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Value without Fetish Historical Materialism Book Series Editorial Board Loren Balhorn (Berlin) David Broder (Rome) Sebastian Budgen (Paris) Steve Edwards (London) Juan Grigera (London) Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam) Peter Thomas (London) volume 227 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hm Value without Fetish Uno Kōzō’s Theory of ‘Pure Capitalism’ in Light of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy By Elena Louisa Lange leiden | boston This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the cc by-nc-nd 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The terms of the cc license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder. The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lange, Elena Louisa, author. Title: Value without fetish : Uno Kōzō’s theory of ‘pure capitalism’ in light of Marx’s critique of political economy / by Elena Louisa Lange. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2021] | Series: Historical materialism book series, 1570-1522 ; volume 227 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2021006689 (print) | lccn 2021006690 (ebook) | isbn 9789004297388 (hardback ; alk. paper) | isbn 9789004449909 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Uno, Kōzō, 1897-1977. | Marxian economics. | Capitalism. | Value. | Economics. Classification: lcc hb126.j4 u645 2021 (print) | lcc hb126.j4 (ebook) | ddc 335.4/12–dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006689 lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006690 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill‑typeface. issn 1570-1522 isbn 978-90-04-29738-8 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-44990-9 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Elena Louisa Lange. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. To Juno Theodora Lange ‘Sapere Aude’ ∵ All systems exist because of supply and demand. annette peacock (1979) … Denn an allem, was sich ändert, haben Kauffrauen investiert. cpt. kirk &. (1992) ∵ Contents Acknowledgements ix Note on Translations and Transcriptions x part 1 The Method of The Critique of Political Economy 1 Introduction – Marx’s Critique of Fetishism as Method 3 1.1 The Critique of Fetishism and Uno’s Theory of ‘Pure Capitalism’ 14 1.2 The Aporias of Classical Political Economy 34 1.3 The Critical Function of Marx’s Labour Theory of Value. Against Some Readings of ‘Form’ in Contemporary Value Form Theory 48 2 What’s ‘Pure’ about Capitalism? Uno’s Three-Level Method and the Theory of Principles 61 2.1 The Limits to the Three Level-Method (sandankairon) 69 2.2 Pure Theory’s X-Axis: The Law of Population 115 2.3 Pure Theory’s Y-Axis: The Commodification of Labour Power 135 part 2 The Object of The Critique of Political Economy 3 Uno’s Theory of Value – Value without Fetish (1947–69) 155 3.1 The Problem of Abstract Labour in Uno’s Theory of Value 159 3.2 Uno’s Theory of Value: Methodological Individualism and the Fetishism of Use Value 184 3.3 Uno’s Theory of Money: Baileyan Assumptions 211 3.4 Uno’s Theory of Capital: M-C-M’ as Pure Form 247 4 The Principles of Political Economy (Keizai Genron, 1952/1964) in Light of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy 259 4.1 The Reconstruction of Capital 261 4.2 The Law of Value as the Law of General Social Equilibrium (Uno) 297 4.3 Surplus Value and Profit: The ‘Transformation Problem’ in Uno’s Perspective 332 4.4 The Law of Value as the Law of Crisis (Marx) 376 viii contents 5 Uno’s Legacy in Japan and Beyond 423 5.1 Money vs. Value? The ‘Monetary Approach’ in the Post-Uno School of Value Theory 427 5.2 The ‘Dialectic of Capital’ as the Apologetic of Capital in the Anglophone Uno School 462 5.3 The Meaning of Real Subsumption or the Real Subsumption of Meaning: Aspects of Anglophone Uno School Historiographies 498 References 539 Index of Names 561 Index of Subjects 564 Acknowledgements Many personal thanks to Raji C. Steineck, Riccardo Bellofiore, Patrick Murray, Jeanne Schuler, Fred Moseley, Saitō Kōhei, Agon Hamza, Ingo Stützle, Michael Heinrich, Ingo Elbe, Namiko Holzapfel, Nobutake Kamiya, Mishima Kenichi, Nick Nesbitt, Joshua Pickett-Depaolis, Eric-John Russell, Maren Thom, Jacob Blumenfeld, Christian Uhl, Frank Engster, Werner Bonefeld, Jan Hoff, Andrés Sáenz de Sicilia, and Chris O’Kane. Moishe Postone’s and Ōtani Teinosuke’s support, advice and good spirits are painfully missed. Thanks to the discussants of the Value-Form Group for being ‘ruthless critics of all that exists’. Many thanks to Jan Steiner for his invaluable, and spontaneous, help. Special thanks to my patient parents, Horst and Donka. Extra special thanks to the love of my life, F. A part of the research conducted for this book has been financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (snsf). Note on Translations and Transcriptions All translations from materials written in languages other than English are ours, unless otherwise indicated. All non-English terms are indicated by italics. For transliterations of Japanese, we use the Modified Hepburn System with the macron indication a long vowel, e.g. ryūtsū-ron. Terms in Japanese, in par- ticular proper nouns that have an established usage in English (e.g. Tokyo) remain unmodified. Japanese names are given in the Japanese order: family name first and given name last (e.g. Uno Kōzō), unless the person’s pen name has been established according to the English custom (e.g. Makoto Itoh instead of Itō Makoto). part 1 The Method of The Critique of Political Economy ∵ chapter 1 Introduction – Marx’s Critique of Fetishism as Method Cryptocategories of Marxism: Exchange value is the most well- known. To cryptologically uncover the hidden categorical determin- ations of existence is not to reveal a metaphysical essence, but rather the ‘surface’ of things, their appearance itself. hans-jürgen krahl (1971)1 … … in the capitalist process, every element, even the simplest, the commodity for example, is already an inversion … karl marx (1861–3 Economic Manuscripts)2 ∵ This book wants to put the critique of the ‘fetishism of the bourgeois rela- tions of production’ back into the Critique of Political Economy.3 Its aim is to demonstrate that the disavowal of the critique of fetishism strips the Marxian project of its critical core, its raison d’être. Disavowing, disregarding, or even rejecting Marx’s critique of fetishism, as we will show, resorts to the framework of classical and neoclassical bourgeois ‘economics’ which no longer offers an incentive to change or question the capitalist mode of production as a histor- ically specific society. This book, however, precisely sees itself as a theoretical contribution to the overcoming of the capitalist predicament, and therefore as an intervention against the obliviousness to the problem of fetishism. To pursue this task, we will highlight the pivotal role of Marx’s critique of the fetish-characteristic forms of value, or the value forms, as the key method for 1 Krahl 1971, p. 84. Footnote. Many thanks to Jacob Blumenfeld for the translation. 2 Marx 1989b, p. 507. 3 We use capital letters to characterise Marx’s project, beginning with the Grundrisse in 1857. © Elena Louisa Lange, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004449909_002 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the cc by-nc-nd 4.0 license. 4 chapter 1 his analysis and critique of the capitalist mode of production and its bour- geois interpreters as a scientific object.4 This impetus stands in opposition to the desideratum of the ‘methodological purity’ of the economic categor- ies, in which the critique of fetishism as the central incentive becomes sub- altern, if not disregarded. This latter interpretation is presented in Japanese Marxian economist Uno Kōzō’s (1897–77) theory of ‘pure capitalism’ ( junsui shihonshugi), which the present work will examine critically. The neglect of the fetish complex, we argue, leads to a truncated and functionalist under- standing of capitalist economy, and, even more fatally, helps to prolong and sustain a system of blind domination of social structures over humans, in which old fetishes persist as new ones, making an emancipatory develop- ment impossible. Most of all, however, the categorial reconstruction of the capitalist modus operandi that was not only Marx’s, but also Uno’s intention, becomes inadequate when the fetishistic forms that value assumes, both obfus- cating its content and structuring ‘the self-presentation of value’,5 are left unad- dressed: for leaving them unaddressed leaves these fetishised forms of value intact as objects of cognition. It therefore reproduces the inverted forms in which value, i.e. abstract human labour, appears at the surface of capitalist self-representation – paradigmatically in the exchange-fetish and the view of capital as ‘fruit-bearing’ in the categories of money, profit, price, interest, rent, etc. – instead of deconstructing these self-representations, and with them, the modes of their self-legitimisation.
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