Marx analysed (see Fuchs 2016) capitalism’s contradictions between:
non-owners/owners
the poor/the rich
misery/wealth
workers/capitalists
use value/exchange value
concrete labour/abstract labour
the simple form of value/the relative and expanded form of value
social relations of humans/relations of things
the fetish of commodities and money/fetishist thinking
the circulation of commodities/the circulation of money
commodities/money
labour power/wages
subject/object
labour process/valorisation process
subject of labour (labour power worker)/the means of production (object) variable capital/constant capital
surplus labour/surplus product
necessary labour time/surplus labour time
single worker/co-operation
single company/industry sector
single capital/competing capitals
production/consumption
productive forces/relations of production.
The tension between opposing poles can be resolved in a process that Hegel and Marx called ‘Aufhebung’ (sublation) and ‘negation of the negation’: a new/third quality or a new system emerges from the contradiction between two poles. Sublation can take place at diferent levels of society, either relatively frequently in order to enable a dynamic of domination or infrequently in situations of revolution when domination is questioned. So in capitalism, contradictions are frequently sublated in order to enable capital accumulation:
Introduction: Critical Theory of Communication
11