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One
of Karl Marx's basic propositions related to the two-fold
nature of all economic categories under capitalism.
A product was simultaneously a commodity; a commodity
which had a use value carried simultaneously an exchange
value; concrete labour was simultaneously abstract labour;
the labour process was simultaneously a value-creating
process; the means of production were simultaneously
capital; the surplus product in society took simultaneously
the form of surplus value; and so on. The first aspect
of this two-fold nature of everything related to the
material, the concrete, the specific, or what one may
call the ''thingness'' of it (Marx sometimes referred
to it as the ''use-value'' aspect); the second aspect
related to the fact that this ''thing'' was simultaneously
a social relation. The two-fold nature of economic categories
arose from the fact that all ''things'' were simultaneously
expressions of social relations.
This two-fold nature did not characterize pre-capitalist
societies, since in them social relations were expressed
directly and blatantly, through force, custom, or habit,
and not through the complex mechanisms of a system of
generalized commodity production, where the apparent
equality of the market place concealed class exploitation.
The task of scientific political economy therefore was
to discover these social relations. To remain confined
to the ''thingness'' of economic categories, to remain
oblivious to the social relations of which they were
simultaneously the expression, was ''vulgar economy'',
and not scientific political economy. Marx described
''vulgar economy'' as remaining confined to the sphere
of circulation, and emphasized the apologetic intent
behind it. But his characterization of it clearly was
that it analyzed ''things'' without reference to the social
relations of which they were the expression. For instance,
its exclusive attention to the sphere of circulation
meant that it saw the capitalist economy, in its totality,
as being no different from a Robinson Crusoe economy
(as a gigantic mechanism for the allocation of ''scarce
resources'' among ''alternative uses''), which ipso facto
precluded any awareness of social relations.
Almost a century and a half after Marx's painstaking
work had unearthed the anatomy of modern bourgeois society,
we are once more in the danger of being deluged by ''vulgar
economy''. In the Afterword to the second German edition
of Capital, Marx had said apropos ''vulgar economy'':
''It was thenceforth no longer a question, whether this
theorem or that was true, but whether it was useful
to capital or harmful, expedient or inexpedient, politically
dangerous or not..''. The same is true of ''vulgar economy''
today: it is no longer a question of scientific correctness,
but whether a proposition is useful for international
finance capital, and the domestic collaborationist bourgeoisie,
or not; and in particular, at this juncture, whether
it carries forward their favoured ''globalization'' project,
or not. Nothing must be allowed to cast a shadow on
this project and on this consolidation of capital, for
which any analysis of social relations must be kept
completely out of the picture, through an overwhelming
and exclusive emphasis on ''thingness''. And if some issue
arises which can potentially cast a shadow on this consolidation
of capital on a global scale, then that issue must be
immediately smothered under an enormous deadweight of
''thingness''. Let us consider a few examples from the
Indian discourse itself.
Nothing of such enormous social significance has occurred
for some time in India as the current spate of peasant
suicides. And what do the bourgeois media, intellectuals,
and ''think tanks'' (like the Planning Commission) say
about it? That there is a ''crisis of agriculture''. And
how do they see the way out of this crisis? By inviting
corporate capital and multinational corporations to
take over this sector, and hence by further promoting
the consolidation of capital on a global scale. The
''thingness'', the materiality, of the sector called ''agriculture''
is pushed to the foreground, obliterating the changes
in the social relations that underlie this phenomenon
of suicides. And this phenomenon which could cast a
shadow over the global consolidation of capital is actually
made an argument for further carrying forward this consolidation!
A crisis of peasant agriculture, a crisis of petty production,
arising from the onslaught of capital is presented as
its very opposite, as arising from the restraints placed
upon capital, from the insufficiency of the onslaught!
The same ''vulgar economy'' is evident in another example.
Much is being made these days of the fact that the economy
is growing at 7-8 percent. The government pats itself
on the back for it; the media and the bourgeois intellectuals
applaud it; and the Planning Commission in its Draft
Approach paper on the Eleventh Plan wants to do ''even
better'' by raising the growth rate to 8.5 percent. It
is taken for granted that such a high growth rate will
automatically (or by creating the enabling condition
for the government to act) get rid of poverty. It is
deduced from this that in order to get rid of poverty
we must have a continuation or a further acceleration
of the high growth rate. And how do we achieve it? By
creating the appropriate conditions for capital, including
in particular international capital, to come into the
country, i.e. by further removing whatever hurdles remain
to the global consolidation of capital, by actively
promoting such a consolidation.
What the promotion of such consolidation will do to
the social relations in the country are never discussed.
What impact it will have on the organic composition
of capital, on employment, on the size of the reserve
army, on the rate of surplus value, on the value of
labour power, on the length of the working day, on the
intensity of work, on the process of primitive accumulation
of capital through the expropriation of petty producers,
on the prospects of simple reproduction of peasant and
petty producers, none of these myriad issues connected
with the changes in the social relations that would
arise as a consequence of promoting the global consolidation
of capital and making our economy a part of it, is ever
discussed. All that is emphasized is that a higher growth
rate will get rid of poverty!
Let us not get into the issue of whether the ''growth
rate'' has actually accelerated or not; doing so would
entail precisely an acceptance of the problematic of
''vulgar economy''. But to say that a ''high growth rate'',
no matter how it is achieved or what it entails by way
of changing social relations, will overcome poverty,
is to concentrate only on ''thingness'' and be oblivious
to social relations, to accept the analogy of the ''cake'',
(''a bigger cake is good for all'') which is a thing,
a materiality, apparently devoid of any connection with
the realm of social relations. This is ''vulgar economy''
par excellence. It obliterates social relations to a
point where poverty, an expression of social relations,
is made dependent on the size of a material object,
a ''thing'', called the GDP (the ''cake'').
Marx was particularly emphatic about the fact that poverty
was the expression of social relations: ''Accumulation
of wealth at one pole is therefore at the same time
accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance,
brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,
i.e. on the side of the class that produces its own
product in the form of capital''. The ''vulgarity'' of
contemporary ''vulgar economy'' consists in its claim
that the size or the growth of a ''thing'', seen completely
in isolation from the social relations of which it is
an expression, will overcome per se the social relations
underlying poverty.
The third example is even more bizarre. There is much
talk these days of the need for ''labour market flexibility'',
which is a euphemism for a direct attack on the rights
of the workers. This is a direct call for changing the
social relations in favour of capital. And how is it
justified? Through the claim that such a change will
improve the investment ''climate'' and contribute to an
acceleration of the growth rate, which in turn is supposed
to eliminate poverty! Now, the magnitude of rights enjoyed
by workers in any society is a rough index of the degree
of space enjoyed by the working people as a whole to
defend themselves against capital. To say that workers'
rights should be curbed for bringing in higher growth
that will lower poverty, is to project the ''thing-centric''
view so overwhelmingly, to obliterate the relational
aspect of capitalism so completely, that it amounts
to endorsing a curb on workers' rights in order apparently
to give them more rights! It is like saying that a person
should jump off a cliff in order to enjoy a longer life!
Since ''vulgar economy'', as a theoretical weapon of capital
in its class struggle, is always around, what it says
at any particular time should not normally be a matter
of much concern. What is disturbing at present however
is the spread of these ideas, the veritable assault
that ''vulgar economy'' has been launching of late, financed
liberally by imperialist institutions like the World
Bank and the IMF, which has made even intellectuals
friendly to the Left, even progressive scholars, fall
prey to its ''vulgarities''. For instance, a portmanteau
term called ''development'' is widely used these days,
by all and sundry, as a wholesome objective of economic
policy. And this ''development'' which is supposed to
reveal itself through a higher growth rate of the ''thing''
called the GDP, is caused apparently by inviting multinational
corporations and domestic corporate capitalists to ride
roughshod over the rights of the workers, peasants and
petty producers, and is defended on the grounds that
it will better the lot of persons belonging to these
very classes. Everybody, from the Centre-Left to Narendra
Modi, is running after this thing called ''development'';
and any defence of the rights of the workers, peasants
and petty producers is dubbed ''anti-development''. Poor
Karl Marx! He must be turning in his grave at this unusual
success that ''vulgar economy'' still enjoys a century
and a half after his scientific magnum opus was published.
We owe it to him to expose the vulgarities of ''vulgar
economy'' even when it is articulated by a Prime Minister
we support.
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