Marx and Motion

Abstract

This chapter explains Marx’s theory of motion first as it is developed in his dissertation on Epicurus, Democritus, and Lucretius and then as it is developed in his books leading up to the Capital volumes. The argument is that Marx developed an original dialectics of motion that stayed with him throughout his life and work. In short, his materialist naturalism was the foundation for his critique of capitalism and economics. Marx’s interest in motion preceded his analysis and critique of capitalism and is the larger framework within which his economic and social critique should be understood.

Materially Just: Virtuous Methodology in Fascist Times

“…From a materialist perspective, desire does not extend from a single origin or source driving toward some determining end. Instead, desire is sensation , generatively “productive and consumptive at the same time” (Nail, 2020, p. 65). Desire produces relations and consumes the effects of such ordering, ad infinitum .…”

“…As a consequence, there is no passive object that is engaged by some actively desiring agent: both the enactment of desire and its object are active—both generate effects and new relations. Consequently, there exists “no ontological division between production and consumption; both are aspects of the same material process of desire” (Nail, 2020, p. 67). As such, we are all actively implicated within the fascist processes we abhor (and perhaps seek distance from through the quick claim of fascism as a dismissive moniker).…”

“…Further, if the incomplete liberal subject becomes through crises, it also desires them, animated through the force of crises for recognition. The ontogenetic system continues—manufacturing crises to generate liberal subjects which, in turn, require more crises for their expanded existence; the productive-consumptive process that earlier concerned Nail (2020). As a consequence, we might ask if when we write of becomings (as is often the fashion in post-qualitative, post-human, or newly materialist forms of inquiry), are these actually liberal subjects-in-the-making that we mistake for some differently resistive effect?…”

“…As an alternative, a materialist critique might complicate this smoothing of conventional hierarchies through a return to Marx, as Nail (2020, p. 15) does:…”

Henri Lefebvre's conception of nature-society in the revolutionary project of autogestion

“…In the spirit of what is now referred to as ‘new materialism’ (Nail, 2020), Lefebvre (2016b [1965]) already maintains that nature exists as an active force ( physis ) and cannot be reduced to a mere passive object in opposition to an abstract (and fictitious) absolute human subject. Nevertheless, he also insists that overcoming the notion of a subject/object binary should not obscure the dialectically mediated polarization between material nature and logical form, whose unity in praxis does not necessarily eliminate the underlying tensions (Lefebvre, 1969 [1968]: 151–156).…”