Berkeley:
Section 23
Section 23 of Part 1 of George Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge holds a special place in the heart of any researcher of Berkeley’s philosophy. It is the section where one version of Berkeley’s “master argument” is, supposedly, found1placeholder. The section is as follows:
“But say you, surely there is nothing easier than to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and no body by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it: but what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and at the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not you your self perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing to the purpose: it only shows you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind; but it doth not shew that you can conceive it possible, the objects of your thought may exist without the mind: to make out this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas. But the mind taking no notice of itself, is deluded to think it can and doth conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind; though at the same time they are apprehended by or exist in it self. A little attention will discover to any one the truth and evidence of what is here said, and make it unnecessary to insist on any other proofs against the existence of material substance.”2placeholder
Of the many interpretations made of Berkeley’s “master argument”, I will be using James Hill’s recent interpretation, which argues that Berkeley’s “master argument” “invokes a process of self-awareness”3placeholder. When the mind thinks, for one, that it can imagine various objects existing unperceived, and, in general, independent of the mental activities of minds, it is caught in a “momen[t] of absorption in ideas”, when it is “occupied by the objects of [its] mental operations”4placeholder. “It is on these occasions that it becomes possible to believe in the existence of those ideas in complete independence of mind”5placeholder. Hill also, eloquently, called these moments of absorption in ideas moments of “self-forgetting”6placeholder. Now, it seems to me there is, also, another name for these moments of absorption in ideas, or self-forgetting: naive realism, in the sense that, in these moments of absorption in ideas, or self-forgetting, the mind thinks that the objects of its experience are mind-independent. Hence, I will say that Section 23 of Part 1 of the Principles of Human Knowledge argues that the naive realist experience of the world, and the naive realist position, are due to the mind’s unconsciousness of its mental activities. This unconsciousness leads it to believe that the objects of these activities are mind-independent.
Berkeleian realism
Berkeleian realism is not a position which asserts the mind-independent reality of anything, but it does concern itself with claims to mind-independent reality. It takes, as its point of departure, Lenin’s vitriolic claim in Materialism and Empirio-criticism that the naive realist experience of the world is the experience of “any healthy person who has not been an inmate of a lunatic asylum or a pupil of the idealist philosophers”7placeholder. It holds, however, with respect to Section 23 of Part 1 of Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge, and the interpretation presented above, that any mind-independent object the mind seems to have come across is, really, the object of mental activities which the mind is unconscious of, and that the mind’s unconsciousness of these activities leads it to believe that the object of these activities is mind-independent.
Berkeleian realism holds, then, that, at the heart of the naive realist experience of the world, and the naive realist position, is an unconscious, whose unconsciousness leads to the objects of these unconscious activities taking on the appearances of mind-independent objects. In simultaneity, it endorses Lenin’s opinion that, for the most parts, we do take the objects we come upon in the world to be mind-independent objects. Hence, it holds that the life of the mind is, for the most parts, unconscious. For the most parts, the mind is oblivious of its activities, so absorbed it is in the objects of these activities. The world is a world of mind-independent objects, and the life the mind leads within this world, with respect to these mind-independent objects, unknown to it.
Section 23
In Section 23 of Part 1 of Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge, we find two positions and experiences of the world. They are as follows,
Naive realism: is the position which holds that the objects of our experience are mind-independent objects. Its experience of the world is one where we think we perceive various mind-independent objects.
Berkeleian idealism: is the position which holds that the objects of our experience are sensations, and representations of sensations, formed by memory and imagination8placeholder, both inseparable from the mental activities which have these sensations and representations of sensations as their objects. Its experience of the world is one where we are conscious of ourselves engaged in various mental activities inseparable from the sensations and representations of sensations which are their objects9placeholder.
In Section 23, Berkeley entered these two positions and experiences of the world into a relation with one another. What is this relation? It is a relation found in the phrases “omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them”10placeholder, “the mind taking no notice of itself”11placeholder, and, in a term used by Hill in his interpretation of this section, “self-forgetting”. Now, what kind of relation is found in these phrases and this term?
First and foremost, we must take note of two features of this relation.
The first: is that this relation acquires, for the naive realist position and experience of the world, an unconscious center, a secret core of being, secret, even, to the position and experience themselves, i.e. various mental activities inseparable from their objects, which we, in the naive realist position and experience of the world, are unconscious of.
The second: is that, in this relation, if we wish to recall what is forgotten in the naive realist position and experience of the world, we must assume another position and enter into another experience of the world, i.e. the Berkeleian idealist position and experience of the world. When we recognize that what is forgotten in the naive realist position and experience of the world are various mental activities inseparable from the sensations and representations of sensations we mistook to be mind-independent objects, we can no longer remain naive realists, but become Berkeleian idealists.
From the second feature, I think, we may say that the relation drawn by Berkeley between naive realism and Berkeleian idealism is one of exclusive disjunction. To forget is to assume the position of naive realism and enter into its experience of the world. To recall is to assume the position of Berkeleian idealism and enter into its experience of the world. There is no being a naive realist and a Berkeleian idealist at the same time. One must be a naive realist or a Berkeleian idealist. The phrases quoted above and Hill’s “self-forgetting” signify this “or”, the exclusive disjunction between naive realism and Berkeleian idealism.
Now, with respect to the first feature, we may, also, say that, if we, in some kind of Berkeleian “psychoanalysis”, attempt to bring to consciousness the unconscious center and secret core of our naive realist position and experience of the world, we cannot do so by remaining in the naive realist position and experience, but must take leave of them, and enter into another, Berkeleian idealist position and experience. In simultaneity, the phrases quoted above, and the term “self-forgetting”, also, suggest that there has been another movement, originary of naive realism, which moved from Berkeleian idealism to naive realism, where we, forgetting the activities which would become the unconscious center and secret core of naive realism, take leave of Berkeleian idealism and enter into naive realism. In other words, the relation drawn by Berkeley between naive realism and Berkeleian idealism is not only one of exclusive disjunction, but also a movement, or movements, traversing the gap of the exclusive “or”, moving from one disjunct position and experience of the world to the other.
Berkeleian realism
Berkeleian realism does not, groundlessly, posit, at the heart of the naive realist position and experience of the world, an unconscious. Rather, it is a position arrived at through an oscillation between the naive realist position and experience of the world, and another, Berkeleian idealist position and experience. It is, also, itself, a continuation of this oscillation, as each attempt to articulate the unconscious center and secret core of the naive realist position and experience leads us, away from the naive realist position and experience, into the Berkeleian idealist position and experience.
In a large way, the unconscious of the naive realist position and experience of the world is the other, Berkeleian idealist position and experience. More precisely, it is this other, as an other which cannot occur at the same time as the naive realist position and experience, whose occurrence is excluded by the occurrence of the naive realist position and experience: the excluded other. In the same way, we may say that the unconscious of the Berkeleian idealist position and experience is the other, naive realist position and experience.
Marx:
Commodity, money, consumption, and wage labor
The exchange of commodities may be expressed by the following formula,
x quantity of commodity A = y quantity of commodity B
In this formula, commodities A and B are thought to have certain values. These values are expressed, only, in the other commodity, because, if I say
x quantity of commodity A = x quantity of commodity A,
I have “simply expressed a definite quantity”12placeholder of commodity A, not its value. Its value is only expressed in commodity B, and any other commodity with which it stands in commodity exchange, and is exchanged for.
Now, obviously, the formula of x quantity of commodity A = y quantity of commodity B can be reversed into y quantity of commodity B = x quantity of commodity A. In this reversed formula, we may say that the value of commodity B is expressed in commodity A.
With respect to these two formulas, we may say that there are two possible experiences of commodity A. The first is that where
- The value of commodity A is expressed in commodity B. The second is that where
- Commodity A is that where the value of commodity B is expressed.
The former corresponds to what Marx called the “relative value form”13placeholder, and the latter to the “equivalent form”14placeholder. These two experiences of commodity A, Marx also tells us, are mutually exclusive. They may occur at the same time, but, only, “for two different persons and in two different expressions of value”15placeholder, that is to say, for me and the other, with whom I stand in exchange, each expressing the value of the commodity we own and will give away, in the other commodity, owned by the other, and which we will gain from this exchange.
Now, we may consider a scenario where commodity A is exchanged for many other commodities. The two experiences of commodity A transforms, respectively, into
- The experience where the value of commodity A is expressed in many other commodities, and
- The experience where commodity A is that where the values of many other commodities are expressed.
The former corresponds to what Marx called the “expanded value form”16placeholder, and the latter to the “general equivalent form”17placeholder. These two experiences are, again, mutually exclusive. If we substitute commodity A for a particular commodity we are all well-acquainted with, money18placeholder, or the money-commodity19placeholder, we see, clearly, that the first experience of money20placeholder is the experience of the one who possesses money, and who buys various commodities with money. The second experience of money is the experience of the one who aims to acquire money, and who sells the commodities they own for money. In other words, the first experience is the experience of money from the position of the possessor of money and buyer. The second is the experience of money from the position of the acquirer of money and seller.
Within the life of the same wage laborer, these two experiences and positions, also, appear as two distinct but consecutive moments. The first experience and position are the experience and position of the consumer. The second experience and position are the experience and position of the worker, or, more properly, the wage laborer. Why are these two experiences and positions connected as two distinct, consecutive moments in the life of the wage laborer? Because the wage laborer does not only work, but also rest, and, in general, engage in activities other than wage labor, so as to replenish the energy they have lost from wage labor. In these other non-wage labor activities, the wage laborer spends their wage, on food, drinks, medications, and so on. They consume, in order, as any Marxist would put, to reproduce their labor power, to work another day21placeholder. Hence, the experiences and positions of the consumer and the wage laborer are distinct from one another, but also connected as two consecutive moments.
In short, in the case of money, the two experiences of commodity A are, respectively,
- The experience of money from the position of the possessor of money and buyer (“I can buy so-and-so with my money”), and, in the life of the wage laborer, the position of the consumer, which the wage laborer assumes in their reproduction of their labor power, and
- The experience of money from the position of the acquirer of money and seller (“My goods are worth so-and-so sums of money.”), and, in the life of the wage laborer, the position of the wage laborer, which the wage laborer assumes when they sell their labor power to capitalists.
These two experiences of money and positions are mutually exclusive. They cannot occur at the same time, but, in the life of the wage laborer, they are connected to one another, as two consecutive moments of the wage laborer’s life. The life of the wage laborer is an oscillation between these two experiences of money—and commodities, in general—positions, and moments.
The capitalist
Opposite to the wage laborer, stands the capitalist. The two moments, of consumption and wage labor, in the life of the wage laborer correspond—occur at the same time as and are mutually exclusive with—two moments in the life of the capitalist. The moment of consumption in the life of the wage laborer occurs at the same time and is mutually exclusive with the moment when the capitalist sells the commodities produced by wage laborers, back, to wage laborers. The moment of wage labor in the life of the wage laborer occurs at the same time and is mutually exclusive with the moment when the capitalist buys the labor power of the wage laborer.
A struggle against the capitalist class, it seems to me, then, has the character of an oscillation, like the oscillations found in the lives of the wage laborer and the capitalist, between the two co-occurring moments in the lives of the wage laborer and the capitalist, the two moments of commodity exchange. In the moment of consumption, we refrain from buying commodities sold by capitalists, produced by us. In the moment of wage labor, we refrain from selling our labor power to capitalists, to produce the commodities which would be sold back to us. Boycotts and strikes are two moments in the struggle against the capitalist class. Each moment is an act of vandalism, even, terrorism against the capitalists’ wallets. In boycotts, the money the capitalists have spent purchasing labor power from wage laborers “goes to waste”. It does not flow back to the capitalists’ wallets by way of the wage laborers’ purchases of the commodities they themselves produced. In strikes, the money gained from the sales of commodities produced by wage laborers, to wage laborers, does not flow, much less increase, again. It is not spent in the purchases of labor power from wage laborers, and, when it is again, a greater sum than before will be spent.
The desire to not go to work
The desire to not go to work, or, more properly, to not engage in wage labor, which I have attempted an analysis of in a previous article22placeholder, may be considered, here, an interruption of the oscillation between the two moments of consumption and wage labor, in the wage laborer’s life, due to a repetition of the moment of consumption, which should not have occurred, without, first, an oscillation, back, to the moment of wage labor. This is a mouthful, like, virtually, everything I have written, but what is meant is this:
I have argued, in my previous article, that the desire to not go to work is not merely a desire to not go to work, but a desire to do something else other than work, or, more commonly, in the life of the meek wage laborer, before work. This something else is, also, not just any activity, but an activity which expends the wage earned from the sale of labor power to capitalists in wage labor.
Now, this desire springs up, suddenly, most commonly, it seems, in the early morning. Considered with respect to the day prior, we may say
Yesterday Today
wage labor – consumption – consumption – wage labor
The moment of consumption yesterday, which should have been followed by an oscillation, back, to the moment of wage labor today, is not followed by any such oscillation. Rather, the moment of consumption is repeated today, and, in the case of a wage laborer, who renounces wage labor altogether, to engage in pure, economically self-destructive consumption, it is repeated twice, thrice, innumerable times, where it should not have been repeated even once, without a prior oscillation to the moment of wage labor. The oscillation between the two moments of consumption and wage labor, in the wage laborer’s life, is interrupted in this way.
This interruption persists, for as long as the wage laborer persists in their desire and, therefore, repeats the moment of consumption, without oscillation to the moment of wage labor. This is not to say that this interruption can persist forever, though. Since no money is coming in from the sale of labor power to capitalists, the wage laborer must spend their savings, instead. Because of this, the wage laborer, anticipating the end when their savings are entirely drained, may not consume at all, or, at the very least, refrain from consumption, but, as anyone who has been unemployed and had a dwindling savings account could testify, savings are, slowly but surely, drained regardless. One must eat and drink, after all, and, with every act of necessary consumption, one approaches the dreadful end one has been avoiding through minimal consumption. The wage laborer falls into a depressive inactivity, or, rather, minimal activity, but, like Heidegger’s Dasein in authentic being-towards-death23placeholder, it, always, has the end of its entire economic existence in sight, and, as certainly as anyone born into this world is destined to die, the wage laborer approaches this end (and, with infinitely more certainty than Dasein, as the wage laborer can, roughly, calculate the hour of their end), when they will no longer have a single dollar to their name, and, more importantly, can no longer sustain their life.
The desire and the struggle
The life of a wage laborer consists not only of oscillations between the moment of consumption and the moment of wage labor, but also of interruptions of these oscillations, due to a depressive inactivity brought about by the desire to not go to work, or, more properly, engage in wage labor. These interruptions are nothing short of “involuntary” and spontaneous withdrawals from consumption and wage labor, “involuntary” and spontaneous boycotts and strikes. Having said so, it, also, seems that the wage laborer rebounds, not uncommonly, from minimal consumption to impulsive consumption as well. One suspects a deep and bleak insight, here, which identifies one’s value, or, more precisely, the value of one’s labor power, with the value of the money one is spending. This money, of course, is the money acquired from the sale of one’s labor power to capitalists: one’s wage. The value of the wage laborer’s labor power is expressed in their wage, and the value of their wage is expressed in the commodities they impulsively buy. The labor power of the wage laborer is worth as much as the commodities they can buy with their wage. It is only natural, then, that the wage laborer would “feel good”, “empowered”, even, after buying. They have validated themselves the only way they could in a capitalist market. In simultaneity, however, we must recognize, also, that the consumption of capitalist commodities is inseparable from the continuation of the exploitation of other wage laborers who remain in exchanges with capitalists. If we must be egoists and no other, on threat of “inauthenticity”, or any of its equivalents in modern slang, consumption is inseparable from the continuation of our own exploitation by capitalists as well, and, if we withdraw from wage labor, we would, unmistakably, die (or, in order to live, become capitalists who resell the commodities we have bought to profit off of them). If we withdraw from wage labor and consumption, we would, likewise, unmistakably, die, unless there are others, who have done the same and established, outside of the capitalist market, another network of commodity exchanges, which allows for life outside of the capitalist market. Doubling back, now, though, to before this detour, the desire to not go to work, we may say, contributes to the struggle against the capitalist class, insofar as it results in a depressive inactivity, or a withdrawal from wage labor and consumption.
This withdrawal is not the ultimate end we strive towards. By itself, this withdrawal is suicidal. Withdrawing from wage labor means we would have to live on our savings, draining them until we are impoverished. Withdrawing from wage labor and consumption mean we deny ourselves all the means of living we are accustomed to buying, with our wages, and living on in the capitalist market. In the absence of a network of commodity exchanges outside of the capitalist market—in the absence of others who have, likewise, withdrawn from wage labor and consumption, and are willing to venture beyond capitalism, to build a new society without, withdrawing from wage labor and consumption is dangerous, self-destructive. It is fortuitous, then, that the 21st century has, thus far, seen rampant burnout and depression among the working class. I say, without humorous intent, that the current mental health crisis is an opportunity. It is the stage for a mass withdrawal from capitalism, and the establishment of another network—networks, even—of commodity exchanges outside of it.
The dream
The capitalist universe is a universe of many oscillations, between many mutually exclusive positions, experiences, and moments. In each oscillation, the position, experience, and moment the oscillation has, presently, oscillated to excludes the other position, experience, and moment as its unconscious. Following through on the quasi-psychoanalytic motif, we may say that the subsequent oscillation, away from the present position, experience, and moment, towards the other, is a kind of “dream”. It is a “dream” not in the disparaging sense of a far-fetched, impossible ideal. Rather, “dream” is, here, used in two senses: first, in the quasi-psychoanalytic sense of a peculiar event where the unconscious comes into consciousness, and, second, in the more colloquial sense of a striving towards an end, as in the “American Dream”, or the “Chinese Dream”. A “dream”, in a word, is a kind of striving which takes us out of our present position, experience, and moment, into the other position, experience, and moment.
Opposite to the capitalist universe, stands another universe, or universes, which have already been built or still await to be built by wage laborers who withdraw from consumption and wage labor in the capitalist market. Their withdrawal, which weakens the capitalist universe, vandalizing and terrorizing the wallets of capitalists, and their participation in, or construction of, another, non-capitalist universe, may be called “dreaming”. If this dream, or dreaming, must, further, be specified as a specific kind of dream, or dreaming, I think we may very well call it the Communist Dream, because communism, as Marx and Engels have famously defined it in The German Ideology, is “the real movement which abolishes the present state of things”, whose “conditions…result from the premises now in existence”24placeholder. The current mental health crisis is the condition, and the withdrawal, participation, and construction the movement.
Opposite to the Communist Dream, it seems, also, stands, a Capitalist Dream, which is a dream of class treason. Where, in the Communist Dream, the wage laborer unites with other wage laborers who have, likewise, withdrawn from consumption and wage labor in the capitalist market, to build a new network, or networks, of commodity exchanges beyond, in the Capitalist Dream, the wage laborer betrays other wage laborers to become a capitalist and profit off of other wage laborers.
Works Cited
George Berkeley, “A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge” (hereafter “Principles”) in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne Volume 2, ed. A.A. Luce and T.E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1948-1957),
C.G. Caffentzis, Exciting the Industry of Mankind. George Berkeley’s Philosophy of Money (Berlin: Springer-Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2000), 417.
Raphael Chim, “‘I don’t feel like working today’: Meditations on object uses, exchanges, self-blame, suicidal ideation, and revolution”, Epoché Magazine, Issue 63 (June 2023), https://epochemagazine.org/63/i-dont-feel-like-working-today-meditations-on-object-uses-exchanges-self-blame-suicidal-ideation-and-revolution/.
Andre Gallois, “Berkeley’s Master Argument”, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 83, no. 1 (Jan 1974), 58.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John MacQuarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008), 311.
James Hill, The Notions of George Berkeley: Self, Substance, Unity and Power (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), 51.
Vladimir Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, trans. Abraham Fineberg, ed. Clemens Dutt (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977),
Karl Marx, “B. Theories on the Standard of Money” in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, trans. S.W. Ryazanskaya (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1859), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch02b.htm
Karl Marx, “Chapter Six: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power” in Capital: Volume I: Book One (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1887), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm.
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm (I., 1., b.).
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Part I: Feuerbach. Oppostiion of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook. A. Idealism and Materialism” in A Critique of the German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm.
Andre Gallois, “Berkeley’s Master Argument”, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 83, no. 1 (Jan 1974), 58.
George Berkeley, “A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge” (hereafter “Principles”) in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne Volume 2, ed. A.A. Luce and T.E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1948-1957), 51-52 (Part 1, Section 23).
James Hill, The Notions of George Berkeley: Self, Substance, Unity and Power (2022), 51.
James Hill, The Notions of George Berkeley: Self, Substance, Unity and Power (2022), 51.
James Hill, The Notions of George Berkeley: Self, Substance, Unity and Power (2022), 51.
James Hill, The Notions of George Berkeley: Self, Substance, Unity and Power (2022), 50.
Vladimir Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, trans. Abraham Fineberg, ed. Clemens Dutt (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), 69. The influence of Berkeley on this work cannot be understated. Berkeley was presented by Lenin as the precursor to the empirio-criticists he opposed himself to, and, more importantly, perhaps, the distinction between materialism and idealism, so prominent in Leninist discourse, was drawn, by Lenin, with respect to Section 24 of Part 1 of Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge. See ibid., 26.
Berkeley, “Principles”, 42 (Part 1, Section 1).
James Hill, The Notions of George Berkeley: Self, Substance, Unity and Power (2022), 69-70.
Berkeley, “Principles”, 51 (Part 1, Section 23).
Berkeley, “Principles”, 51 (Part 1, Section 23).
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978).
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978), (I., 1.).
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978).
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978), (I., 1., b.).
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978), (II.). See also (III., 4), where Marx argued that the value of commodity A, or any commodity made the general equivalent of all other commodities, “expresses itself relatively in the endless series of the bodies of all other commodities”, “the expanded relative value-form…appear[ing] as the specific relative value-form of th[is] commodity”.
Karl Marx, “The Value-Form”, Capital and Class, No. 4 (Spring 1978), (III., 1., 2.). See also ibid (II., 5.), where Marx argued that, when one commodity (A) is exchanged for many others and its value expressed in these others, ‘the many other possessors of commodities must also exchange their commodities with [commodity A] and hence express the values of their different commodities in the same third commodity, [commodity A]”.
Berkeley had his own theory of money, presented in his The Querist. Marx was aware of it and commented that Berkeley “confuse[d] the measure of value with the standard of price”, and “confuse[d] gold or silver as measure of value and as means of circulation”, hence concluding that money “represent[s] nothing, i.e., the abstract concept of value”. C.G. Caffentzis argued, on the other hand, against Marx’s interpretation, that, for Berkeley, “money does not represent at all”, and “is a gift from society that allows its recipients to act and show his/her powers in a return-gift” Karl Marx, “B. Theories on the Standard of Money” in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, and C.G. Caffentzis, Exciting the Industry of Mankind. George Berkeley’s Philosophy of Money, 417.
See Marx, “The Value-Form” (III, 5. and IV., 1.), where Marx argued that “[the money form] is distinguished from [the general value form] by nothing except the fact that now gold instead of linen possesses the general equivalent-form”. Gold, or any commodity “whose natural form the equivalent form coalesces…socially”.
Strictly speaking, this experience is not an experience of the money-commodity as money, but as commodity. As Karatani Kōjin has argued, in Karatani Kojin, Transcritique on Kant and Marx, trans. Sabu Kohso (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003), 199, with reference to the appendix I am reading, here, that “it is strictly up to its position whether a thing is a commodity or money. A thing can be money only because it is posited in the equivalent form. And the thing can also be a commodity when posited in the relative form of value”.
Karl Marx, “Chapter Six: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power” in Capital: Volume I: Book One.
Raphael Chim, “‘I don’t feel like working today’: Meditations on object uses, exchanges, self-blame, suicidal ideation, and revolution”, Epoché Magazine, Issue 63 (June 2023).
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, 311.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Part I: Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook. A. Idealism and Materialism” in A Critique of the German Ideology