One of the pleasures of arriving at a port-city is the first impression, the immediate surfaces, the familiar-strangeness. The roll of the train into the station; cinematic movement, office blocks, bridges, viaducts the electrical infrastructure of the inter-city and suburban railways, glimpses of an earlier time, when capital took different forms, red brick buildings withContinue reading “Notes on Hamburg and its Housing”
Tag Archives: marxism
Autonomous Networks
Starting points…where to start? It seems a flood, of hate and bile and anger and screwed up raging faces. Influencers, social media companies, the right wing press, the shock troops of the new right, lies and dis-formation. Anything goes. Pointing fingers, provocative behaviour, murder-speech, writing lies and far right propaganda. A newspaper claims a ‘pro-Palestine’Continue reading “Autonomous Networks”
The train to Paris, a city of Capital
There’s a crowd of people slowly moving toward platform 7 and the 13.31 train to Paris. I become aware of a young woman and man in close proximity. Why them? There are plenty of other people within a few inches or so. And yet no one bumps another and if they accidently do, they generallyContinue reading “The train to Paris, a city of Capital”
Tractors, Marx and Sowing Seeds
A woman in a trim blue padded coat stopped and asked if she could help. Blond hair blew in whisps across her face. She was all smiles and sparkly eyes. I was standing at a road junction near the railway station at Shepherdswell studying an Ordnance Survey map. I looked at her over the topContinue reading “Tractors, Marx and Sowing Seeds”
When Marx went to Morrisons…
…Hegel came too In the film The Million Pound Note Gregory Peck plays the character of the American sailor Henry Adams. He has been blown off course in his schooner, picked up in the Atlantic and ends up in London penniless. Two eccentric brothers, Oliver and Roderick Montpelier see him in the street (he isContinue reading “When Marx went to Morrisons…”
In the beginning was the commodity
The question is raised as to why Marx starts Capital with the ‘commodity’. It’s right there in the first line of the first chapter of the first volume: “The wealth of societies dominated by the capitalist mode of production appears in the form of an ‘enormous accumulation of commodities’ “. Why did Marx start withContinue reading “In the beginning was the commodity”
(Night) train to Antwerpen
The most unlikely places create stimulation. Stepping out into Kings Cross from a train that’s just arrived from the coast. Into the middle of a world city. The train ran up from east Kent and the Channel could be seen alongside the track. Grey and steel-like, container ships and tankers and bulk carriers in theContinue reading “(Night) train to Antwerpen”
Visions of Marx….endlessly
The only part of Capital to be published in Marx’s lifetime was volume one. It first came into being in Hamburg in 1867. Throughout the book Marx confidently asserts that ‘more of this will appear in volume two’, ‘this argument will continue in volume three’ and so on. But those later volumes were not finalisedContinue reading “Visions of Marx….endlessly”
Reading Capital in a Supermarket
The more Marx is bought to earth, the more fascinating his ideas become. By earth, I mean the local area in which I live. If Marx is relevant to this somewhat shabby and run down urban area then his ideas can be scaled up to a global level. Marx had a lot of theories andContinue reading “Reading Capital in a Supermarket”
Reading Capital in the London Road
A new edition of the first volume of Marx’s Capital, translated by Paul Reitter has arrived. It’s a handsome book made with good quality paper, hard cloth covers and a bold dust jacket. It’s been laying on top of a huge illustrated catalogue of the Louvre in Paris. Perhaps by some mystical osmosis the ghostContinue reading “Reading Capital in the London Road”
Commodity Fetishism 