Lenin’s monopoly theory (aside from its particular economic-theoretical deficits, such as the confusion of the growth in size of particular firms and the reduction in their number with monopolization, which suggests a fundamental change in the form of economic mediation) is a decisive regression behind the Marxian critique of political economy: non-personal economic power-relations are dissolved into personal ones, instead of the law of value the “lords of monopoly” impose their will upon the society, objective logic of things no longer playing any role. Some tendencies in Operaismo also tend towards reducing objective, mediated domination to the deliberate domination of a social class, such as the many debates of the 1970s where the “crisis” was spoken of in terms of an intended “answer” by the capitalists to workers’ struggles.
Not so fast.
There is no privileged location which offers anyone a penetrating view into the functioning of capitalism, neither that of the capitalists, who concern themselves with the valorization of capital, nor that of the workers who are directly exploited by capital. No Peking.
Sunk costs fallacy
Marx lost money buying weapons in 1848. Fast forward.
“Je ne suis pas marxiste” Marx answered, when his son in law, Paul Lafargue, told him about “Marxists” in France agitating for the right to bear arms. Quelle horreur!
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