There's No Such Thing as World Capitalism

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There’s No Such Thing as World Capitalism:

Mythology of Globalization ^∗

Kosuke Oki

^†

Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo

Takashi Satoh

^‡

Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo

∗We wish to express our gratitude to Yutaka Nagahara and Wendy Y. Matsumura for reading this paper and making a number of helpful suggestions. All errors are our responsibility.

†[email protected]

‡[email protected]

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Not only Japanese society, but the world as a whole is now experiencing political and economic turbulencies. Following the so-called golden age (1950-1960s), the relatively stable post-war regime began to gradually fall apart in 1970s.

This turmoil has accelerated in the last decade or so. No matter how complex and widespread this turbulent process may seem, however, the destructive forces have certain features in common across the domains of economy, poli- tics, culture, and so forth. This process shakes the traditional framework of the nation-state and exerts an overwhelming influence beyond national boundaries.

This worldwide upheaval is named a fashionable word: globalization.

It is in the realm of economy par excellence that “globalization” predomi- nates. The transnational mobility of capital and labor power increasingly inten- sifies in scale, which in turn accompanies ideological, technological, and geopo- litical changes. Take some of the most important phenomena. First, the trend toward the deregulation of the market since the 1970s has liberalized the movement of capital across national borders. Second, the development of information and telecommunication technology has promoted what Marx called the annihilation of space with time.¹ These two conditions contribute to a high degree of accessibility to the financial market from anywhere across the globe, or the quasi-global market. Thirdly, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War finally demolished the wall between the West and the East, which enabled capitalism to annex its “outsides” such as the former Soviet Union and countries of East Europe. This continuous expansion has produced a change of the notion of territoriality.

It’s undeniable that “globalization” is useful for describing thisunprecedented situation. In a sense, this term grasps the contemporary transnational trend. It is also true that capital by its nature pursues globality, or worldness.² However, on the basis of this character of capital, can capitalism today be called global?

If not, can we conclude that while it may not be global yet, that sooner or later, it will be globalized? We argue that whether or not the ongoing stream of globalization leads to the globalized capitalism, i.e., the world capitalism, is still undetermined and unverified. We must not render judgment at speed, but postpone it for a while in order to examine this epochal problem of the worldness of capitalism which is related to the globalizing flow.

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It is Marx who pointed out that capital, from its advent, has been concerned with globality, or worldness. InCapitalMarx indicated this character of capital.

1“... it [capital] strives ... to annihilate this space with time, i.e., to reduce to a minimum the time spent in motion from one place to another.” (Marx[16]p.539)

2In this paper, “worldness” is used as a synonym for globality or universality and translated from Japanese word:Sekai-sei. The term of worldness is, to be mentioned later, the key word which is often used byWorld Capitalismtheorists.

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The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital. The production of commodities and their circulation in its developed form, namely trade, form the historic presuppositions under which capital arises. World trade and the world market date from the sixteenth century, and from then on the modern history of capital starts to unfold.³

Uno Kozo, a unique Japanese Marxian economist, seriously considered Marx’s suggestion. If capitalism is not national but transnational by nature, concrete situations in capitalism must be treated as entities conditioned by the development of world history. His conviction that the capitalist development is of world history was reinforced through the so-called Debate on Japanese Capi- talism. Whether to characterize pre-war Japan as capitalist or pre-capitalist was the subject of a great economic controversy. Opinions were divided among social scientists, but there was no disagreement on the method of analysis. It is because they all shared a confidence in a common criteria of judgement: Capital.

Uno did not actually actively participate in these debates, but just taught in the countryside during the Tokyo-centered debates. In any case, he assumed that Marx’s analysis in Capital was an abstraction based on a particular national economy, namely the British Economy in the mid-nineteenth century. Thus, he thought that writings inCapitalcould not, and should not be directly applied to the analysis of the contemporary Japanese situation. It’s comparatively belated insertion into the world system necessitated a different approach. It is important, however, to point out that Uno did not fall into the ordinary dichotomy between theory and practice. In other words, Uno did not merely distinguish one subject from the other but mediated both through a theory concerning the stages of the world-historical development. To this end, he proposed a three- step method: (1) “Principles” as the theory ofPure-Capitalism(hereafter, PC) was derived through a re-reading ofCapital, which was then subjected to study in his major work,Principles of Political Economy⁴; (2) the so-called “Stages- theory” is composed of the three stages of the world-historical development in capitalism, i.e., the stages of Mercantilism, Liberalism, and Imperialism; (3) the final step, called the “Empirical analysis of the actual situation” was set forth as the ultimate target of economic studies, which should presuppose an understanding of the previous two theories.⁵ The stages-theory precisely limits its principles in terms of both space and time. In other words, the former de- prives the latter of worldness and historicity.⁶ PC as the object of principles or

3Marx[15]p.247.

4There are two different versions of Uno’sPrinciples. One is an original version which is thick and detailed. Another, Uno[23], is the revised and condensed version of the former.

Unfortunately, only the latter was translated into English.

5For further information of Uno’s three-step approach, see Uno[23] intro.

6Uno articulated the worldness mainly as the Stages-theory which delineates the world- historical development of capitalism characterized as the uneven development among countries. There is an interactive relationship between leading and backward countries. The stages of the capitalist development are clarified by a typological analysis of typical leading countries and dominant capital forms. Uno’ work on the Stages-theory is untranslated in English, see Mawatari[17] by way of compensation.

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knowledge is theahistorical andsyn-chronic structure ordereddia-chronically⁷ and is absolutely distinct from the real-object, the real-concrete, and the real totality.⁸

This theorization of PC has been criticized by many Japanese Marxists for its somewhat ideal flavor. Constructive criticism of PC was put forth by the so-calledWorld-Capitalism(hereafter, WC) theorists who identified themselves as part of the Uno school.⁹ The WC theorists who most keenly recognized the cosmopolitan character of capitalism criticized Uno’s methodology in the theory of PC for underestimating the worldness of capital. In order to elucidate the creation of worldness in capitalism on the level of “Principles,” WC theorists maintain that the object of Principles should not be an ideal “pure capitalism”

but an actual “world capitalism.”¹⁰ They clarify their positionvis-´a-vis Uno’s theory of Principles as follows: “Principles”internallycopies the world-capitalist development, while the “Stages-theory”preciselycopies it. It is, as was pointed out above, essentially characteristic of Uno to see the development of capitalism as that of world history. However, he narrowly defines world history as an object of the Stages-theory. For WC theorists, Uno’s theoretical abstinence appears both unfruitful and unsupportable. Accordingly, in opposition to Uno, the WC theorists claim that Principles and the Stages-theory should deal with the same world capitalism in different ways.

The difference between the two methodologies lies in their respective answers to whether or not to deal with the historical transition of capitalism within the domain of theory. The domain of the Stages-theory as well as that of Principles of PC does not give an explanation of the transition from one stage of capitalism to another.¹¹ While WC theorists accept the frame of the Stages-theory, they think that it should analyze the transition from one stage to another in order to figure out the world-historical development. Furthermore, they describe the historical transition even in their own version ofPrinciples.¹² WC’sPrinciples includes two transitions: from Mercantilism to Liberalism and from Liberalism to Imperialism. These two transitions are clarified in the opening and ending of WC’sPrinciples.

7Here we use “synchrony” and “diachrony” as Althusserian terminology.

Synchrony represents the organizational structure of the concepts in the thought- totality orsystem..., diachrony the movement of succession of the concepts in ordered discourse of the proof. (Althusser and Balibar[3] p.68)

8Althusser and Balibar[3]p.41.

9Representative WC’s literature is Suzuki[20] and Iwata[9], regrettably in Japanese only.

10There are some similarities between the concept of the world capitalism and what Waller- stein calls historical capitalism. The former is a pioneer in studies of the latter. However, based not on the external attack on Marxian fundamentalists but on internal constructive criticism of Uno’s theory of PC, WC’s theory has more profound insights into worldness of capital than the World-System theorists.

11Strange as it may seem, the Stages-theory does not explain the historical transition.

According to Uno, the Stages-theory is the typology of capitalism and does not contain any description of the historical transition. See Uno[23] pp.xxvi-xxvii, n.4.

12WC also has its ownPrinciples. The typical work on WC’s Principles is Suzuki[20].

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The initial part of the WC’s Principlesis called the doctrine of circulation and consists of chapters on commodity, money, and capital. It also provides an explanation for the origin/genesis of the world capitalism in the stage of Mercantilism. A parallel is established between the historical transition from Mercantilism to Liberalism and the theoretical transformation from money into capital. The middle section of Principles gives an internal expression to the historical establishment/development of the world capitalism in the stage of Liberalism. The chapter on joint-stock capital is the final section and plays two roles. First, it attempts to suture the system ofPrinciples. WC regards joint- stock capital as the commodity circulating in the stock market. Put differently, the formation of joint-stock capital implies the commodification of capital itself.

WC’sPrinciples, therefore, begins with the commodity and ends up with the commodity. This self-referential circularity sutures the system of Principles.

The second role played by the final section is to provide a springboard for a clarification of Imperialism. The formation of joint-stock capital rests on the enormous growth of fixed capital. Joint-stock capital is an adequate form to manage large-scale fixed capital. Here, their elaboration allows us to understand the two contrasting characteristics of capital: on one hand, the solid nature of “real” fixed capital; on the other, the liquidity of joint-stock capital which more precisely, should be called “fictitious” capital.¹³ The existence of these two aspects of capital provides the way in which to understand the transition from the stage of Liberalism to that of Imperialism. Therefore, the ending of Principlesdoes not merely provide a conclusion, but must enable the beginning of an analysis. The end ofPrinciplesthus opens up to a new realm, the stage of Imperialism. Here lies the homology between a historical transition and a theoretical one.

It follows from what has been stated that the two historical transitions:

from Mercantilism to Liberalism and from Liberalism to Imperialism, are represented “internally” in the first and last parts of WC’sPrinciples. To discuss these transitions as a whole is very important yet beyond the scope of this paper here. Here we would rather concentrate on the first transition, the transformation from Mercantilism to Liberalism which corresponds to a shift in analytical domains from that of circulation to that of production.

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First, we would briefly outline the genesis of the world capitalism from the perspective of WC.

They argued that it was the market which encouraged the development of the world capitalism. The market mediates the circulation of commodities among communities and consequently evolves not inside communities but outside them.

The expansion of the market thus has a critical effect on communities where the pre-capitalist production is widespread. This has significant influences upon the

13For further details of fictitious capital, See Nagahara[19].

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communities dominated by the feudal relations of production. The market exerts disintegrating influences upon these communities and eventually permeates into and changes the society into one where the capitalist mode of production prevails.¹⁴ One of the notable features of WC is its consideration of the market as the driving force of the world-capitalist development in spite of keeping its external characteristics. We can best understand their position by comparing WC with orthodox Marxism whose analysis is based on the doctrine of contradiction between productive forces and relations. The latter insists that the level of productive forces should condition the phases of capitalism. They presuppose the existence of the small-scale commodity production which changed into the capitalist mode of production as a result of the internal development of productive forces. Thus, they focus on the process of thesocial reproduction (SR) which is assumed to determine the stages of the capitalist development.

Consequently, they underestimate the role of external factors such as the market or long-distance trade in the history of capitalism.

The same conflict is found in the well-known controversy over the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism among Western Marxists such as Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy.¹⁵ The most important point of dispute among them was the question of how trade or commerce functioned in this transition.¹⁶ Dobb underlined the decisive influence of “the internal relationships of Feudalism as a mode of production”¹⁷upon the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism and argued that the root cause of this transition was not external factors such as trade but trends immanent to feudal society on one hand. Sweezy on the other hand claimed that the transition arose from exterior causes, or trade and the market. In contrast to Dobb, who argued that internal forces had brought forth the transition, Sweezy argued that these internal changes merely reflected the development of trade. Disagreement between the SR and WC Japanese Marxists can be considered a revival of the Dobb-Sweezy controversy though they deal with different periods. In fact, the Uno School endorsed Sweezy, while the orthodox Marxists subscribed to the dialectic of history discovered in Dobb.

We are now ready to consider the differences between SR and WC from a more general perspective. One main point of contention lies in the previously mentioned question about the role of the market as an external entity in the emergence of capitalism. On this, the SR and WC have opposing viewpoints.

14The event referring to the market/circulation’s grasp of production at the origin of capitalism is often called the osmosis of circulation. WC shares the viewpoint of this process with Uno who repeatedly refers to the following phrase inCapital.

The exchange of commodities begins where communities have their boundaries at their points of contact with other communities, or with members of the latter.

However, as soon as products have become commodities in the eternal relations of a community, they also, by reaction, become commodities in the internal life of the community. (Marx[15] p.182)

15See Dobb[6, 7] and Sweezy[21]. These papers aroused many arguments. See Sweezy et al.[22],an anthology of articles on this controversy.

16Following the Dobb-Sweezy controversy, the same point of dispute has been repeatedly discussed. For recent debates, see Aston and Philpin[4].

17Dobb[6] p.42.

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SR suggests that the market is only an external entity and assigns it a passive role. The production in the community is an inner essence, of which the market is no more than a phenomenal form of the expression. Here, they reduce the forces of the social development to the forces of production.

In contrast to SR, which assumes that history has developed endogenously and linearly, the Uno School, including WC, stress the discontinuity of history and places great emphasis on extrinsic changes that result from the market.

From this point of view, the transition from Mercantilism to Liberalism is not endogenous but exogenous. The community in the transition did not internally break up by itself: on the contrary, it was externally disintegrated by the market.

This process is calledexternal disintegration.

Why can the market as the only external entity give occasion to this change?

We are now in a position to consider the function of external disintegration.

The key point at issue is that the market is, by definition, the field where products are exchanged according to the price-relation. The world market, in which merchant capital flourishes, is able to commodify pre-capitalistic products through the price-relation. This decomposes other relations such as the political, the conventional, the moral, and so forth. The market dissolves other social relations into the price-relation and breaks them up. This process is nothing but external disintegration. The world market shatters the pre-capitalist production in the community through external disintegration. The market is the external entity for the community, and yet it brings about disarticulation.

What happens after external disintegration occurs? The world market does not create a state of disorder and destruction. The market does not only dis- integrate the community, but does integrate it into the capitalist society. The market, therefore, has not been outside since the transition to Liberalism. The market, or circulation, sunk into the pre-capitalist production (community) and eventually, from its position outside, occupies the place of the community as the inside. The market/circulation takes over the production in the community. To sum up, the internal is replaced by the external.

The second point of contention between WC and SR this brings us to is the question of whether or not this replacement of the inside by the outside, or put differently, the inversion between the subject and object, occurs. SR regards the social reproduction as the internal subject of historical changes.

As a result of the development of the social forces of production, the social reproduction embodied in the independent artisans in the community during the stage of the simple commodity production (which in fact corresponds to Mercantilism) changed into the machine production in the established capitalism (which turns out to correspond to Liberalism). The social reproduction as the subject remains inside, and therefore, the identity of the subject is maintained through the transition. WC, by contrast, emphasized the moment of inversion of the subject and object. Besides external disintegration, the market which was stemmed from the outside impregnated the community and became the subject of capitalism. Therefore, the subject in the transition from Mercantilism to Liberalism is not maintained, but the inversion of the subject and object occurs.

Let us summarize the main points at issue that were made in this section.

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The market as the external subject has the following features:

(i) external disintegration operates

(ii) the inversion of the subject and object occurs.

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In the transition from Mercantilism to Liberalism, the market penetrated the pre-capitalist production while disintegrating it from the outside. We can illustrate this transition as follows:

pre-capitalist production internal

external

capitalist production Liberalism

non-capitalist production Mercantilism

market/circulation

Figure 1: Transition from Mercantilism to Liberalism

Figure 1 has four arrows. We first account for the vertical arrow on the left (Mercantilism). This arrow from the market/circulation to the pre-capitalist production indicates the function of (i) external disintegration. Further, the market as an external entity is “diffused” into the internal community where the pre-capitalist production prevails and locates its internal position. The arrow from the market/circulation to the capitalist production shows this (ii) inversionof the internal and external positions.

The dotted arrow between Mercantilism and Liberalism suggests that some segments of the community disintegrated by the market is thrust from the inside on the occasion of the transition. We attempt to show that the transition from Mercantilism to Liberalism consists of two moments: metonymic displacement (inversion), andmetaphorical condensation.

Metonymic Displacement. The upward diagonal arrow from the market/

circulation to the capitalist production shows the inversion of the internal and external positions. The market changes its external nature after it invades the community from the outside and then incorporates the pre-capitalist production. It amalgamates the pre-capitalist production, bringing the capitalist production into being. In brief, the market mu- tates into the capitalist production through the transition. The identity of the subject is not maintained. This displacement is based on the con- tiguity between the market/circulation and capitalist production. The market and capitalist production are connected metonymically. This logic is called metonymic displacement.

Metaphorical Condensation. There is another diagonal arrow downward from the pre-capitalist production to the non-capitalist production. This

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operation plays an important role to complement the logical activities of metonymic displacement, though it has largely been ignored by crit- ics. This arrow shows that the internal pre-capitalist production is seg- mented and consequently arranged into the non-capitalist production as the marginal and external entity for the capitalist production. In short, the pre-capitalist production is condensed into the non-capitalist production. This condensation is achieved on the basis of their similarity. These two modes of production seem to be metaphorical equivalents. This logic is called metaphorical condensation.

The transition from Mercantilism to Liberalism is thus supported by two interconnected logics.¹⁸ The second, metaphorical condensation, has been ignored despite its importance, partly because of the enigmatic nature of its logic.

What metonymic displacement and metaphorical condensation imply is not merely the change in position of the internal and the external. In fact, the non-capitalist production is neither identical to the pre-capitalist production nor situated merely in the outside position even though it is removed from the inside.

Let us, for a moment, refer to Claude L´evy-Strauss’ formula of mythology in order to understand this complex logic of metaphorical condensation.¹⁹ He formalizes the structure of myth as follows:

[I]t seems that every myth (considered as the aggregate of all its variants) corresponds to the following formula:

Fx(a) :Fy(b)∼=Fx(b) :Fa−1(y)

Here, with two terms a and b, as well as the two functions of these terms, x and y, a relation of equivalence is assumed to exist between the two situations defined respectively by an inversion ofterms and ofrelationsunder two conditions: (1) that one term be replaced by its opposite (in the above formula, a and a-1); (2) that an inversion is made between thefunction valueandterm valueof two elements (y and a).²⁰

18These two logics: displacement and condensation, characteristic of the materialist dialectic, are based on the unevenness of the internal-external relation.

The specific difference of Marxist contradiction is its ‘unevenness’, or ‘overde- termination’, which reflects in it its conditions of existence, that is, the specific structure of unevenness (in dominance) of the ever-pre-given complex whole which is its existence. Thus understood, contradiction is the motor of all devel- opment. Displacement and condensation, with their basis in its overdetermina- tion, explain by dominance the phases ... which constitute the existence ... ‘of the development of things’.(Althusser[2]p.217)

19Jameson[10] adapts the same formula to explain the transformation process in Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

20L´evy-Strauss[14]p.228.

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Let us apply this formula to the transition from Mercantilism to Liberal- ism. In the stage of Mercantilism, the pre-capitalist production was inside the community, while the market/circulation externally disintegrated it. Thus, the internal-external relation is affirmed between the pre-capitalist production and market. On the other hand, however, the capitalist production originating from the market/circulation is the internal being in Liberalism. A portion of the pre-capitalist production is ousted from the inside, and then turned into the non-capitalist production. We can exactly illustrate these relations by means of L´evy-Strauss’ formula:

x = internal y = external

a = pre-capitalist production

b = market/circulation, or capitalist production

Before giving an explanation of our formula, we point out a common mistake which can be written as follows:

Fx(a) :Fy(b)∼=Fx(b) :Fy(a)

There is only one, but critical, difference between this mistaken formula and L´evy-Strauss’ one. The right,Fy(a), indicates that the pre-capitalist production is removed from the inside to the outside, but simultaneously lacks an inversion of terms and functions essential to L´evy-Strauss’ formula. The implication of this misguided formalization is that the external pre-capitalist production is, in the long run, doomed to develop into the capitalist production. The pre- capitalist production is nothing but the un/less-developed capitalism expected to become a member of capitalism in the future. This view subscribes to a linear perception of history and falls into a teleology where the end of history is assumed.²¹

Now, we express the correct congruence between Mercantilism and Liberal- ism as follows: the relationship between the internal pre-capitalist production [Fx(a)] and external market/circulation [Fy(b)] corresponds to the relationship between the internal capitalist production [Fx(b)] andinverted pre-capitalistic external [Fa−1(y)]. In this formula, first of all, the relationship between Fx(a) and Fy(b) represents external disintegration. The external market/circulation disintegrates the internal pre-capitalist production (community). Next, Fx(b)

21Teleology of history, we believe, is not a genuine Marxian thinking though it is often found among the Marxian camp. But one source of such a vulgar notion can be found in Marx’s work.

Intrinsically, it is not a question of the higher or lower degree of development of the social antagonisms that spring from the natural laws of capitalist production.

It is a question of these laws themselves, of these tendencies winning their way through and working themselves out with iron necessity. The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future. (Marx[15]p.91)

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shows that the market, which was the outside, amalgamated with some frag- ments of the community and reorganized into the capitalist production in Liber- alism. We have expressed this as metonymic displacement. The difficulty exists in the last part of the equation corresponding to metaphorical condensation.

F_a−1(y) implies two operations: (1) the term of the pre-capitalist production converts into its inverse function, that is,inverted pre-capitalist-ization, which transforms the diachronic configuration (“pre”) into the synchronic one — in short, the term of the pre-capitalist production is synchronized with the capitalist production in Liberalism; (2) the function of externality becomes the external entity as a term and the term which is made from the function has the external features. In other words, it takes on an external existence for the capitalist production under Liberalism. This external entity has no affirma- tive expression in contrast to the market in Mercantilism, and must be defined negatively as the “extra”-capitalist or “non”-capitalist production. Therefore, Fa−1(y) is interpreted as the non-capitalist production of the external in Liber- alism. The non-capitalist production is the external which is synchronized with the capitalist production and not simply a relic of the past or the vestiges of feudalism, but exactly the very moment of the structure of capitalism.²²

In the next section, we describe the structure that is established in Liberal- ism.

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Referring back to figure 1 in the previous section, we see that there are two vertical arrows running in opposite directions. These arrows show the two ways in which the internal is connected to the external, also represented by the colons between the two moments of L´evy-Strauss’ formula. As we confirmed above, in Mercantilism, the relation between the internal and the external is that the former is externally disintegrated by the latter: namely, external disintegration.

The stage of Liberalism also has a comparable relation denoted by the arrow from the capitalist production to the non-capitalist production. This relation is often confused with external disintegration. However, these two relations should

22Jameson pointed out the function of Protestantism as a “vanishing mediator” between the medieval system and modern capitalism. The role of Mercantilism is resemble of a vanishing mediator between Feudalism and the established capitalism (Liberalism).

... what happens here is essentially that once Protestantism has accomplished the task of allowing a rationalization of innerworldy life to take place, it has no further reason for being and disappears from the historical scene. (Jameson[10]p.25) Furthermore, the same as the Jameson’s scheme (Jameson[10]p.23) can be applied to the transition from Feudalism to Liberalism.

Feudalism Mercantilism Liberalism

community + + −

market [−] + +

Therefore we may explain that Mercantilism is the theoretical fiction found retrospectively rather than the genuinely historic past.

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not be considered identical in spite of their resemblance. There are in fact two decisive differences. First, with regard to their directions, whereas the right is an upward arrow, the left is a downward one. This directional difference stems from the active nature of the market. In the stage of Liberalism, the market (which was the outside during Mercantilism) is located inside as a component of the capitalist production. Hence, the internal in Liberalism is not passively affected by the external but rather actively affects it. The second difference is concerned with their operations as such. External disintegration implies that the market as an externality annihilates the pre-capitalist production. In contrast to external disintegration, the right downward arrow suggests a function as “integration.” We designate this integrating operation of the capitalist production in Liberalism as internalization. In order to comprehend the reason why the external is integrated into the internal in the established capitalism, we must detail the process of internalization.

The capitalist production has a system capable of translating/decoding every non-capitalistic product into the common language of commodities. The non- capitalistic products can becommodified through the price-mechanism. Thus, the non-capitalist production as the external is associated with the capitalist production as the internal by commodification. Commodification of non- capitalistic products, including labor power, is the root of the valorization of capital. The capitalist production continuously exploits the non-capitalist production on the basis of their unevenness.

In addition, the cosmopolitan movement of capital subsumes the non-capitalist production under the capitalist production which occupied an inner and central position after the transition via the logic of metonymic displacement. In contrast, the non-capitalist production plays an outer peripheral role in the consequence of metaphorical condensation. The capitalist production that mo- nopolized the central position establishes itself as the leading sector and the non-capitalist production located in the external periphery is relegated to the backward sector. Both compose one organism through the movement of capital. To put it concretely, the capitalist production in the British Economy in the mid-nineteenth century imports raw materials (e.g. raw cotton) from other countries (e.g. the U.S. under slavery, i.e., the non-capitalist production) in order to produce outputs (e.g. cotton goods) in their leading sectors (e.g.

cotton industry). The capitalist production incorporates the non-capitalist production as a constituent of one organic whole, or as a process of the production of capital. We labeled this capitalist production with worldwide wholeness, or worldness, asWorld Capitalism. World Capitalism spelled out in capital letters can be defined as capitalism with the universality and wholeness.

Therefore, the relation between the capitalist production and non-capitalist production in Liberalism is not merely superficial. The first translation, i.e., the commodification of non-capitalistic products translates the relations between the capitalist production and non-capitalist production into an intimate relation simultaneously. In other words, the relation between the capitalist production and non-capitalist production is translated into that between capital and labor power within World Capitalism. As a result of this two-step translation, the non-

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capitalist production is internalized into World Capitalism. World Capitalism can exploit the non-capitalist production as if they were of the inside itself. In this sense, the outside is “internalized.”

A number of the WC’s views on World Capitalism are derived from this.

World Capitalism commodifying the outside. World Capitalism connects the non-capitalist production as the outside to the capitalist production by means of commodification. The process of commodification is that of exploitation, or valorization. Therefore, world capital absolutely needs the outside.

World Capitalism composed as an unific organic whole. World Capital- ism organizes one whole order through the internalization-mechanism, which in turn has an intimate relation with the non-capitalist production as its exterior. In World Capitalism, the exterior is present in the interior. Therefore, World Capitalism has no external entities.

However, one problem arises here: if the exterior is internalized, there should be no limitations or delimitations. However, if there are no external entities, commodification as a process of exploitation would not be working any longer.

Thus, there must be a limitation which divides the interior and the exterior.

World Capitalism, which has at once a limitation as finite and a wholeness as infinite, seemscontradictio in adjecto, or antinomic.

WC’s argument leads us to a surprising outcome: World Capitalism is limited/infinite. By what route has WC arrived at this oxymoron? A phrase similar to WC’s antinomy can be found in Kant’sCritique of Pure Reason. To examine the conflicting conclusion of WC, a reference to Kant’s antinomy may be helpful.

Pure reason, according to Kant, inevitably encounters four antinomies as facing cosmological (transcendental) ideas. For instance, Kant shows one of these antinomies as follows:²³

Thesis The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited as regards space.

Antithesis The world has no beginning, and no limits in space; it is infinite as regards both time and space.

In his proof of the thesis and the antithesis, Kant shows that it is impossible to assume each opposite: on the one hand, the thesis proves that the antithesis is false, but on the other, the antithesis demonstrates that the thesis is not true. In brief, both propositions, the thesis and the antithesis, are false. This conclusion indicates that the two propositions are not a contradictory (analytical) opposition but a contrary (dialectical) opposition. If the thesis and the antithesis are contradictory to one another, a negation of one must lead to an affirmation of another. If not, both may be false. Hence Kant concludes that

“[the world] existsin itselfneither as aninfinitewhole nor as afinitewhole.”²⁴

23Kant[11]p.396.

24Kant[11]p.448.

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As regards to WC’s conflict, we can paraphrase the first antinomy of pure reason:

Thesis World Capitalism is limited.

Antithesis World Capitalism has no limits; it is infinite.

The existence of the non-capitalist production as the external means that World Capitalism is limited. The wholeness of World Capitalism indicates that there are no limits. We find WC’s conflict homologous to Kant’s first antinomy.

WC, too afraid to fall into “a skeptical despair,”²⁵ tried to evade this antinomy by resorting to rhetoric, i.e., synecdoche. To be sure, skepticism is necessary insofar as the opposition between the thesis and antithesis is contradictory.

However, we come to another conclusion as two propositions are contrary: there is neither World Capitalism as an infinite whole nor that which exists as a finite part.

Furthermore, this conclusion can be more strictly reformulated by means of Lacan’s schema of sexuation below.²⁶

∃x Φx ∃x Φx

∀x Φx ∀x Φx

In this schema, the two formulas on the left indicate the man’s pole and the opposite side shows the woman’s pole. As Joan Copjec points out, Kant’s first antinomy corresponds to the woman’s.²⁷ Hence we can apply the formulas on the right to WC’s antinomy. Here, the function [Φ] represents internalization. In WC’s antinomy, the thesis and the antithesis disprove each other. Because the thesis is false, World Capitalism isnotlimited, namely, there is not one x that is not submitted to internalization [∃x Φx]. On the other hand, if the antithesis is untrue, World Capitalism doesnothave no limits; not all x is submitted to internalization [∀x Φx].

It must be noted that neither ∃x Φx nor ∀x Φx is positive. ∃x Φx should not be interpreted as a positive proposition, namely, that World Capitalism is infinite. We would then fall into a skepticism of despair or a dogmatic confidence.

World Capitalism does not have positivity as a positive proposition. A double negation is but an affirmation on the basis of the philosophy of identity.²⁸ The reason for referring to the double negation is to avoid the false stability of positivities. In other words, the mechanism of internalization should not be confused with identification, or introjection.²⁹ ∀x Φx must be read likewise as the negative: World Capitalism is not-whole (pas-tout). It does not make

25Kant[11]p.385.

26Lacan[12]p.78.

27Copjec[5]p.217 ff.

28Adorno comes to mind here. He attacks many of Hegel’s dictums such as only the whole is true, and establishes the principle of ‘negative dialectics’ which refuses any kind of affirmation, or positivity. See Adorno[1].

29These words are nearly connected in the discipline of psychoanalysis. See, for example, Laplanche and Pontalis[13].

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the world be capitalism in whole. There exists an unevenness in the world, and the non-capitalist production is not necessarily predetermined to become capitalism. Because of the period of deferment, it is undecidable as to whether or not the domains of the non-capitalist production will enter the ranks of developed industrial areas.

These two negative conclusions do not indicate the antinomy but the absence of universality. To borrow Lacan’s phrase, “[t]here’s no such thing as Woman [La femme].”³⁰ Similarly, there is no such thing asWorld Capitalismor capitalism as wholeness, worldness. Needless to say, there is not no capitalism. On the contrary, capitalism fully exists. But capitalism is not-whole (pas-tout); there is no such thing asWorld Capitalismwith capital letters to indicate the universal.

From what has been mentioned above, a few important points are clarified.

First, the worldness of World Capitalism is not an alias of wholeness, but of the failure of wholeness. The attempt to pursue World Capitalism are doomed to fail, but this failure of closure constitutes a specific order.

This paradoxical order is characterized as the in/dependencyof capitalism.

Thisin/dependency exists because the order is formalized as the mechanism of internalization. Internalization can translate the external relation into an internal relation through the language of commodities, i.e., price-form. The capitalistic order is synchronized (or symbolized) as if it were language. Everything existing in World Capitalism including the internalized outside is overdeter- mined. In other words, internalization constitutes the symbolic order. However, there is no metalanguage. There is no stand-point from which the closure of worldness is possible. Internalization is an attempt to suture what is ultimately unsuturable.³¹ World Capitalism depends on the non-capitalist production and then holds the different existence in itself. The capitalist production as the not- whole entity necessarily depends upon the external non-capitalist production.

This in/dependencyexists because the order depend upon the outside. Then, this in/dependency is barred because capitalistic orders are not-whole. It is the “not-whole” that makes the specific orders possible as if capitalism were independent.

The barred in/dependency of capitalism can be seen as a trace of the transition. As was explained in the previous section, the transition from Mercantilism to Liberalism consists of metonymic displacement and metaphorical condensation. Behind the inconsistency of internalization lies the fact that the identity of capitalism is, from the beginning, out of joint because the transition itself is based on metonymic displacement. The trace of the transition prevents capitalism from being totally itself. The existence of the non-capitalist production to which metaphorical condensation contributes makes it impossible to suture capitalism. In other words, the non-capitalist production, distinguished from the pre-capitalist production, does not necessarily become capitalism. The failure of closure is the trauma of World Capitalism registered as a “mnemic trace (Erin-

30Lacan[12]p.72. In French, the article “La” in “La femme” indicates the universal. In En- glish, by contrast, the article “the” in “the woman” does not necessarily imply the universality.

See, on this point, Lacan[12] pp.72-73, n.29.

31See Miller[18].

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nerungspur)”³² under the capitalist production. The barred in/dependency is nothing less than a “mnemic trace” of capitalism.

6

In the introduction of this paper, we postponed the question of globalization.

Now we return to this subject. At first glance, globalization seems to (be sched- uled to) achieve a closure of World Capitalism. It also seems to bring about the end of history. However, this closure of World Capitalism is not completed.³³

So-called modern globalization is interpreted as a return of the repressed.

Capitalism has, as mentioned above, a “mnemic trace.” The current movement of globalization is the impossible attempt to efface the trace of the impossibility of capitalism. Globalization does not fulfill the dream of capital to accomplish wholeness, or globality. Globalization is not a normal activity to obtain an achievable universality. It is rather the obsessional motion of capital to conceal the failure of capturing the totality. It serves as a defense against any con- frontation to its trauma: the lack of its identity. Globalization as the pursuit of worldness is an inescapable nightmare which conceals the fact that World Capitalism can never be sutured. Finally, globalization compels repetition in order to suture this unsuturability.

As L´evi-strauss states:

[A] myth exhibits a “slated” structure, which comes to the surface, so to speak, through the process of repetition. (L´evi-strauss[14] p.229) This is tantamount to the mythology of globalization.

Globalization is a faraway dream of capitalism though an elaboration of this dream analysis is beyond the scope of this paper.³⁴

32In the field of psychoanalysis, mnemic trace means that traumatic events are registered in memory. See, for example, Laplanche and Pontalis[13].

33On the basis of the not-wholeness of capitalism, we disagree with Hart and Negri’s understanding that the emergence of Empire leads to the end of history (Hart and Negri[8]).

They identify internalization with capitalization (the word a la Hardt and Negri representing capital accumulation), and argue that the outside, the non-capitalist environment, is literally made internal. However, as stated above, internalization necessarily means annihilation of the outside. The capitalist production conserves the non-capitalist production in order to exploit it.

34Nagahara tries to analyze the derivation of capital. See Nagahara[19].

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Appendix

We did not deal with the man side in Lacan’s formalization of sexual difference.

While the WC theory corresponds to the woman’s formulas, the theory of Pure Capitalism (PC) presented by Uno may be interpreted on the basis of the man’s formulas. Here we will roughly sketch PC’s Principles in terms of the Man’s formulas toward further study on capitalism.

In order to use the male side of sexuation as the logic of PC, we must construe the function [Φ] in the way that is different from WC. For PC, Φ is defined as

“(re)production by means of capital.” We can paraphrase the structure of the man’s pole as follows. There is at least one x that is not (re)produced by capital [∃x Φx]. But all x’s are (re)produced by capital [∀x Φx]. The theorization of PC’s Principles is based on the negation of Φx, i.e., on the logic of the exception. That is to say,Principlesof WC is totalized and generalized through the exclusion of one specific commodity: labor power.³⁵

It must be noticed that while there is no such thing as the World Capital- ism, Pure Capitalism acquires its existence. We can understand their different consequences on the basis of the conflict of homogeneity/heterogeneity.³⁶ WC attempted to spatiotemporally homogenize the whole world but had to fail to do so because of its inconsistency. By contrast, it is the heterogeneity of the ontological orders that the sole exception in PC suggests. In WC’s antinomy, as we confirmed above, the thesis and the antithesis are both false. On the other hand, since capital and labor power belong to the heterogeneous orders, it is possible that∃x Φx and∀x Φx are true coincidentally.

Labor power is alien but indispensable to capital. Although labor power resides in the orders which are different from capitalist orders, it must be com- modified in order that capital may exploit it. Through commodification, labor power is (re)produced as if it were the product of capital. On the basis of the so-called law of population peculiar to capitalism, Uno stresses that capital can produce labor power as relative surplus-population.³⁷ This as ifshould be read in the literal sense. Labor power is by no means the product of capital.

There are the moments when the fact that labor power is authentically unable to be (re)produced by capital is revealed: Crisis. Uno calls the uniqueness of the labor-power commodity divulged by crisis an untranslatable Japanese word,

“muri.”³⁸

35We can find a logic similar to the man’s formulas in Marx’s theory of value-form. Ac- cording to Marx, it is necessary to exclude one commodity in order to totalize/generalize the value-form (the general form of value).

Finally, the last form, C [the general form of value], gives to the world of commodities a general social relative form of value, because, and in so far as, all commodities except one are therebyexcluded from the equivalent form.

(Marx[15]p.161; our emphasis)

36See ˇZiˇzek[24]chap.2.

37Uno[23]pp.51-54.

38We gratefully acknowledge helpful discussions with Ken Kawashima on “muriof labor- power commodity which must be detailed in other papers.

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There's No Such Thing as World Capitalism