College Library Browsing #1

 “The Emotional Logic of Capitalism,” by Martijn Konings, 2015

(This is the first in a series of 4 looking at purely academic books, as I’ve run out of books by public intellectuals or left authors.) 

Quite an intriguing title.  But it should have been called “The Iconic Logic of Money” – as book titles are not always what they seem.  The first two-thirds of this overly academic book is a semiotic quote-party that argues against a ‘progressive’ yet elite approach to money by liberals, left-liberals and especially left economist Karl Polyani. Yet it wishes to not just be critical, but to go beyond criticism. It does not.  Konings essential point is that ‘money’ has two faces: one, the practical; two, the ‘iconic’ - emotional, religious and moralistic.    

The last third attempts to discuss the real world; and hopefully ‘show’ the other side of money.  His point is that you cannot just ‘denounce’ money, you have to understand its socio-political implications, as money is unavoidable.  Neo-liberalism celebrates money.  ‘Progressivism’ instead has an external, technocratic and paternalistic approach to money according to Konings.  He insists this was expressed in the New Deal – without noting that nearly all of the New Deal came from below, from social movements.  It was not just a technocratic capitalist fix.  Nor did it eventually succeed until the command economy of World War II.  Konings points to ‘revolving credit’ as the new lifeline thrown to workers by the banking industry in the 1950s, enabled by Keynesian progressives.  (What ‘progressive’ even means at this point is debatable – a word now stolen by the worst right-wing Democrats.)

"MONEY, MONEY, THAT'S WHAT I WANT"

Neo-liberalism (and capitalism) celebrates money.  While Koenigs does not say it clearly I imagine he’s talking about it’s ‘emotional value’ consisting of proof of strong character, of morality in paying your debts and close to a religion in the Protestant prosperity doctrine.  He's not talking about it as objectively necessary in a capitalist economy.  Konings, in his discussion of the individualist ‘self-help’ and ‘boot-strap’ movement, does a timid Zizek by mentioning Oprah and Dr. Phil as gurus of self-help.  He also mentions the Tea Party and monetarism, trying to juice up his point. 

Konings never succeeds.  He, like so many, orients to other academics, unlike public intellectuals who seek to have a more direct effect on society.  Except for one or two lines, he does not show how money has become more than just cash - which certainly would have been valuable.  Konings’ analysis of the Tea Party (and Trumpism by extension…) is that money is “redemptive” and relating to it and pursuing it shows “moral strength” and results in “spiritual salvation.” He comes out in support of a certain kind of ‘anti-economist’ Marxism as the solution to Polyani, (I love that dodge about ‘economism’…) but never illustrates it sociologically or shows how to combat a moralistic attitude towards making money.

Prosperity Gospel - "Good" moral people have money.

MONEY and the CLASS STRUGGLE

Marx saw money as an embodiment of labor, a commodity of a unique kind, a consequence of labor power (and natural) productivity, vitalizing the law of value.  Under capital money is mainly a medium of circulation, realizing prices in sales and purchases, in which use value turns into exchange value.  But it also becomes ‘fictitious’ when ‘money makes money+’ on stock markets due to financialization - leaving labor far behind. It has other roles too.

How much money there is left for laboring persons (wages, salaries) is the result of the class struggle between labor and capital in the settings of production.  The rub here is that ‘hard work’ or ‘smarts’ do not define the possession of money.  One look at the millionaires, billionaires, inheritances, bourgeois law and a capitalist government shows that. Small businessmen are at the heart of the Tea Party/ Republican Party/ Trumpist right and they wish to ALSO join the rich man’s club.  They dream of being the heroic entrepreneur who eventually can sit around his/her pool all day while his/her workers’ work - that is the real ‘American dream.’  But the overwhelming majority never establish a successful business – some 85% after 1.75 years fail according to the IRS.  ‘They’ are a target for Marxism and a programmatic strategy oriented towards the difficulties of small farmers and business people with the large capitalists.  But that would be something more than Konigs can offer.  Certainly the fascists are working that group right now from their own anti-communist perspective.   

SOCIOLOGY PLEASE?

Konings considers money to be ‘both’ utilitarian and iconic.  However its ‘iconic’ status, loaded with emotional meaning, would not exist without its utilitarian role.  If money became less and less important providing the essentials of life in a socialized society – health care, education, transport, housing, food, clothing, etc. – its emotional impact would also decrease.  This is just basic materialism.  A sociological look at money’s role in the workers’ states in the past or in current Cuba, Vietnam or the social-democratic Nordics might shed light on this issue.  I know in pre-1989 Hungary few had much money, so many worked more jobs.  But at the same time ‘class envy’ had almost disappeared, inequality was low and the pace of labor had become more relaxed. 

The problem for Marxists is that most people at present will not voluntarily disrupt their ‘money’ in order to overthrow the existing capitalist order. Workers and proletarians without much wealth can feel this way unless a somewhat solid alternative is beckoning.  This is the ‘secret’ ingredient of stasis, very incremental change and resistance to transitional, major changes.  Pragmatists, unlike revolutionaries, won’t abandon a boat unless it is sinking and there is a real boat coming into view.  Well, the first boat is slowly taking on water.  This understanding of a sinking boat has become generalized knowledge.  Major transitional change and even revolutionary change are not such 'silly' ideas anymore.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left:  “Debt”(Graeber); “The Deficit Myth,” “How to Rob an Armored Car,” “Debt & Capital,” “House of Cards,” “The Big Short,” “Liar’s Poker” (all 3 by Lewis); “The Wolf of Wall Street”(Scorsese), “The Great Crash” (Galbraith).

And I got it at the University of Georgia library!

Red Frog

March 3, 2021