What’s Theory Got to Do With
It?
This is not a book about film, contrary to its
title, but a book about a way of seeing social and economic
relationships differently. Film is just
a convenient vehicle to use to pursue our analysis. It is an entry point, a doorway, into an understanding of the
processes that have shaped and continue to shape the world (and remember that we
are an integral aspect of the world, not separate from it). This process of shaping and being shaped by
is what we call
overdetermination.
Overdetermination implies that no aspect of reality
is insignificant in the shaping of any other aspect of reality. In other words, everything is
significant: all processes (whether
political, economic, cultural, or environmental) have an effect on all other
processes. The dialectic of
overdetermination is the dialectic of ceaseless change, of the constant pushes
and pulls of the unique influences that come together to constitute each and
every aspect of reality.
Freud used the concept “overdetermination” in his
analysis of dreams to refer to the way in which the content of dreams was not
simplistically determined by a finite set of life-events, but was, rather, the
product of the totality or gestalt of life experiences. The formation of our consciousness and
unconsciousness is the culmination of the unique interaction of more social and
natural conditions than could ever be named or identified. In other words, everything, absolutely
everything that we have experienced in life has molded our consciousness and
unconsciousness.
Film is a medium through which ideas are
communicated. Film is an illusion
trying to mirror a specific reality or set of realities. Many of us grow up viewing film as a window
from which to look out at the world and make sense of it. The images and stories projected into our
minds help to form our consciousness about various social and natural
relationships. The ideas transmitted
through film become part of the knowledge base from which one understands the
world. These ideas help form the
consciousness as well as the unconsciousness of the individual, shaping her
perception of not only herself, but of social relationships, in a more general
sense. This is why it is so important
to critically examine films. Ideas are
transmitted in the blink of an eye, so to speak, instantaneously lodging
themselves in the mind---oftentimes unexamined. By critically examining film, one can attempt to grasp some of
the intricacies of social relationships and the effects these relationships
have upon society and the individual.
One possible entry point in examining films is economic processes. Many films portray economic processes as explicit determinants of the social life of the characters and the larger society. Of course, in “real life” economics is always significant, always an influence on our lives. Thus, we can use film to better understand economic processes, as well as to grapple with the difficulty of representing, in film, the effects of such processes.
How does one make sense of economic processes, whether in the complexity of real life or in the art of film? There are two competing theories in economics which we will use to make sense of the economic processes conveyed through film---neoclassical and post-structuralist Marxian economic theories.
Post-Structuralist
Marxian Theory
In post-structuralist
Marxian theory the concept of class is utilized to examine the social
and environmental processes which interact to shape a social formation in
unique ways. In order to understand
class, we will use the conceptual language that has been developed by Stephen
A. Resnick and Richard D. Wolff, two noted economists from the University of
Massachusetts and the founders of the journal Rethinking Marxism. Resnick and Wolff’s reading of Marx leads
them to avoid defining class as a noun, as is the common practice. For Resnick and Wolff, the issue that Marx
focused upon in his major theoretical works (Capital, Theories of Surplus
Value, and Grundisse) was not a struggle between classes but a struggle over
class as a social process (the term process implies a continually changing
phenomenon---a phenomenon that only exists in motion---a verb). For this and other reasons they use the term
class process in describing the unique type of social interaction that Marx was
concerned about in his social scientific work.
What is class process? Firstly, Marx understood that society
depended, among other processes, upon human beings physically transforming raw
materials and other material inputs (machinery and other products of past
labor) into new and useful products.
Food has to be grown and prepared.
Cloth has to be created and clothing made. Construction materials and housing have to be made. And so on.
For Marx this productive effort was general to all societies,
irrespective of the existence and/or type of class process. All human beings do not, however, engage in
activities resulting in such useful products.
And even for those who are so engaged, they may, under certain
conditions, consume such products in excess of the value of what they
produce. Thus, under certain social
conditions it is necessary for some workers to produce output in excess of the
output they take as compensation for their efforts. Marx and others have defined this extra work as surplus labor. The extra product created by surplus labor
was defined as surplus product.
And the social value of the surplus product (as typically determined in
market exchange relationships) was defined as surplus value. Now we have all of the ingredients necessary
to a relatively strict definition of class process. Class process is the social process that results in 1) human
beings performing surplus labor, 2) the surplus products (of this labor) being
appropriated and 3) the distribution of the surplus value (in surplus product
form or in monetary form) to other human beings.
What distinguishes one class
process from one another? In other
words, how can we distinguish capitalism from feudalism or feudalism from
communism? All these are class
processes in so far as they involve the production, appropriation and
distribution of surplus products. The
difference between the various class processes is the particular social
arrangement that results in the worker performing the surplus labor and the
appropriator taking possession of the fruits (the product or value) of that
surplus labor. And these social
arrangements have been variable over time and place. Marx spent a great many pages attempting to specify the
historical process that brought into being the social arrangement that is
peculiar to capitalism. It was the
primary purpose behind the writing of the three volumes of Capital, his
best know social scientific work (although less well known than his shorter
more polemical Communist Manifesto).
In a nutshell, the social arrangement that distinguishes the capitalist
class process from other class processes is the existence of a free
market in labor power (the capacity to work) under conditions where it is
possible for someone other than the actual laborers/direct producers to take
possession of the fruits of their labor.
This definition tells us that capitalism, if it is to exist and be
reproduced over time, requires a particular type of market, a free market in
the buying and selling of labor power, and a particular type of ownership, the
ownership of the fruits of the labor of an employed wage laborer by someone
other than that employed wage laborer.
The Capitalist Class Process
Capitalism is not reducible
to either markets or ownership. There
must be a free market in labor power, meaning that potential laborers must have
the freedom to seek employment (for a wage) in an environment where, under
normal conditions, there are choices about possible employers. There must be a political and cultural
environment within which it is possible for someone other than the worker who
created a product to take ownership of that product. The worker is paid a wage, embodying a certain amount of economic
value, in exchange for her giving up the right to own the fruits of her
labor. She accepts this contract
willingly and retains the right (the freedom) to quit her employment and seek
employment elsewhere. That’s it. That is capitalism. This simple but powerful definition provides
all that is necessary to determine if the capitalist class process exists under
concrete social conditions. We do not
need to know who rules the state or whether voting plays a role in determining
the composition of an existing legislative body. We do not need to know if there are flexible exchange rates. We do not need to know if there are gun
laws. We do not need to know whether
people in the country speak Japanese or English. Of course all of these topics might be useful in any attempt to
tell the story of how capitalism came to exist or not or the particular context
within which it exists.
If the capitalist class
process is the appropriation of the surplus value of free wage laborers
(laborers who seek employment for a wage in a free market in labor power) by
human beings other than the free laborers themselves, then we can easily see
where some of the confusion has originated.
Instead of seeing free markets in labor power as a condition of
existence of capitalism, it has become a commonplace to think that free markets
in general are a condition of existence of capitalism. This is misleading; of course, since it is
possible to have free markets in everything except labor power and not have
capitalism. Indeed, the presence of
free markets in labor (power) is a necessary but not sufficient condition to
define a society as capitalist. Simply
because the capitalist class process may exist in a society does not imply that
this type of class process prevails over all others, in terms of numbers of
workers involved, total output generated, or any number of other possible
criteria. Similarly, instances of
slavery would not define an entire society as a slave society, if this economic
arrangement were not typical. In the
ante-bellum South of the United States, where there was even a free market in
the buying and selling of human beings, the market in the buying and selling of
human labor (power) was relatively underdeveloped. Most direct producers in the ante-bellum South were slaves or
self-employed producers, not capitalist wage laborers. Under the system of slavery, a large number
of productive laborers in the southern states of the United States existed in a
condition of servitude, living out their lives in work camps as the owned
property of other human beings, despite the presence of free markets in most
goods and services. Indeed, most of the
products created by these slave laborers were sold in markets, where buyers and
sellers were relatively free to interact and engage in exchange. And the ideology of free markets was also
very strong in the ante-bellum South.
For slavery-based entrepreneurs the freedom to engage in the buying and
selling of human chattel and the concomitant freedom to put those human beings
to productive use was no minor matter.
Thus, there can be no doubt that markets played a critical role in the
economic life of the southern states.
Nevertheless, the predominant class process of the South, typically
assumed to have been the slave class process (whereby the performance of
surplus labor depended upon the existence of a human chattel arrangement) was
clearly distinct from the capitalist class process (which is understood to have
prevailed in the northeastern states of the United States), whereby workers
could seek and quit employment according to their own volition.
We can also see why it might
have been possible to expand the role of ownership as a condition of existence
of capitalism beyond the simple condition whereby it must be possible for
someone other than the free wage laborer to take ownership of the surplus value
created by that laborer (and then to distribute this surplus value so as to
secure the conditions for further appropriations in the future). It is commonplace to believe that private
ownership in general is a defining characteristic of capitalism. But again, slavery provided wide scale
private ownership and yet is an economic arrangement profoundly different from
capitalism. Similarly, feudalism and
self-employment (the ancient class process) often exist in the presence
of wide scale private ownership.
Thus, neither private
ownership nor the existence of free markets in commodities other than labor
power is, in these general terms, a sufficient condition for the existence of
the capitalist class process. And since
we call a society capitalist if and only if the capitalist class process
prevails (is the predominant source of the social surplus), then the existence
of such free markets and/or private property is not sufficient for a society to
be labeled capitalist. It is also the
case that the absence of wide scale free markets and private property is not
sufficient to determine that a society is not capitalist.