Twitter cuts (#12)¶
OK, it’s verging on the obsessional to drag Jehu back so quickly, but these tweets are quite simply the most important formulations of rigorous Left Accelerationism to date.
@nervemeter Labor theory is correct and it identifies the central contradiction of capital. @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
@nervemeter That contradiction is labor itself — it is the thing to be abolished and the measure of social wealth @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
@nervemeter You have to raise the antagonism between these two aspects of the contradiction. @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
@nervemeter And you can only do this by throwing your weight in the direction of abolition. @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
@nervemeter Capital is a moving contradiction that tries to abolish labor and keep it at the same time. @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
@nervemeter Yes. :) progressively abolishing socially necessary labor is the basis for profit. @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
@nervemeter Capital cannot avoid this without ceasing to be capital. @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
@nervemeter That is the secret of the transformation problem. @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
@nervemeter Anacceleration worthy of name would take acceleration of the abolition of labor as its starting point. @XLR8AN @deontologistics
— Jehu (@Damn_Jehu) August 21, 2014
In the admittedly oddly-angled opinion of this blog, the final tweet in this sequence is the most theoretically significant statement of Left Accelerationist purpose since the 19th century. Attenuation of socially necessary labor time has to be arithmetically integrated with the concept of ‘acceleration’ for a seam of Marxian continuity to be pursued.
My immediate response to Jehu’s intervention was, of course, tweeted:
It's not that I really think Lef Accelerationism was sitting in the faculty lounge, sipping Chardonnay, and engaging in spirited dialectic .
— Urban Future (2.1) (@UF_blog) August 21, 2014
… over certain passages in the Grundrisse, when @Damn_Jehu bursts in. Nervous looks all around. "Christ! He really believes this stuff!"
— Urban Future (2.1) (@UF_blog) August 21, 2014