomically
re-engineered ‘meta-humans’, whose costs of reproduction therefore also no
longer figure as V, or;
* All such production work, which,
again, no longer figures as “living [human] labor”, is performed by ‘hybrid meta-humans’,
that combine genomically re-engineered genotypes with implants/artificial body-parts
[i.e., ‘‘‘prosthetics’’’] originally developed for Android Robots, i.e., by ‘‘‘Cyborgs’’’,
whose costs of reproduction thus also no longer figure as V.
-- or by combinations of the three cases described above.
The above, “infinity over infinity”, “indeterminate”
result arises from the outcome that both the (C/V) ‘sub-ratio’, in the denominator,
and the (S’/V) ‘sub-ratio’,
in the numerator, “become infinite” in the limit as V goes to 0, due
to divisions by zero, in terms of such calculations as are available in
standard, “purely”-quantitative “Real” arithmetic, as augmented by the “limit”
operation and by the non-standard "infinity" symbol ‘oo’
--
lim . C . =
. C . “=” oo
V --> 0
V 0
-- and --
lim . S’. =
. S’. “=” oo .
V --> 0
V 0
B. Let us next apply this limit-process to the
Marxian value-profit-rate in its Seldonian, ‘qualo-quantitative’ or ‘quanto-qualitative”
form, as that form arises through ontological and metrical ‘re-qualification’ of
‘‘‘quantifiers’’’, by ontological and metrical ‘arithmetical qualifier’ factors
or coefficients, in the seventh ‘arithmetic for dialectic’ in the “slow version”
of the Seldonian ‘‘‘systematic-dialectical’’’ method of presentation of the
axioms-systems of the Seldonian ‘arithmetics for dialectic’, as a
dialectical categorial progression of axioms-systems’ categories: [forthcoming].
For more information regarding, and for [further] instantiations of, these Seldonian insights, please see --
and
For ‘poster-izations’ of many of these insights -- as specimens of ‘dialectical art’ -- see:
¡ENJOY!
Regards,
Miguel Detonacciones,
Member, Foundation Encyclopedia
Dialectica [F.E.D.],
Participant, F.E.D.
Special Council for Public Liaison,
Officer, F.E.D.
Office of Public Liaison.
