Universal Alienation, Formal and Real Subsumption of Society Under Capital, Ongoing Primitive Accumulation by Dispossession: Reflections on the Marx@200-Contributions by David Harvey and Michael Hardt/Toni Negri

Abstract

This contribution presents reflections on the contributions of and the debate between David Harvey and Michael Hardt/Toni Negri that we feature as the opening part of the tripleC-special issue “Marx@200: Debating Capitalism & Perspectives for the Future of Radical Theory”. My reflection contextualises the debate by a) discussing the origin and genesis of Marx’s concepts of alienation, formal/real subsumption, and primitive accumulation and b) situating the arguments in earlier works by Harvey, Hardt and Negri. This paper points out differences as well as the strong commonalities between the works of Michael Hardt/Toni Negri and David Harvey. It discusses how the categories of universal alienation, formal/real subsumption of society under capital, original/ongoing primitive accumulation of capital are related. Harvey and Hardt/Negri show that Marx’s theory and politics are alive 200 years after his birth and will haunt capitalism as long as it exists. The paper concludes by arguing that Harvey’s concept of anti-value and the autonomous notion of self-valorisation point towards democratic, commons-based alternatives to capitalism.