This book is about a revolution (i.e. a historical break, not gradual peaceful evolution) that creates communism – not its preconditions.

The main difference between present communist theory and its previous expressions is that it has now become impossible to conceive of communism as a society of associated producers. This book is about a revolution (i.e. a historical break, not gradual peaceful evolution) that creates communism – not its preconditions. Wage-labour, work-time as cut off from the rest of our life, money, private property, State agencies as mediators of social life and conflicts, all of these must go, and not just be run by collectives. Social change will take time but will start from Day One: in the very early days, the way the insurgents will treat workplaces, organize street-fighting and feed themselves will determine the future unfolding of events.

This is no easy task in practice, nor in theory: questioning some of the basics of communism runs into supposed common sense as well as against long-held revolutionary principles. First, what could a communist insurrection be? Secondly, we cannot dispense with revisiting the Marxian theory of value. We can no longer regard the first chapter of Capital as the foundation of a theory of value adequate to our time. Lastly, this is the real world we are talking about. From bicycles to child-rearing, everything relates to ways of life now determined by capital/wage labour relations. This is why the last part of the book broadens the field to a number of vital and daily issues, so-called small ones as well as big ones.



Foreword

Introduction

I. Crisis and Crisis Activity 3

1.1 With the crisis of the reciprocal presupposition of the classes,

automatic social reproduction disappears 3

l.2 Proletarian individualisation in crisis activity 6

l.3 Taking possession of capital elements, but not to work 8

Conclusion 10

II. The Current Crisis 11

11.1 Periodization 11

11.2 The conditions for communism at the outset of the 21st c. 11

11.2.1 Anti-work is back 12

Case of the textile workers, Bangladesh 15

Case of public transportation 17

11.2.2 Demassification of the proletariat 19

Case of Greece, December 2008 20

Conclusion 21

Ill. Communisation 23

111.1 Communisation and transitional society 23

111.2 The issue of gratuity 24

111.3 Production without Productivity 26

111.3.1 The struggle for totalizing activity 27

111.3.2 The end of separation of needs 29

111.3.3 The issue of the individual 32

111.4 Consumption without necessity 34

Conclusion 35

General Conclusion 35



1 Marx's vision of the abolition of value 37

1.1 The Critique of the Gotha Program 37

1.1.1 Distribution of the social product and rate of

exploitation of "free men" 38

1.1.2 Abolition of the market and abolition of value 40

1.1.3 Work certificates, the law, and the police 41

1.1-4 Father Enfantin's benediction 43

1.2 GIK and labor-time accounting 47

2 Marx's theory of value, per chapter 1 of Capital 51

2.1 The starting point: the commodity 51

2.1.1 Use value 51

2.1.2 Exchange value, value 52

2.1.3 Rubin on abstract labour 54

2.2 The substance of value: the issue of abstract labour 55

2.2.1 - From commodity to labour-substance of value 55

2.2.2 - The two approaches to abstract labour 56

2.2.2.1 - Social approach 56

2.2.2.2 - The physiological approach:

the expenditure of human labour power 58

2.3 Measure of value 60

2-4 Value and society in the first chapter of Capital 61

2.4.1 Which producers? 61

2.4.2 Which exchanges? 64

2.4.2.1 Selling 65

2.4.2.2 Buying 66

2.5 Commodity fetishism 69

3 Marx's theory of value revisited 72

3.1 The starting point: capital resting on its own basis 72

3.2 Interdependence and multiplication of capitals 74

3.3 Value-producing labour (abstract labour?) 78

3.3.1 Productivity 80

3.3.1.1 Productivity and socially necessary

Jabour time 80

3.3.1.2 Competition and monopoly 82

3.3.2 Standardization 84

3.3.2.1 Usefulness of objects and utility value of

commodities 84

3.3.2.2 Labour standardization 88

3.3.3 Valorizing labour 92

3.4 Substance and magnitude of value; value realization 92

3-4·1 Time, the substance of value 93

3.4.1.1 Embodiment of valorizing Jabour in the

commodity 93

3.4.1.2 The substance of value, that which

circulates 94

3.4.1.3 The substance of value, that which is

measured 97

3.4.2 Exchange of commodities, realization of value 98

3.5 Provisional conclusion 100

4 What is at stake in casting the theory of value concretely? 101

4.1 Doing away with abstract labour 101

4.2 The false threat of life's commoditization 104

4.3 Is the proletariat's struggle against value or capital? 107

4.3.1 Labour market 108

4.3.2 Production 109

4.3.3 Private life 110

4.4 Value and class struggle 111

4.4.1 Daily struggles and devalorization 112

4.4.2 Insurrection and "devaloration:" changing the

social form of nature 113

4.5 Value abolished: abolishing concrete labour 118

4.5.1 Negation of productivity 119

4.5.2 Negation of standardization 122

Conclusion 125



Autonomy 131

Blue Collar 132

Class 135

Daily Life 138

Ecology 141

Family 145

Giotto 148

Habitat 152

Insurrection 153

Jailbreak 158

Karl (Marx) 162

Labour 165

Money 158

Non-Economy 171

Obfuscation 174

Politics 176

Query 179

Revolution 181

Sex 183

Gilles Dauve

Time (is of the Essence) 187

Unlabelled 192

Value 195

Work 198

Xenophilia 200

Yesterday 203

Zomias 206

