This mindset is one of combativeness which also allows for exerting control over other beings and the environment so as to force extraction for ones own interests.The violent process of capitalism is one of extraction and exploitation as it operates in a framework of polarity that exacerbates the difference between taking and giving, storing and sharing, and the separation between the haves and have-nots.
![]() This essay is also an interlude and bridge between Revolutionary constructivism and where the ideas here are meant to lead on to. The present piece is meant to fill a gap of sorts in the overall architecture in using the ideas of Immanuel Kant in understanding the moral underpinnings of revolutionary and radical thinking. It is also the prelude to examining the nature of capital, its use as a means of control and as an expression of power. Bataille G 1933 ?The Notion Of Expenditure? Plus Looked AtSimilarly, within this mode of analysis the notion of waste, expenditure and surplus looked at here are synthetic ideas operating with a logic related to the idea of capitalism as most of us understand it. ![]() The ideas will also be seen in relation to issues raised by Adam Tooze in The wages of destruction that deals with the economic motives behind the Nazi regime and WWII. Production is an activity that gives material support for people and one in which what is extracted is transformed into commodities. This production and its concomitant discharge of waste through exploiting surplus, also involves the expenditure of energy. However, the problem is that this process is in itself one that is wasteful primarily through the rampant expenditure of resources and energy which in turn seem to cause division in society aggravated by the mindset of lack, competition and fear. The exploitation that comes with production is emphasized early on. ![]() Bataille G 1933 ?The Notion Of Expenditure? Trial Power OverThis industrial power over nature is taken to include mans power over the life of the beasts and over all the elemental forces (Veblen 6). Veblen describes this as a habitual bellicose frame of mind a prevalent habit of judging facts and events from the point of view of the fight (Veblen 12). In the next lines this competitive and predatory attitude is also described as an accredited spiritual attitudewhen the fight has become the dominant note in the current theory of life. How prescient Veblen is can be seen in the fact that his book was published in 1899 on the cusp of an ultra-violent capitalist century. This in turn is reflective of trying to emulate others (perceived as having status in society). So this possession of things is part of the ownership of wealth and the status that goes with it: Which thereby creates invidious distinctions (Veblen 17). He explains that the term invidious is meant to be a technical one as describing a comparison of persons with a view to rating and grading them in respect of relative worth or value (Veblen 22). Hence, accumulation of commodities is part of soothing of ones ego and a way to gain some form of respect and admiration from others; this certainly represents the consumer, advertising and marketing culture of today. For the privileged ones wastefulness in terms of unproductive living is the way to go, so time is consumed non-productively (1) from a sense of the unworthiness of productive work, and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to afford a life of idleness (Veblen 28). Hence, the need for servants and slaves to do the bidding of the leisured ones, in addition to their living ostentatiously while continuing invidious accumulation.
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