Editing A New Introduction to Capital (section)

==== Nick Lands Interpretation and its folly ====
Let's go to Nick Lands interpretation. For Land, M is forwarded into technological means of production, and the revolution in the forces of production is the source of the surplus value. Instead of a merely proportional change, new value and new wealth is created by a change in reality itsef; Technological change. 

Land has this view, because that kind of change is tangible. If there is no technological change, then the amount and quality of services is going to remain constant over time. But if there is a change in the very nature of reality, that is going to reflect in terms of value. So for Nick Land, if there is no technological change there is no surplus value. Of course in the orthodox marxist view, automation makes surplus smaller! But for Nick Land, capitalism is infinate because revolution in the forces of production creates surplus.

This revolution in the forces of production is not happening at an individual level. Marxoid and Regard do not create revolutions in the forces of production or the necessary technological change that could possibly correspond to surplus value. But couldn't surplus just continue infinetly as an accumulation of things? Well, thats only quantitative change, not qualitative. At a certain point there is a cap; the Crisis of overproduction.

The scale at which this revolution is possible can only encompass society/polity as a whole. It is historical.

For real surplus to occur, M-C-M' has to be reaping the rewards of something which has already happened. That something can be technology, but it has to have already happened. If it's in the process of happening, you are talking about a loss, the capitalist is not gonna make a profit. An interesting thing of note is that the vast majority of tech companies will invest in research initially at a loss.

M-C-M' does not properly correspond, at an INDIVIDUAL LEVEL to the 'Value-Tech/labor etc.-surplus value' circuit

M-C-M' merely reallocates the finite instantiation of value that is already in circulation, it happens on an individual capitalist level. 

But Value-tech/labor-Surplus value (value creation) is expressed ONLY AT THE LEVEL OF THE AGGREGATE, according to Marx (see volume three of Das Kapital). There is a discontinuity.

Meaning that the only manifestation of Value-labor-surplusvalue circuit, is the aggregate total of profits being made.

THIS DISCONTINTUITY IS VERY IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND MARX. (It's also the origin of the transformation problem.) 

But Nick Land is wrong, because the revolution in the forces of production is not merely technological change.

A revolution in the forces of production happens at the furthest threshold defining mankind (or a polity)'s relation to nature, and itself, as a whole - FROM TOP TO BOTTOM.

At the level of 'Anthropocene'. 

Today, this is geological/ecological level, the deepest possible relation to both nature and mankind, a polity actually has.

Revolution in the forces of production changes how people and institutions are related; The Polity's relation to the individual, and mankinds' relation to nature and itself. We cannot voluntarily orchestrate a revolution in the forces of production. 

Why? Because it's an epistemological problem. 

For us to be able to voluntarily initiate a revolution in forces of production, this assumes we can be aware of the very range of possibilities that define mankind's relation to nature. 

(Modern science presupposes this is possible, btw) ^

In reality, the true revolution in the forces of production, is the one that redefines our knowledge of the range of possibility in the first place.

Ultimately, it is not only superficial 'technological change' that gives rise to true surplus value. The change is also:

* historical
* ontological or metaphysical (relation to nature)
* demotic (people) relation between institutions and the people
* epistemic (threshold of possibility, what is possible in physical reality)