Marxist Reading of the Cognitive Capitalism

8/9/2019 Marxist Reading of the Cognitive Capitalism

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From Formal Subsumption to General Intellect:

Elements for a Marxist Reading of the Thesis of

Cognitive Capitalism, in Historical Materialism

Carlo Vercellone

To cite this version:

Carlo Vercellone. From Formal Subsumption to General Intellect: Elements for a MarxistReading of the Thesis of Cognitive Capitalism, in Historical Materialism. Historical Mate-rialism, Brill Academic Publishers, 2007, 15 (1), pp.13-36. .

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From Formal Subsumption to General Intellect:Elements for a Marxist Reading of the Tesis of

Cognitive Capitalism

Carlo VercelloneLecturer o economics, University o Paris I Panthon-Sorbonne, France.

[email protected]

AbstractSince the crisis o Fordism, capitalism has been characterised by the ever more central role oknowledge and the rise o the cognitive dimensions o labour. Tis is not to say that the centralityo knowledge to capitalism is new per se. Rather, the question we must ask is to what extent we canspeak o a new role or knowledge and, more importantly, its relationship with transormations inthe capital/labour relation. From this perspective, the paper highlights the continuing validity oMarxs analysis o the knowledge/power relation in the development o the division o labour. More

precisely, we are concerned with the theoretical and heuristic value o the concepts o ormalsubsumption, real subsumption and general intellect or any interpretation o the present change o

the capital/labour relation in cognitive capitalism. In this way, we show the originality o the generalintellect hypothesis as a sublation o real subsumption. Finally, the article summarises keycontradictions and new orms o antagonism in cognitive capitalism.

Keywordscrisis, division o labour, knowledge, ormal subsumption, real subsumption, general intellect,cognitive capitalism, diffuse intellectuality

Introduction

Te contemporary historical conjuncture is marked by the diffusion and the ever-more central role o knowledge in the organisation o production and thedynamic o technical progress.1Tis evolution is accounted or by neoclassicaltheories o endogenous growth and o a knowledge-based economy through anapproach which abstracts rom the capital/labour antagonism and rom the

1. I would like to thank the reerees or their critical suggestions that have allowed me to developand clariy the ideas presented here.

Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 1336 www.brill.nl/hima


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14 C. Vercellone / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 1336

conicts o knowledge and power which structure transormations in thedivision o labour.2

Te hypothesis o cognitive capitalism develops rom a critique o the political

economy o the new liberal theories o the knowledge-based economy. Anunderstanding o the meaning at stake in the current mutation o capitalismcannot be reduced to the mere constitution o an economy ounded onknowledge, but in the ormation o a knowledge-based economy ramed andsubsumed by the laws o capital accumulation.3

On this basis, this article investigates two theoretical questions to which wewill attempt to give some o the elements o a response. Does the tendency to the

diffusion o knowledge signal a break with respect to the logic o the capitalistdivision o labour and o technical progress operative since the rst industrial

2. For a critique o these theories, see Lebert and Vercellone 2004.3. Tis critical perspective on apologetic accounts o neoliberal inspiration is inscribed in the

two terms which compose the very concept o cognitive capitalism: i) the notion o capitalismdenes the enduring element in the change o the structural invariants o the capitalist mode o

production: in particular, the driving role o prot and the wage relation or, more precisely, thedifferent orms o dependent labour on which the extraction o surplus labour is ounded; ii) theterm cognitive emphasises the new nature o the conictual relation o capital and labour, and othe orms o property on which the accumulation o capital rests. It is necessary to note that thenotion o cognitive capitalism has also been developed as a response to the insufficiency o theinterpretations o the current mutation o capitalism in terms o the transition rom a Fordist to a

post-Fordist model o exible, or what is sometimes reerred to as oyota-ist, accumulation. Teinterpretative category o post-Fordism, adopted by both a critical Lef coming rom workerism[operaismo] and by economists o the regulation school, essentially remains a prisoner o a neo-

industrialist vision o the new capitalism. Te new model o production and the new nature o therelation o capital to labour are conceived principally as an immanent overcoming o the socio-economic actors which have brought to an end the rigid paradigm o mass production. In substance,or the theories o post-Fordism, the rst aspect o the new productive model can be traced back tothe technological leap o telematic and microelectronic innovation that occurred with the thirdindustrial revolution. Te argument goes that the association o the inormation revolution and

Japanese methods o lean production have allowed the old assembly line to adapt to the increasinglyunstable and volatile nature o demand. At the same time, thanks to a new organisation o labour interms that are more exible and decentralised, the new model o production is said to haveeliminated the critical points o the cycle o production upon which the emergence o theantagonistic gure o the mass worker was ounded. Teories o post-Fordism, while capturingsome signicant elements o rupture, ofen remain bound to a actory-inspired vision o the newcapitalism seen as a urther development o the Fordist-industrial logic o the real subsumption olabour by capital. For these reasons, the category o post-Fordism appears to us to be inadequate orcomprehending the proound transormation o the antagonistic relation o capital to labourrelated to the development o an economy ounded on the driving role o knowledge and the gureo the collective worker o the general intellect. Te notion o cognitive capitalism aims to contribute

to overcoming these difficulties, taking account o the way in which the crisis o Fordism hascorresponded to a superior level o great crisis. Tis crisis signals the exhaustion not only o a modelo development specic to industrial capitalism but the tendential crisis o some o the morestructural invariants o the long-period dynamic that opened with the rst industrial revolution.


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C. Vercellone / Historical Materialism 15 (2007) 1336 15

revolution? o what degree is it possible to nd in Marx and, in particular, in thenotion o the general intellect, elements that allow or the identication o theradically new character o the contradictions and o the antagonism that traverses

cognitive capitalism?In order to respond to these questions, this article proposes to highlight theoriginality and the actuality o Marxs contribution, underlining the conictualrelation o knowledge to power that determines the development o the capitalistdivision o labour. Specically, we will deal with the theoretical and heuristic

value o the concepts o ormal subsumption, real subsumption and the generalintellect. Te notion o subsumption4is used by Marx to characterise the differing

orms o subordination o labour to capital. With the idea o the general intellect,he designates a radical change o the subsumption o labour to capital andindicates a third stage o the division o labour. It involves a tendential overcomingo the Smithian logic o the division o labour proper to industrial capitalism,and posits, in a new manner with respect to the other writings o Marx, the

possibility o a direct transition to communism.We shall see that these categories are useul in crafing a theoretical recon-

struction in historical time which is able to identiy the signicance o thecurrent turning point in the dynamic o capitalism in the longue dure. From thisresults a periodisation in which three principal stages o the capitalist division olabour and o the role o knowledge can be identied (even i these phases in partoverlap with each other).5

i) Te stage o ormal subsumption develops between the beginning o the

sixteenth and the end o the eighteenth century. It is based on the models oproduction o the putting-out system6 and o centralised manuacture. Terelation o capital/labour is marked by the hegemony o the knowledge ocrafsmen and o workers with a trade, and by the pre-eminence o the mechanismso accumulation o a mercantile and nancial type.

4. I have preerred the term subsumption to submission because it better allows us to grasp thepermanence o the opposition o capital to labour and the conict or the control o the intellectualpowers o production in the unolding o the different stages o the capitalist division o labour.

5. Te periodisation that I propose here is essentially aimed at showing the relevance andheuristic value o Marxian categories and method or any interpretation o the present mutation othe capital/labour relation. Tereore, I privilege an analysis centred on the development otendencies and ruptures within the Marxian discourse, even i this is to the detriment o a moredetailed historical argument. For a more developed historical perspective on the complexity o the

processes that led rom industrial capitalism to cognitive capitalism, I suggest that the reader seeLebert and Vercellone 2003 and Vercellone 1999, 2003a, 2004, 2006 and Vercellone (ed.) 2003.6. Tis system, also called the system o the diffuse actory, is based on the gure o the mercantile

entrepreneur who organises production in the home by artisans and independent workers.


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ii) Te stage o real subsumption starts with the rst industrial revolution. Tedivision o labour is characterised by a process o polarisation o knowledge

which is expressed in the parcelling out and disqualication o the labour o

execution and in the overqualication o a minoritarian component o labour-power, destined to intellectual unctions.7Te attempt to save time, ounded onthe law o value-labour, is accompanied by the reduction o complex labour intosimple labour and by the incorporation o knowledge in xed capital and in theorganisation o the rm. Te dynamic o capital accumulation is ounded on thelarge actories (rst o all, those o the Mancunian model, then those o Fordism),

which are specialised in the production o mass, standardised goods.

iii) Te third stage is that o cognitive capitalism. It begins with the social crisis oFordism and o the Smithian division o labour. Te relation o capital to labour ismarked by the hegemony o knowledges, by a diffuse intellectuality, and by thedriving role o the production o knowledges by means o knowledges connected tothe increasingly immaterial and cognitive character o labour.8 Tis new phase o thedivision o labour is accompanied by the crisis o the law o value-labour and by the

strong return o mercantile and nancial mechanisms o accumulation. Te principalelements o this new conguration o capitalism and o the conicts that derive romit are, in large measure, anticipated by Marxs notion o the general intellect.

Formal subsumption, real subsumption and general intellect:an historical perspective on the transformations of the division of labour

1. Division of labour and relations of knowledge/power. First andfundamental terrain of the conicts between capital and labour.

Marxs approach continues to offer an interpretative paradigm that helps usaccount not only or the transormations o the division o labour but also orthe trajectories which could create, to use a phrase rom Schumpeter, theconditions o a new evolution. Marxs analysis constitutes, rom a methodological

point o view, one o the rst critiques o Smiths account o the division o

7. See Freyssenet 1979.8. I insist upon the two terms immaterial and cognitive because the concept o immaterial

labour, when used by itsel to characterise the present change in labour, is, in my opinion, insufficientand imprecise. Te essential trait o the present transormation in labour is not limited to its many

immaterial dimensions or, more precisely, those o its products. It can above all be ound in thereappropriation o the cognitive dimensions o work by living labour, with respect to all materialand immaterial activity.


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Tus, the analysis o technical progress as an expression o a relation o orcesconcerning knowledge is everywhere present in Marxs work and allows analternative reading o some crucial aspects o his thought.

Te conictual dynamic o the relation o knowledge to power occupies acentral position in the explanation o the tendency o the increase o the organicand technical composition o capital. Tis tendency, Marx writes, results romthe way the system o machines arises in its totality: Tis road is, rather, dissection[Analyse] through the division o labour, which gradually transorms the

workers operations into more and more mechanical ones, so that at a certainpoint a mechanism can step into their places.12

In effect, the tendency o the rise in the technical and organic composition ocapital translates

into the system o values a undamental tendency o the capitalist mode oproduction: the increasing separation o producers and o means o production atthe level o the orces o production, or more exactly, at the level o the relations oexpropriation . . . [o the knowledges o the working class], the location o which isthe labour process. . . . Tis relation constitutes a struggle o class in production . . .

whose outcome is the control o the labour process and thereore o the productiono relative surplus-value, the control o which is initially deposited in the crafsmanand later the skilled labourer.13

We will not dwell at length here on the debate on the tendency o the alling rateo prot. What we are concerned with, instead, is to underline how, i the accentis placed on the qualitative dynamic o the relation o knowledge to power that

structures the tendency o the rise in the organic composition o capital, itbecomes possible to hypothesise another orm o structural crisis. Such a crisis isarticulated on the basis o a different logic rom that o the traditional Marxistapproach in terms o value and the overaccumulation o capital. It supposes,rather, a qualitative change, at the level o the technical composition o capitaland o the social labour process. Tis overturns the relation o subordination othe living knowledge incorporated in labour-power to the dead knowledge

incorporated in xed capital. It is an overturning in the relation o livingknowledge/dead knowledge that could be characterised as the tendential all othe capitals control o the division o labour.14Te numerous elements that leadto this hypothesis o a superior level o great crisis o industrial capitalism areevoked throughout Marxs work. However, in our opinion, it is above all in the

12. Marx 1973, p. 703.13. Lipietz 1982, pp. 2045.14. See Vercellone 1999.


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Grundrissethat it is explicated, in particular, in the passages on the Fragment onMachines (in Notebook VII). Here, Marx announces the advent, afer the stageso ormal and real subsumption o labour to capital, o a new stage o development

o the division o labour. It is here that Marx speaks o the general intellect inorder to characterise the impact o this change on the division o labour and ontechnical progress. In such a way, he anticipates certain key aspects o an historicalconjuncture in which the productive value o intellectual and scientic labourbecomes dominant and knowledge re-socialises everything, becoming the

principal productive orce.15It is or this reason that a return to Marxs notionso ormal and real subsumption and o the general intellect, and to the evolution

between these orms o the technical and social division o labour, may beo great interest or advancing the notion o a post-Smithian twenty-rstcentury.16

2. Te lessons of the phase of formal subsumption for an interpretationof the crisis of industrial capitalism

Marx uses the notions o ormal subsumption, real subsumption and the generalintellect in order to qualiy, in their logical-historical succession, prooundlydifferent mechanisms o subordinating the labour process by capital (and o thetype o conicts and o crisis which they generate). In this investigation, Marxmoves rom the stage o the ormal subsumption o labour by capital, in whichcapital subordinates a social and technical division o labour that, in thebeginning, is distinguished only ormally rom the earlier modes o produc-tion.17Capital subsumes, essentially by means o the expedient o mercantile and

15. See Negri 1992.16. Post-Smithian insoar as we can retrospectively affirm that Fordist growth has, in many

respects, represented the historical outcome o the industrial model, the essential traits andtendencies o which Adam Smith anticipated in the amous examples o the manuacture o pins.On the one hand, thanks to the association o aylorist principles and mechanisation, labour-poweris integrated with an always more complex system o utensils and machines. Productivity can benow represented as a variable whose determinants no longer take into any consideration theknowledge o the workers. In this sense, the Smithian representation o the technical division olabour, characterised by the parcelisation o labour and the separation o the tasks o planning andexecution, nds a sort o historical ullment. Knowledge and science applied to production areseparated rom collective labour and, as Smith announced, have become like every employment,the principal or sole trade and occupation o a particular class o citizens (Smith 1970, p. 10).

17. I call the orm which rests on absolute surplus-value the ormal subsumption o labourunder capital because it is distinguished only ormally rom the earlier modes o production on the

basis o which it directly originates (is introduced), modes in which either the producers are sel-employed, or the direct producers have to provide surplus labour or others. Te compulsion exertedthere, i.e. the method o extracting surplus labour, is o a different kind. Te essential eatures


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monetary relations, a labour process which pre-exists it and in which the co-operation o workers does not require mechanisms o capitalist direction o

production. Co-operation in labour relations remains technically autonomous

with respect to capital. Te control o the labour process and the modalities oappropriation o the surplus are ounded, in the rst instance, on mechanismsexternal to the directly productive sphere, as, or example, in the model o the

putting-out system. Bearing in mind the autonomy o productive social co-operation (o the qualitative preponderance o the variable component over thato constant capital, Marx would say), the compulsion to surplus labour (underthe orm o wage-labour and/or o autonomous craf labour) results essentially

rom the mercantile subordination o the worker which orces him to sell hislabour-power (lacking other means o access to money and/or to non-mercantileappropriation o the means o subsistence).

Te contradiction between the relation o monetary dependence o the wage-workers in the process o circulation and their autonomy in the regulation o thelabour process is one o the key characteristics o the ormal subsumption olabour to capital.18From this contradiction derives, as noted, the crucial position

that the policies o de-socialisation o the economy (enclosures, poor laws, etc.)had in the long and difficult process o gestation o the rst industrial revolution.Lacking a real compulsion materialised in the productive orces, such policiesaim to x the workorce and to emphasise, in order to render it really efficacious,the monetary compulsion o wage-labour. Tese policies whose logic aresimilar to the neoliberal strategies mobilised ollowing the crisis o Fordism

were, in that period, a necessary preamble to the process o the expropriation o

traditional knowledges that ormed the basis or the subsequent passage rom

o ormal subsumption are these: 1) the purely money relation between the person who isappropriating the surplus labour and the person who provides it; to the extent that subordinationarises, it arises rom the particular content o the sale, not rom a subordination pre-posited to thesale . . . 2) Something implied by the rst relation or otherwise the worker would not have to sellhis labour capacity namely the act that the objective conditions o his labour (the means o

production) and the subjective conditions o his labour (the means o subsistence) conront him ascapital, as monopolised by the buyer o his labour capacity . . . As yet there is no difference in themode o production itsel. Te labour process, seen rom the technological point o view, continuesexactly as it did beore, except that now it is a labour process subordinated to capital (Marx andEngels 19752005, Volume 34, pp. 934, translation modied).

18. Formal subsumption also shows the ambiguity o the historical process o ormation o reewage-labour. In effect, the possibility o disposing o its labour-power constitutes one o the stageso the historical movement o emancipation o dependent labour (in a wide sense o the term) in itsincessant attempt to escape rom such a condition. At the same time, ree wage-labour corresponds

to a process o expropriation which generates the progressive proletarianisation o the ruralpopulation and o crafsmen (precarisation, as we would say today), making economic compulsionto the wage relation the social norm o access to labour and to the wage.


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ormal subsumption to real subsumption. In reality, the historical stage o ormalsubsumption presents numerous analogies with the conguration o the relationo capital to labour that arose ollowing the crisis o Fordism.

Such an approach provides us many lessons or grasping the specicity o, andwhat is at stake in, the current transormations o the division o labour. Tis isthe case, above all, i Marxs contribution is combined with that o Braudel, thehistorian o the long dynamic o capitalism. A rst lesson, ollowing Braudel, isthat capitalism is an old story which precedes and goes beyond the rst industrialrevolution. Te industrial orm o capitalism constitutes nothing but a stage inits history. Far rom being born in the industrial revolution, capitalism developed

or a long phase o its history without accelerating technical progress and on thebasis o orms o surplus appropriation essentially indirect and external to thesphere o production at least in the countries at the centre o the capitalist

world system.19Te essential eature o capitalism is, in act, linked to the extremeexibility o its mechanisms o domination, to its capacity to be eminentlyadaptable and, thereore, non-specialised.20

Such exibility emerged rom the general ormula o capital (M-C-M) and

explains the type o relation which capital entertains with the sphere oproduction. From the standpoint o accumulation, monetary capital invested atthe beginning o the cycle (M) is characterised by its exibility, liquidity andreedom o choice. (C) is nothing but an interruption, in the ideal short circuit(M-M) which introduces (under the orm o mercantile capital just as that o

productive capital) materialisation, rigidity and uncertainty.21Such uncertaintyis consequently greater or capital engaged in production. Beore conronting

the realisation o surplus-value, it must abandon itsel to the risks linked to thedirect management o the organisation o labour. Te extension o suchuncertainty depends on socio-institutional actors which support the regulationo the wage relation and, more generally, all o the other orms o dependentlabour. Among these actors, the principal actor is undoubtedly the extent odomination o technology and o the knowledge on which the unctions odirection and o capitalist control o the labour process rely. As Arrighi

demonstrates, Marxs ormula suggests that

the capitalist agents do not invest money in the particular productive combinationso output/input as an end in itsel, with the consequent loss o exibility and oreedom o choice which this entails. On the contrary, they consider the productive

19. See Amin 1975.20. See Braudel 19814.21. On this subject see Arrighi 1996, pp. 223.


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investment as a means or assuring themselves in the uture an even greater exibilityand reedom o choice. I such anticipation o a greater reedom o choice in theuture is negative or systematically unsatisactory, capital tends to return to moreexible orms o investment, above all in its money orm.22

We suggest that the precariousness o the orms o capitalistic control o theorganisation o labour helps to explain, in the centuries beore the industrialrevolution, the slowness with which capital penetrates the sphere o productionand the great difficulties encountered rom the expansion o the system oconcentrated manuacture. Te orce that regulates the labour process, both interms o the control o working methods and the intensity o labour, remains

incorporated in the living knowledge o the collective worker. In such a way,since handicraf skill is the oundation o manuacture, and since the mechanismo manuacture as a whole possesses no objective independent ramework, apartrom the labourers themselves, capital is constantly compelled to wrestle withthe insubordination o the workmen.23

For this reason, until the arrival o the mechanisation o the process oproduction, the system o concentrated manuacture experienced only a weak

development and the merchant entrepreneur, rather than turning himsel into acaptain o industry, continued to privilege the model o the putting-out system.Tis historical example could reveal a more general tendential law o the dynamico capital accumulation. Tat is, the more the organisation o the cycle o

production appears to be ounded on a productive co-operation autonomousrom the unction o the direction o capital and/or traversed by a stronglyconictual dynamic, the more capital will tend to privilege indirect orms o

domination o production and o the mechanisms o surplus appropriationrealised by means o the sphere o monetary and nancial circulation. Tisinterpretative paradigm, which draws together orms o the division o labourand orms o capital accumulation, can also help to explain the historicalalternation o the different phases o accumulation o capital: there would thusbe phases characterised by orms o productive, nancial and commercialaccumulation. In this sense, in order to place the crisis o industrial capitalism in

an historical perspective, another lesson offered by the stage o ormalsubsumption is that also today capital could extend without problems to riditsel once again o its directly productive orms . . . and attempt to appropriatesurplus, extracting it rom other relations.24

22. Arrighi 1996, p. 22.23. Marx and Engels 19752005, Volume 35, p. 373 (translation modied).24. Docks and Rosier 1983, p. 14.


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On the other hand, it is precisely rom the standpoint o the history o theworld-economy that Braudel has urnished us with the elements or a stimulatinginterpretation o the meaning o the crisis o Fordism.25Te latter, according to

Braudel, even though presenting in toto certain characteristics proper to adescending phase o a Kondratieff long wave, represents a historical rupturemore proound than that diagnosed by the neo-Schumpeterian interpretationso long cycles. It would be a case o an inversion o tendency, which would onceagain put into question the very logic o development o the orm o capitalismthat arose with the rst industrial revolution. Te exhaustion o the propulsive

power o industrial capitalism would avour the true capitalisme du sommet, in

Braudels sense, privileging once again the indirect instruments o dominationproper to mercantile and nancial capitalism. Te unication o the three cycleso capital in differentiated moments o a single cycle under the aegis o productivecapital will be nothing other than the dominant expression o a transitory phaseo the history o capitalism.26From this perspective, we could add that the genesiso the current process o nancialisation maintains a close relation with theconictual transormations o the division o labour determined by the crisis o

Fordism. Financial globalisation could also be interpreted as capitals attempt torender its cycle o valorisation ever more autonomous rom a social labourprocess which it no longer subsumes in real terms. Tus, we have an interpretativeparadigm that is o even greater interest i we reconnect this Braudelian approacho the long dynamic o capitalism with Marxs hypothesis o the general intellectand o a crisis o the Smithian division o labour inherited rom industrialcapitalism.

3. Real subsumption and the logic of the industrial division of labour

Te process that leads to the real subsumption o labour by capital begins withthe rst industrial revolution. It is based on a series o tendencies which ow intoFordism: the progressive separation o intellectual and manual labour, theseparation o conceptual and material tasks, and the polarisation o knowledges

and the parcelisation o labour which determine the dynamic o technical andorganisational change by means o which capital progressively affirms its controlo the product and the labour process.

It must be noted such an element is very important or comprehending oneo the aspects o the current crisis that these tendencies o the division o labourand o technical progress rely on the establishment o a social institution central

25. See Braudel 1982.26. See Chesnais 1994.


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to the dynamic o industrial capitalism: the social norm that establishes the timeo immediate labour (directly dedicated to a productive activity) the principalunit o measure and the source o the wealth derived rom the development o

the productive power o human labour. In effect, beore the industrial revolution,the distinction between labour and non-labour was almost absent (in a universein which multi-activity and the versatility o individuals still dominated). Labour(activity in general) was the measure o a time not measured by the clock and thechronometer in terms o its efficacy. Following the development o the capitalistenterprise, this relation is inverted: time becomes the measure o labour27and,consequently, the norm o valuation o the production and distribution o

wealth. It is with the assertion o the authority o the actory system that timebecomes the measure o labour and the time o labour emerges as a sociallycentral actor. Te time o the clock and the chronometer as means or quantiyingthe economic value o labour and prescribing its operative modes thus represents,together with machinery, the essence o the economic and cultural transormationo labour determined by the industrial revolution. It is such successive orms othe economy o time that orge the logic o technical progress which, on the basis

o the association o the principles o aylorism and o mechanisation, will owinto Fordism. In such a way, labour becomes ever more abstract, not only underthe orm o exchange-value, but also in its content, emptied o any intellectualand creative quality.28

Te subsumption o the worker to capital becomes real when it is imposedinside the production process and no longer only outside it. Te subsumption olabour to capital is now imposed as an imperative dictated in some way by

technology and by the character, now external to the collective worker, o themass o knowledges which structure the division o labour and permit theco-ordination o productive co-operation. Te compulsion to wage-labour is nolonger merely o a monetary nature, but also o a technological nature, renderedendogenous by technical progress. In such a way, the individual labour-power othe producer, increasingly reduced to a simple living appendage o the system omachines, now . . . reuses its services unless it has been sold to capital.29From

this point o view, the dynamic o development o real subsumption needs to beunderstood in the two-old dimension30that characterises this concept:

27. See Roger Sue, cited in Guedj and Vindt 1997, p. 44.28. See Negri 1991 and 1992.29. Marx and Engels 19752005, Volume 35, p. 365.

30. In the interdependence between these two aspects o the (technical and social) division olabour, we nd again the presuppositions o a model laSmith-Young, with growth endogenousto technical progress that is understood to be specic to industrial capitalism.


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In effect, nothing renders the tendency to the expropriation o knowledgesand to the deepening o real subsumption irreversible. It is at the level o acollective reappropriation o knowledges, which took effect at the most general

level o the division o labour determined by Fordism, that we can best understandthe role played by the development o mass education in the ormation o adiffuse intellectuality and in the emergence o a new division o labour. Such anevolution seems, in effect, to realise certain o Marxs intuitions regarding thegeneral intellect.

4. Te originality of the Grundrisse: the general intellect as sublationof the real subsumption of labour to capital 32

In the rst book o Capital, Marx limits his analysis o the transormations o thedivision o labour to the stages that lead to simple co-operation and rommanuacture to modern industry. Tis logico-historical schema could be mistakenlyconsidered a judgement on the insuperable character o the tendency to realsubsumption. Tis interpretation o Capitalwill avour a reading o the limits ocapitalist development o the productive orces that places the accent on theanarchy o the market to the detriment o the contradictions generated by theconicts traversing the capitalist division o labour. Nevertheless, in all o Marxs

work, the critique o the capitalist division o labour and the analysis o theconicts o which it is the ulcrum represent the heart o his approach tothe crises and the dynamics which would have led capital to work towards itsown dissolution in as much as it is the orm dominating production.33 Tis

problematic, moreover, is conronted in the rst book o Capital when Marxunderlines how the historical stake represented by the legal reduction o labourtime is indissolubly linked to a more general struggle or the socialisation oaccess to knowledge. One thinks o how Marx welcomed, together with the

promulgation o the rst law regulating the working day, the conquest o thebases o a generalised elementary public education. Tat rst and meagreconcession wrung rom capital34was, according to Marx, nothing other than the

point o departure or a conictual dynamic or the abolition o the presentsystem o education and division o labour, which beget hypertrophy and atrophy

32. Te title o this section also intends to underline a major difference between our interpretationand the readings o the Grundrissethat tend always to lead the category o the general intellect backinto the perspective o the logic o real subsumption.

33. Marx 1973, p. 699. In Te German Ideology, or example, communism as the real movement

which abolishes the existing state o affairs was dened in terms o an historical process tending towardthe suppression o the capitalist division o labour (Marx and Engels 19752005, Vol 5, p. 37).34. Marx and Engels 19752005, Volume 35, p. 489.


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35. Ibid.36. Ibid. Tis vision anticipates the Gramscian concept o hegemony and the problematic o its

conquest by the wage-labourers.37. Te social crisis o the Fordist wage was maniested in a multiplicity o conicts that led to

a destabilisation o the Fordist organisation o work and the institutions o disciplinary society.Tereore, it is the reusal o the scientic organisation o labour that largely explains the alling rateo prot and the social exhaustion o the aylorist gains in productivity through which the Fordistcrisis has been maniested since the end o the 1960s. I, in the scope o this article, we insist aboveall upon the ormation o a diffuse intellectuality, it is or two main reasons. First, it is the newintellectual quality o labour-power that has led to the reaffirmation o the cognitive dimensions olabour. It is this new quality that explains the change rom the aylorist model to a model ocommunicative co-operation characteristic o the cognitive division o labour. Second, the crucial

place that the development o a diffuse intellectuality has with respect to the realisation o Marxsnotion o the general intellect (the principal subject o this paper).

38. From this point o view, our interpretation diverges rom that o Paolo Virno, according to

which Marx identies the general intellect with xed capital in toto, in contrast to the way that thesame general intellect presents itsel as living labour (c. Virno 1992).39. In the passages o Teories of Surplus-Valuededicated to Hodgskin, we nd a rst draf o the

at the two opposite extremities o society.35In his reading o the development othe capitalist division o labour, Marx recognised a central role or the strugglesover the socialisation o education whose ends (the abolition o the old division

o labour) are diametrically opposed to the dynamic o real subsumption.36

Inthis sense, it is possible to affirm that, or Marx, the development o masseducation was one o the essential conditions which would have permitted wage-labourers to accumulate a technological, theoretical and practical knowledgeadequate to the level attained by the capitalist development o the social andtechnical division o labour and, at the same time, to undertake its supersession.

In reality, it is actually under the pressure o a conictual dynamic and not

only due to the necessity to adapt the system o education to the exigencies othe labour market, that the state was led progressively to develop public education,socialising a part o the costs o the reproduction o labour-power beyondthe logic o the market. Mass education and the development o a diffuseintellectuality make the educational system a central site or the crisis o theFordist wage relation.37Te key role attributed to the theme o the developmento a socialised and ree sector o education in the conicts concerning the

control o intellectual powers o production is, thereore, an essential elemento Marxs elaboration o the notion o the general intellect.38Te establishmento a diffuse intellectuality is congured as the necessary historical condition,even i, in the Grundrisse, this reerence is implicit and, in some cases, concealedby a dialectical approach to the evolution o the division o labour that privilegesthe analysis o structural changes instead o the institutions and the subjects

which could have originated these transormations.39


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general intellect when Marx writes: accumulation is nothing but the amassing o the productivepowers o social labour, so that the accumulation o the skill and knowledge (scientic power) othe workers themselves is the chie orm o accumulation, and innitely more important than theaccumulation which goes hand in hand with it and merely represents it o the existing objectiveconditions o this accumulated activity (Marx and Engels 19752005, Volume 32, p. 399). Marxunderlines that Hodgskin, in his thesis on the unproductivity o capital underestimates somewhatthe value which the labour o the past has or the labour o the present. However, this affirmationo the primacy o subjective conditions (skill and knowledge) over objective conditions inuenced

without doubt his elaboration on the meaning and role o the general intellect.

40. Marx 1973, p. 699.41. Marx 1973, p. 701.42. Marx 1973, p. 711.

We will, thereore, ollow the principal stages o Marxs argumentationthrough which, in the Grundrisse, the advent o an economy based upon thediffusion and the driving role o knowledge is announced.

At the beginning o his analysis (Grundrisse, Notebook VII), Marx analysesthe implications o real subsumption, which reduces the labour o the worker toa mere abstraction o activity.40

Nevertheless, in the Grundrisse, contrary to what occurs in the rst book oCapital, Marx does not stop here, but continues to consider the dynamics othe division o labour that are able to carry out a recomposition o science ando the collective worker. From this perspective, he suggests how the deepening

o the logic o real subsumption can create certain conditions avourable toa collective reappropriation o knowledges insoar as living labour is able toreconvert a part o its surplus labour into ree time.

In its incessant attempts to economise on the time o labour, capital quiteunintentionally reduces human labour, expenditure o energy, to a minimum.Tis will redound to the benet o emancipated labour, and is the condition oits emancipation.41In effect, Te saving o labour time [is] equal to an increase

o ree time, i.e. time or the ull development o the individual, which in turnreacts back upon the productive power o labour as itsel the greatest productivepower.42 In other words, the reduction o direct labour-times necessary orproduction can allow the liberation o times dedicated to ree time and toeducation, which are indispensable conditions or liberated labour. Whether ornot these potentials are realised depends to a great extent on the degree osocialisation o education, that is, its transormation into a type o education

that avours the metamorphosis o the parcelised worker o Fordism into theimmaterial, polyvalent worker t or a variety o labours, ready to ace anychange o production, and to whom the different social unctions he perorms,


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are but so many modes o giving ree scope to his own natural and acquiredpowers.43

It is important to emphasise that the point o departure o the analysis o the

general intellect reers to a preliminary transormation o the intellectual qualityo living labour, or to the education o a diffuse intellectuality. Tis newconguration o the relation o capital to labour gives an impulse to the beginningo a new phase o the division o labour in which

the development o xed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledgehas become a direct orce o production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions

o the process o social lie itsel have come under the control o the general intellectand been transormed in accordance with it.44

Tis mutation re-opens the discussion regarding the principal pillars on whichthe political economy o industrial capitalism is based.

From the moment in which knowledge and its diffusion is affirmed as theprincipal productive orce, the relation o domination o dead labour over livinglabour enters into crisis and Labour no longer appears so much to be included

within the production process; rather, the human being comes to relate more aswatchman and regulator to the production process itsel.45 Inside this newsituation, the attempt to distinguish the productive contributions respectively ocapital and o labour (as the neoclassicists do, separating the parts o the differentactors o production in the product) denitively loses all o its oundations.Te principal xed capital becomes man himsel , in Marxs words,46 whichanticipates a logic o development driven by knowledge with an approach muchmore rich and complex than that o the reductive representations o the newtheories o endogenous growth, as we will see.

Tis transormation involves two other key consequences:

(a) Te law o value ounded on the measure o abstract labour-time immediatelydedicated to production enters into crisis.

In this transormation, it is neither the direct human labour he himsel perorms,nor the time during which he works, but rather the appropriation o his owngeneral productive power, his understanding o nature and his mastery over it by

virtue o his presence as a social body it is, in a word, the development o the

43. Marx and Engels 19752005, Volume 35, p. 489.

44. Marx 1973, p. 706.45. Marx 1973, p. 704.46. See Marx 1973, p. 711.


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social individual which appears as the great oundation-stone o production and owealth. . . . As soon as labour in the direct orm has ceased to be the great well-springo wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange-

value [must cease to be the measure] o use-value.47

Inside these transormations, labour, particularly in the orm o knowledge,remains nevertheless the principal source o the creation o wealth, but it canno longer be measured on the basis o labour time directly dedicated to

production.

(b) Secondly, in that which we could call the historical passage rom the time-value o labour to knowledge-value, the traditional opposition between labourand non-labour loses any oundation in as much as direct labour time itselcannot remain in the abstract antithesis to ree time . . . [ree time] which actsupon the productive power o labour as itsel the greatest productive power.48

Afer ormal and real subsumption, the historical emergence o the gure o thecollective worker o the general intellect can be interpreted as a point o origin oa new stage o the division and o a very extensive crisis o transition marked bytwo contradictions:

i) Te rst results rom the contradiction between the mutation o the notion oproductive labour bound to an economy ounded on the driving role oknowledge, and the logic o capital or which the tendency is always, on the one

side, to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour.

49

In short, the crisis o the law o value does not signiy its disappearance in so aras capital continues to maintain it vigorously in a orced manner, as wretchedbase o the measure o wealth and norm o its distribution. At the same time,extending Marxs thought, it can be affirmed that the crumbling o the traditionalrontiers between labour and non-labour related to the ever more immaterialand intellectual character o labour leads to an extension o the mechanisms oextraction o surplus-value to the totality o social times which participate insocial production.ii) Te second derives rom the ascertainment that, in the general intellect,

when knowledge is diffused, it no longer has proprietors50(contrary to what the

47. Marx 1973, p. 704.

48. Marx 1973, p. 711.49. Marx 1973, p. 708.50. Gorz 1997, p. 18.


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theoreticians o endogenous growth posit). Capital is no longer able to constructa new objective independent ramework by means o a urther deepening o theSmithian logic o the capitalist division o labour that opposes conception to

execution. In this way, the subsumption o labour is once again ormal in thesense that it is based essentially on the relation o monetary dependence o thewage-labourer inside the process o circulation.

Tis interpretative schema also allows us to comprehend that the precariousnesso the conditions o remuneration and o employment that characterise cognitivecapitalism can in no way be considered an unavoidable economic logic. Tehistorical meaning o this tendency consists, rather, in orceully making re-

emerge the primary nature o the wage relation: that o being a monetary bondwhich makes wage-labour the condition o access to money; that is, an incomemade to depend upon the anticipations o capitalists that determine the volumeo production and employment.51

Finally, the notion o the general intellect provides us with many elements toanalyse the actors at the base o the crisis o industrial capitalism. Tese highlightthe new sources o wealth (and o growing output) in a model that is appropriate

to cognitive capitalism. Among these elements, we shall mention the ollowing:i) the crisis o the model o social and technical division generated by the rstindustrial revolution; ii) the role and the diffusion o knowledge which obeys aco-operative social rationality which escapes the restrictive conception o humancapital; iii) re-opening the discussion o immediate labour as the principal

productive time and the impossibility o maintaining the direct time o labour asmeasure o productivity and o access to income; iv) the concomitant passage

rom a theory o time-value o labour to a theory o knowledge-value where theprincipal xed capital is man in whose brain exists the accumulated knowledgeo society;52v) sovereignty, violence and the primordial character o money inthe institution o the wage and mercantile order; vi) the necessity o recognising,against the logic o capital, the increasingly collective nature o technical progress,in order to place it at the service o the increase o effective liberty o individualsand the diversity o existence, and to affirm the primacy o use-value over

exchange-value.

51. It is equally important to note that the crisis o real subsumption at the level o the labour

process drove capital to attempt to subject and prescribe the workers subjectivity itsel according tothe logic o a society o control.52. Marx 1973, p. 711 (trans. modied).


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Conclusions. Cognitive capitalism versus the general intellect:tensions and new forms of antagonism

Te Marxian category o the general intellect bestows on us an extremely richlegacy or comprehending the oundations and the contradictions o the newdivision o labour born rom the crisis o industrial capitalism and the advent ocognitive capitalism.

In synthesis:

i) Te affirmation o the gure o the general intellect corresponds to astructural crisis o industrial capitalism itsel. It indicates a superior level o greatcrisis, halway between regulationist notions o a crisis o a mode o developmentand crisis o the mode o production itsel .53It is a case o a crisis o mutationthat challenges the tendencies that support the division o labour and theaccumulation o capital, departing rom the rst industrial revolution. Teindustrial conguration o capitalism (and the modes o development whichmarked its history) has constituted only a specic phase in the dynamic o thelongue dureo capitalism.

ii) For Marx, the ascent o cognitive capitalism cannot be explained througha technological determinism that understands the new technologies and theknowledge incorporated in xed capital as the principal motor o the passage toa new division o labour. On the contrary, the essential dimension o thismutation is ound in the conicts that have led to a new qualitative preponderanceo the knowledges o living labour over knowledges incorporated in xed capitaland in corporate organisation. From this point o view, knowledge cannot be

assimilated either to capital (as in the theory o human capital), or constituted ina supplementary actor o production (independent rom capital and romlabour, as some interpretations o cognitive capitalism assume).54 Knowledgeand education are nothing but the means o expression and creation o labour.Tese are subjective conditions o production that characterise the use-value olabour-power.

53. Te notion o a crisis o a mode o development indicates in the terminology o the Frenchregulation school (Aglietta, Boyer, Lipietz, Petit) a great crisis o the transormation o the dynamico industrial capitalism. Te theory o regulation has not, however, considered in its conceptualapparatus the hypothesis o a superior level o crisis, which we could dene with the concept o agreat crisis o the historical system o accumulation o industrial capitalism. For a critique o theregulationist approach and a presentation o the concept o crisis o an historical system oaccumulation, see Vercellone 2003a and Paulr 2004. For a presentation o the theory o regulation,

see Boyer 1986.54. Husson 2001; and Rullani 2000.


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iii) Te capitalism o the general intellect, ar rom eliminating contradictionsand antagonisms, displaces them and, to a certain extent, increases theirsignicance. Following Marx, the new terms o the relation o capital to labour

in cognitive capitalism can be characterised in this way.iv) Te traditional opposition between dead labour/living labour, properto industrial capitalism, gives way to a new orm o antagonism, that betweenthe dead knowledge o capital and the living knowledge o labour. Tus, Temodern mutation could be summarised . . . in a ormula: we pass rom the staticmanagement o resources to the dynamic management o knowledges. Productivescience is no longer encapsulated in the rigid logic incorporated in machines.55

On the other hand, inside the enterprise just as in society, the mobilisation andthe co-operation o collective knowledges is increasingly undamental, the onlyelements able to release and to control a dynamic o accelerated change.

v) Tis displacement o the terms o antagonism corresponds to a subsumptiono labour to capital which is, once again, essentially ormal rom the point o

view o the labour process. However, differently rom the practical knowledgeso the old crafsmen, the living knowledges o diffuse intellectuality today cannot

be expropriated by a deepening o the Smithian logic o the division o labourthat ound its summit in aylorist and Fordist principles o organisation olabour. Such a type o expropriation could not be effected other than at the priceo a lowering o the general level o education o the workorce, a level which isrecognised to be the source o the wealth o nations and the competitiveness oenterprises. Te resurgence o tensions regarding sel-determination in theorganisation o labour and the social ends o production depends on the

reaffirmation o the autonomy o living knowledge.vi) In the activities in which the cognitive and immaterial dimension olabour is dominant, we witness a destabilisation o one o the structuringconditions o the wage relation, that is to say, the renunciation compensated bythe wage by the workers to any claim on the property o the product o theirlabour. In cognitive-labour-producing knowledge, the result o labour remainsincorporated in the brain o the worker and is thus inseparable rom her person.

Tat helps explain, together with other actors, the pressure exercised byenterprises in order to attain a strengthening o the rights o intellectual propertyand to re-enclose, in a new phase o the primitive accumulation o capital, thesocial mechanisms at the base o the circulation o knowledge.

vii) Where the time o labour directly dedicated to the production ocommodities intensive in knowledge becomes insignicant; or, to put it in the

55. Lorino 1993, p. 82.


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language o neoclassical economic theory, where the marginal costs oreproduction are practically nothing or extremely low, these commodities shouldbe given or ree. From this standpoint, the solution searched or by capital is

now to advance rights to intellectual property in order to collect monopolyrents. Tis stratagem corresponds to a situation which contradicts the veryprinciples on which the ounding athers o political economy had theoreticallyjustied private property and the efficiency o a competitive order. In act, it isnow the very creation o property which generates scarcity. It is what Marx (but

perhaps even a classical economist like Ricardo) would qualiy as an articialway o maintaining the primacy o exchange-value (which is based on the

difficulties o production) against wealth, which is based instead on abundanceand use-value, and thereore on ree appropriation.viii) In the capitalism o the general intellect and o value-knowledge, the

relation o capital to labour is subjected to two new sources o conict. On theone hand, precisely due to the crumbling o the traditional rontiers betweenthe sphere o reproduction and that o direct production, the exploitation othe use-value o labour-power expands to the entire social day.56On the other

hand, capitals attempt to maintain the permanence o the law o value oundedon direct labour-time, despite its crisis, leads to the unemployment and the de-valorisation o labour-power. Te result o this is the current paradox o povertywithin abundance in an economy in which the power and diffusion o knowledgescontrasts with a logic o accumulation; and where the rontiers between rent and

prot ade, while the new relations o ownership o knowledge obstruct theprogress o knowledge through the creation o an articial scarcity o resources.

In conclusion, in cognitive capitalism the relation o capital to labour ispresented as the opposition o two logics, between which it no longer seemspossible to re-stabilise a dialectic o struggles/development:

a) on the one hand, the logic o capital accumulation which assumes an evermore parasitic nature through its attempt to enorce the law o value articially.

56. Te need to contrast this extension o exploitation constitutes one o the undamentalelements o the claim or a guaranteed social income (or wage) independent o employment. It isconceived as the remuneration or the totality o social times and or the activities that participatein the creation o value appropriated by enterprises. Tis guaranteed income should be o a sumsufficient to allow each to have a decent standard o living and to reuse conditions o employmentconsidered as unacceptable. In this way, the guaranteed social income constitutes an instrument tomitigate the monetary compulsion represented by the wage relation and avours the development

o activities alternative to the logic o the market and wage-labour. For a more detailed presentationo the proposal o a guaranteed social income, see also: Monnier and Vercellone 2006, Vercellone2003b and Gorz 1997.


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Monnier, Jean-Marie and Carlo Vercellone 2006, ravail et protection sociale lge du capitalismecogniti: La proposition de revenu social garanti, in ravailler pour tre intgr? Mutations desrelations entre emploi et protection sociale, edited by Ai-Tu Dang, Jean-Luc Outin, and HlneZajdela, Paris: Editions CNRS.

Negri, Antonio 1991, Marx beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse, translated by H. Cleaver,M. Ryan and M. Viano, ed. J. Fleming, New York: Autonomedia.

Negri, Antonio 1992, Interpretation o the Class Situation oday: Methodological Aspects, inOpen Marxism, Volume 2, Teory and Practice, edited by W. Boneeld, R. Gunn and K.Psychopedis, London: Pluto.

Paulr, Bernard 2004, Introduction au capitalisme cogniti , Journes dtude Gres-Matisse-Isys,25 Novembre, Paris, mimo.

Rullani, Enzo 2000, Le capitalisme cogniti: du dj-vu,Multitudes, 2: 8794.Salama, Pierre and Hai Hac ran 1992,Introduction lconomie de Marx, Paris: La Dcouverte.

Smith, Adam 1970 [1776], Te Wealth of Nations, London: J.M. Dent and Sons.ronti, Mario 1966, Operai e capitale, orino: Einaudi.Vercellone, Carlo 1999,Accumulation primitive, industrialisation et rapport salarial en Italie, Tse

de doctorat, Universit de Paris 8.Vercellone, Carlo 2003a, Sens et enjeux de la transition vers le capitalisme cogniti : une mise en

perspective historique, Actes des Journes dtude Patrimoine, ordres et dynamique ducapitalisme, Universit de Reims / INRA-ENESAD de Dijon, 1213 June.

Vercellone, Carlo 2003b, Mutations du concept de travail producti et nouvelles normes derpartition, in Vercellone (ed.) 2003.

Vercellone, Carlo 2004, Division internationale du travail, proprit intellectuelle et dveloppement lheure du capitalisme cognitive, Gographie, Economie, Socit, 6: 35981.

Vercellone, Carlo (ed.), 2003, Sommes nous sortis du capitalisme industriel?, Paris: La Dispute.Virno, Paolo 1992, Quelques notes propos du general intellect,Futur Antrieur, 10: 4553.

Marxist Reading of the Cognitive Capitalism

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