The Capitalist Form of Life

Tad Skotnicki, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Most human scientists treat capitalism as an economic system. Further, to many the totalizing or systemic nature of capitalism seems questionable given the complexity of social life. If 1) capitalism is an economic system and 2) the complexity of social life belies systematicity, then capitalism must remain an ornamental feature of arguments in the human sciences. In this view, one can (and perhaps should) study culture, the economy, race, the environment, the state, activism, the family, sexuality, law, and other classes of phenomena in the modern world without any substantive appeal to capitalism. I sketch an alternative to this view by delineating the capitalist form of life. A form of life, as Rahel Jaeggi notes, is a nexus of durable (though changeable) “practices, orientations, and orders of behavior” (2018:50)—that is, an ensemble of actions through which people pursue goals and meet their needs. Importantly, multiple forms of life can co-exist at once and the precise character of their relations is an empirical question. What, then, is a capitalist form of life? I propose that the capitalist form of life is constituted by value, abstract domination, and class. In other words, these are durable ensembles of practices and beliefs that must be understood in relation to what Marx called the commodity, capital, and struggles to appropriate surplus value. This paper delineates what it means to treat ensembles of practice and belief in relation to the value form and class dynamics. Thus, a capitalist form of life designates an object of inquiry that cuts across—and requires self-conscious collaboration between—those examining many issues in the human sciences and beyond. By considering the capitalist form of life, we can surmount the tendency to treat capitalism as merely economic. Moreover, we can accommodate complexity without ignoring totalizing features of capitalism.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 59. Economic Culture