Marx’s Class

Theory 2.0

Roberto Fineschi
Abstract: This paper proposes an updated version of Marx’s theory of C
R
class. First, it criticizes the traditional interpretation of the subsumption I
of the labor process under capital as a historic reconstruction of S
19th century’s British capitalism. Second, it tries to outline an articulated I
S
definition of history that interprets Marx’s theory of capital - and the
subsumption section in particular - as a logical development of forms &
instantiated in historical figures. Finally, from these premises, it claims C
a functional/logical concept of class in late “crepuscular” capitalism still R
based on Marx’s theory, both at the Western and global level. I
T
I
Keywords: class struggle, historical materialism, dialectics, Marxism, Q
crepuscular capitalism. U
E

/
Premises. Marx as a political thinker and marxism(s) Volume 10
Issue 1
Karl Marx is a political thinker. After more than a century of “philosophy
of praxis” this sentence is not surprising. However, what are the strong
points of his thought that allow us to develop a theory of political
historical action? This is related to the complex question of the
relationship between Marx and Marxism on which I can spend just a
few words. What is Marxism? Or it would be better to say Marxisms,
plural, because of the proliferation of several positions that hardly can
be reduced to the same foundation, except for the reference to the name
Marx.1 In general, one could define Marxism as a movement that tries to
apply his theory with political goals that mainly consist in going beyond
the capitalist mode of production and creating a Communist Society. To
what extent the different historical attempts to do it are connected with
Marx’s own theory?
Marx has realized just a little of his extended project; his original
six book plan was left unfinished.2 Just the first book on Capital was
mostly completed and a little of the second on wage labor and the third
on rent, that became part of it. In spite of these limits, on their basis I
think that we can outline a consistent draft of a general theory of the
capitalist mode of production as a historically determined phase of
human reproduction in nature. This theory is presented in a series of
manuscripts written in the periods 1857-1883 and in the several editions
of Capital vol. 1 published by Marx himself.3

1 See an outlook in Storia del Marxismo Einaudi (Hobsbawm 1978-82), or other classic contributions
by Favilli 1996 and Corradi 2005 in regards to the Italian experience.

2 Marx’s plan included books on capital, wage work, rent, state, international trade, and world market.
See Marx 1859, p. 99) and the letter to Lassalle February 22nd 1858 (Marx and Engels 1973, p. 550 ff.).

3 Several materials are now finally available in the new critical edition of Marx’s and Engels’ works,
the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe. For an outline see Bellofiore and Fineschi 2009.

89 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

 A relevant aspect regards the level of abstraction of this theory: C
R
in my understanding, it is very high. This means that the laws that it I
describes are at an epochal level, and don't need to have any empirical S
immediate correspondence in facts. Hence, they can’t be applied to I
S
contingencies as such. In order to have theories that might be concretely
and politically used we need further developments. Capital is a manual &
neither of politics nor revolution; it is about the principles on whose base C
these further developments are possible. So, whatever Marxism can’t R
be identical to or a direct application of Marx’s general theory of the I
T
capitalist mode of production: there are mediations to more concrete I
levels of abstractions that Marx himself did not articulate in his time and Q
that, moreover, are different from time to time. Marx and Marxism are U
E
connected, but they don't coincide4.
If Marx did not have enough time to elaborate a coherent political /
doctrine on the basis of his general theory of capitalism, this does not Volume 10
mean that he was not politically engaged during his lifetime or did not Issue 1
have political goals; also in the period he was working on Capital, he
was personally involved in apical positions in the International workers
association. In Capital vol. 1, Marx tried his best to contextualize his
abstract theory, and find a connection with the transformation of reality -
in particular in the section on labor subsumption under capital, where he
wrote the famous sentence about the expropriation of the expropriators.5
His writings on the Paris Commune or The critique of the Gotha’s program,
etc. show how Marx investigated the issue of a possible future society and
its organization. The question is whether these works can be organically
integrated within his theory of capital; if we consider his methodology
connected with the descent from abstract to concrete, it seems difficult
to take them as organic parts. The gap between the general theory of
capital and its possible application was not properly fulfilled by Marx
himself; however, since he wanted to take political positions, he himself
skipped mediations and operated at a more concrete level of abstraction
with categories that belonged to a higher one. He made two steps: (i) in the
doctrine of the production of surplus-value in Capital, he demonstrated
that exploitation of the working class takes place, and capital and wage
labor are the two extremes of the essential relation of the capitalism mode
of production; (ii) since in that specific historical moment, the general
figure of workers in England - the most advanced capitalist country
- was the factory working class, Marx identified with it the subject he
needed to address the issue of the organization of a political movement.
Marx’s attempt was legitimate as long as we take into account these two
conditions; but is also limited by those.

4 On the complex issue of the level of abstraction of Marx’s theory of capital, see Fineschi 2013.

5 Marx 1991, pp.684-685

90 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

 I think that his theory is suitable for larger application, if we C
R
distinguish between logical “forms”' and historical “figures” in the I
framework of his theory of political subjectivity. This essay is dedicated S
to this distinction, and to show how it allows to outline a more I
S
advanced definition of class and class struggle that provides us with a
more sophisticated theory that may still be used for the analysis and &
transformation of contemporary dynamics. C
R
I
T
1. Defining “historical” (res gestae and historia rerum gestarum) I
Q
The soundness of Marx’s theory of classes and, in particular, the U
E
traditional interpretation of the factory working class as privileged
political subject need to be investigated in depth in particular in the /
fourth section of Capital vol. 1, which deals with the subsumption of the Volume 10
labor process under capital; there Marx investigates the transformations Issue 1
of the labor process in the capitalist mode of production as a moment
in the exposition of the production of relative surplus-value. We need in
particular to focus on two points:

1. What is the meaning of “historical” in regards to the capitalist

mode of production. In my opinion Marx does not refer to events
that occurred in England in the second half of the 19th century (the
second Industrial revolution). Marx uses this period as a historical
example of a conceptual argument. At this latest level, “historical”
has an ontological meaning: it is not the description or inclusion
of facts that took place in a certain moment, but a theoretical
framework where a dialectical, “formal” development takes place;
human reproduction happens in a way that implies structural
passages and transformations; internal, logical phases. This is their
“history”, a totality articulated in phases that come in a succession
one out of the other. Logically determined temporal moments of a
totality.

2. A distinction between these two meanings of history (a factual

one vs. a logical one) allows us to distinguish between “forms” and
“figures” as integrated categories through which we can identify
historical subjects.

On the one hand, historical can refer to the narrative of events of the
past (historia rerum gestarum); under this regard, Capital is historical
inasmuch as it describes the situation of the factory working class in
19th century’s England. In this case “historical” simply means transitory; it
is not about capital’s time, but capital in time. If Capital is a description
of how production worked in that period, it is just useless for today,

91 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

since empirically that world does not exist anymore in those terms. My C
R
conviction is that Marx’s intention is different. He refers to the logic of I
how events happen: it is not about the narrative of how they happened, S
but the logic of their happening (res gestae). In Capital there are many I
S
historical descriptions of facts, but this is not their actual “temporality”.
The theory of the capitalist mode of production is a structured model &
that has an internal proper dynamic, which is logically determined by C
laws. These laws imply changes, passages through stages. The model R
is temporal because it has a starting point (which is exogenous), a I
T
development due to its own laws (that posits that presupposed starting I
point as its own result), and a breaking point after which it stops Q
developing but gets blocked by the same laws that permitted that U
E
development. This is its “end”, in the sense that from that moment on
those same laws that made it proceed, now block it. This is its own /
internal time, capital’s time, defined in a purely logical way.6 Volume 10
We have a theoretical model where production, based on value Issue 1
and its self-valorization, expands to the world; a development of a
material content in its specific historical form. But content and form are
not separated; content exists through its specific forms that are its own
way of existence; therefore, content changes through its forms and is
always “formed content” (Forminhalt); it is a process. At a certain point
the process stops running smoothly because the formed content has
reached a stage that potentially implies a new content-form dialectic,
but is still stuck in the old form. Those laws of the capitalist mode of
production that allowed a development of the productive forces, now
block it: they are used only to the extent that permits capital valorization.
At some point, within capitalism, productive capacity becomes
overcapacity.7 Overproduction crisis is the form through which this
contradiction manifests itself. Laws are “historical” in as much as have
an internal development that brings them to surpass themselves (the
Hegelian Aufhebung).8
We can hence outline three different meanings of “history” or
“historical”:

1. Historical as a temporally determined logic of the capitalist mode

of production (res gestae). The capitalist mode of production has

6 Antonio Labriola put emphasis that under the term “history” we can distinguish two different
meanings (Labriola 1977, p. 320 ff.). A distinction that was already in Hegel, but with a different con-
notation (Hegel 1995b, p. 83).

7 In a few words: this is due, on the one hand, to the process being based on the exploitation of liv-
ing labor (something without which the exploitation process could not happen), and, on the other, to
the trend to expel living labor out of the labor process.

8 On this see Mazzone 1987. I have dealt with the logical dynamic of capital in Fineschi 2021. For a
distinction between “historicism” and “historicity”, see Diaz 1956 and Luporini 1974.

92 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

 an immanent logical temporality, determined by the development C
R
of the dialectic of value and use-value; it has a starting point I
and an end which do not coincide with the events of whatever S
past, present or future factual capitalism. It is historical because I
S
it has an internal time; it corresponds to its internal logic of
self-surpassment. In order to conceptualize “real” dynamics, we &
need to move forward and reach a much more concrete level C
of abstraction, which includes capitalisms (plural) and specific R
configurations, determined in space and time. I call this Logic 1. I
T
If such a model has a beginning and an end, in its starting I
moment it finds conditions that are not posited by itself and that Q
qualitatively don’t correspond to its proper functioning. This is U
E
overcome by the development of the system itself on the basis
of its own laws. It is then not about describing the events of /
this process, but explaining the logic of this adequation, where Volume 10
exogenous presuppositions are posited as endogenous elements Issue 1
by the system itself. I call logic 2 this process of adequation, which
is a specific moment of logic 1.

2. History as an interconnection of logical temporalities, where

the current one is a chapter of a broader, still logical process (res
gestae). If we accept that the capitalist mode of production has a
starting point and an end, it is implied that there is a “before” and
an “after”, other phases in which the labor process takes place
in different forms. The presuppositions of the capitalist mode of
production resulted as an output from those forms; similarly the
capitalist mode of production creates outputs as possible inputs of
a future society. This does not require automatic passages, but just
potentiality. The present capitalist mode of production posits itself
because of its own logic as a ring in a chain, a moment of a more
general history of human reproduction in nature. The investigation
of these other models of other “historical” periods is still logical,
theoretical in the same way the theory of the capitalist mode of
production is.

3. History in the sense of historiography (historia rerum gestarum).

All these categories outline a concept of temporality that allows
further investigations in the empirical field, and classification and
periodization of facts from the past on the basis of a conceptual
framework; once I know what the capitalist mode of production
is, I can move to historiographical analysis. This is the history of
historians.

93 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

We can finally argue the following: C
R
I
– Marx’s theory of capital investigates the logic 1 and 2 of the S
capitalist mode of production. I
S
– This makes the capitalist mode of production a moment in the
broader history of human reproduction. &
– Marx’s theory is not a mere description of the 19th century’s C
British capitalism; historical descriptions in his theory are empirical R
examples of logical laws.9 I
T
I
If we talk about the capitalist mode of production as a determined Q
historical phase of human reproduction in nature, we mean a logical U
E
temporality. The relationship between theoretical model and reality is
mediated: in order to descend to lower levels of abstractions, where we /
can talk of “capitalisms” (the Italian, French, 19th or 20th century’s one), Volume 10
more theoretical passages are necessary; they as such can’t mechanically Issue 1
be deduced from the general concept of capital; just at that lower level we
can deal with political issues that can’t be properly investigated without
considering more concrete configurations, and even contingencies.

2. Subsumption of the labor process under capital

These theoretical assumptions clear the field from those interpretations

that reduce the “historical” character of capital to a generalization of
historical facts that happened in the 19th century.10 The point is instead:
what are the form-determinations (Formbestimmungen) within this
framework? In particular in the subsumption of the labor process under
capital?
The subsumption of labor under capital has been mainly studied
isolating the fourth section of Capital vol. 1 from the more general
logical framework in which it is placed. In my opinion, this is a relevant
flaw, since it is a moment of a general theory. The first consequence
of such an extrapolation is to consider the chapters on “cooperation”,
“manufacture” and “industry” just as descriptions or narrative of the
Industrial revolution’s capitalism, or the 19th century’s British one.11 To
some extent Marx encouraged such a reading, because he inserted

9 The role of factual elements - “history” - in the theoretical development of a capital theory has
been the subject of an intense debate that is not possible to recall here. For a survey see Fineschi
2009a and 2009b.

10 Here we hear the echo of Engels’ historicist understanding of Marx’s logical methodology. See
Fineschi 2008, ch. 1.2.

11 On the one hand, this would represent nothing but the continuation of the chronological succes-
sion begun in the first three books, interpreted as “simple commodity production”.

94 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

lots of historical examples and constextualizations probably thinking C
R
this would clarify his argument. Paradoxically, this hid the theoretical I
framework those descriptions were examples of. We need hence to take S
into account both the theoretical complexity and the different phases of I
S
elaboration of that part in the different drafts since 1857.
&

C
Forms of labor process subsumed under capital R
I
T
The notion of labor process and that of production in general do not I
coincide with the capitalist form of labor process or production. We find Q
at least two different levels of abstraction: U
E

1. Labor process in general as such does not represent any /

concrete form of production (ch. 7 of Capital vol. 1; ch. 5 in Volume 10
the German edition); it shows the abstract elements that are Issue 1
common to every form of production; therefore, it does not permit
distinguishing any of them.

2. A mode of production specifies the determined modalities in

which those abstract elements of the labor process combine, and
permits conceptualizing particular forms of production.

Given that, the question is: what specific, historic determinations does
the labor process assume in the capitalist mode of production? Capital’s
chapters on subsumption answer this question.
Production of surplus-value is the logical condition of existence of
the capitalist mode of production: the surplus of time over the labor time
necessary for labor-power to be reproduced; a part that is appropriated
by capital. Labor day is then split into two parts: the necessary labor
time, and surplus-labor. If this second part is increased without changing
the given social conditions of production, it is called production of
absolute surplus-value; if instead production conditions are changed
so that the necessary part of the labor day is reduced thanks to an
intensified labor productivity, it is called production of relative surplus-
value. Actually, the former can define the process of production in
its “static” moment, the latter in its “dynamic” one: both co-exist in
different stages of the same social valorization process. If we study the
transformation of the labor process in the production of relative surplus-
value, we find relevant points for an updated class theory.
The first form we encounter is cooperation. A first important
moment is that the finalism of the process gets doubled: on the one hand
the goal of the global action, the collective plan under which individuals
are subsumed, and on the other the one of each individual worker; the
first directs and regulates the second. This cooperative “organism”

95 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

transcends the individual limits and so increases labor productivity. C
R
There is a positive side: the capitalist mode of production is that stage in I
the history of human reproduction when sociality is not just external to S
the production process (interaction of independent producers), but also I
S
internal (interaction of producers subsumed to reach a common general
goal); sociality becomes a constitutive part of the human reproduction &
in the same act of producing. This second form existed also in other C
historical periods, but was linked to specific productions or sectors, R
while now becomes the essence itself of it, since capital competition I
T
imposes that to all producers. Cooperation is the first step of a logical I
and historical transformation, which creates humanity as a matter of Q
fact and not just as intellectual abstraction. It is the universalization U
E
of individual work and vice versa Marx had talked about already since
the Grundrisse.12 If cooperation does not necessarily change work /
modalities, capital arranges all those changes necessary to improve it Volume 10
toward a much more productive, integrated process. Issue 1
Manufacture is the first specific capitalist form of production;
it first requires cooperation, and then generalizes it, since it breaks
down the activity into parts: individual workers are not able anymore
to realize the entire product, but just a piece of it; hence, a structural
interdependence with others is now technically set, and this modifies the
form of production.13 Thanks to the manufacturer division of labor, being-
part becomes an essential quality of labor-power.14 Labor expenditure is
logically now possible only in combination. If, on the one hand, we now
have sociality as a structural dimension of human reproduction, on the
other this appears as a capital’s form of existence and domination.15
However, this specific form is not adequate to the requirements of the
concept of capital, yet: the individual skills of the partial-worker are
still necessary; they are a product of capital, but still inadequate to its
full functioning and represent at the same time the progress and the
limit of manufacture,16 because a hierarchy of different skills contrasts
the objective needs for capital valorization.17 Therefore, a technical
contradiction emerges inside manufacture itself;18 labor needs to
evolve toward a purely formal activity opposed to capital, and therefore

12 Marx 1976-81, p.187

13 Marx 1976-82, vol. I, p. 253; Marx 1991, p.304

14 Ibid., vol I, p.253

15 Ibid., p. 292; 1991, p. 325 f.

16 Ibid., 1976-82, p. 2021

17 Marx 1991, p.315

18 Ibid., p.332.

96 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

manufacture constitutes a (logically) transitory phase to a higher level C
R
that might overcome these limits.19 I
The factory system is the most adequate capitalist mode of S
production, which implies a further re-determination of the labor process: I
S
transforming means of production into a machine system determines
an inversion of the still subjective character of manufacture into an &
objective organization of production ,20 where the worker becomes not C
just part, but an appendix.21 Work conditions use workers. At the same R
time, mastering science and its application to technological development I
T
becomes a crucial factor in the organization of the productive system, I
and valorization of capital. The social power of the general intellect Q
appears however under the form of capital as one of its instruments. U
E
It follows that the specific capitalist forms of production - the
concrete forms that the labor process assumes - are characterized by: /
1) internal cooperative nature, 2) the individual worker as being-part, 3) Volume 10
finally its being-appendix (toward their possible complete substitution Issue 1
through machines as long as their activity becomes more and more
formalistic). These are the determinations of form (Formbestimmungen)22
of the labor process once it is subsumed under capital23.

Subsumption, logical and historical temporality

Subsumption is a logical model of adequation. As we saw above,

this implies a specific logical meaning of “historical”, of the specific
temporality of capital: Marx needed to explain from a theoretical and
not merely descriptive point of view, capital’s internal time. If, in order to
be historical, the capitalist mode of production has a logical beginning,
development, and conclusion, the subsumption theory is part of this
explanation. In its ideal starting moment, capital finds conditions that
were not posited by itself, that do not correspond to the way it works;
hence there is a phase of adequation with specific characteristics, which
I tried to summarize above. This is necessary because of the logic of the
concept of capital, and does not need to correspond to empirical facts,
but explain the theory of its historical transformation. Only on the basis

19 Marx 1976-82, p. 2018

20 Marx 1991, p. 346 ff.

21 Marx 1991, p. 378 ff.; 1976-82, p. 2015 ff.

22 ‘Form determination’ refers to logical categories of a theoretical framework. ‘Formalistic’ refers on

the contrary to inessential aspects that don’t affect form determinations.

23 In the preparatory works to Capital, we don’t have as many historical examples as in the pub-
lished work. There Marx mainly focused on the logical laws of movement of the system; only later he
looked for confirmation in empirical data. .

97 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

of such a theory, empirical facts can be reconnected to a general model C
R
and so explained. This corresponds to what I called above logic 2. I
Once capital has gone beyond this adequation phase and properly S
works, those forms of its dynamics appear as moments that can be I
S
present or not in different stages at a lower level of abstraction; this
basically depends on the valorization needs of capital, which can imply &
“returns”, once more variables and circumstances are included. These C
aspects are to be dealt with in the theory of cycle and crisis, which is R
not a point at this level of abstraction; therefore, it would be mistaken to I
T
mechanically apply this formulation to those lower levels. I
Q
U
E
3. For a definition of the “class” concept. Forms and figures
/
We can now finally come to a logical and not empirical definition of class Volume 10
by distinguishing between forms and figures.24 I consider the specific Issue 1
“forms”, that is logical categories, that define the new characteristics
of the labor activity within the labor process of the capitalist mode of
production the following: 1) structural cooperation of workers, 2) being-part
of each individual worker, 3) being-appendix of them, toward the potential
substitution of living labor by machines as long as their activity becomes
more and more formalistic. Cooperation, manufacture and industry are
instead historical “figures” of those theoretical forms, that is historical
factual configurations in which those forms appeared for the first time or
significantly.
Forms and figures are not identical: if they were, if a determined figure
disappeared, also the respective form would. This would have two critical
consequences: current capitalism would be something different than Marx’s;
factory workers would be the only possible historical subject. If instead we
distinguish between forms and figures, what matters is forms and their
logic; therefore, the eventual disappearance of factory workers would not
necessarily imply the disappearance of cooperative work, partial character
of labor or transformation of workers into an appendix, all subsumed
under the valorization process of capital; those forms can exist in other
different figures, whose logic is still the one dictated by those forms. The
new historical content is the creation of a “collective worker”,25 which is the
structured, integrated global worker, which comes to existence thanks to
the capitalist mode of production, and constitutes the “material content” of

24 In his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel shows the different phenomenal “figures” (Gestalten) through
which consciousness makes experience and becomes aware of itself, and finally reaches the stage of
Absolute knowledge; while in its Science of logic and Encyclopedie, he exposes the systematic “forms”
phenomenally represented by those figures from the standpoint of Absolute knowledge. I think that
it is useful to use this distinction also for Marx, although the terminological application by him is nor
rigorous.

25 Marx 1991, p.456.

98 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

a possible, future, “social form”. This collective worker does not coincide C
R
with the factory worker in capitalism, which, again, is just a figure of that. I
In Marxian terms, the determination of the class concept is then S
functional: it depends on the specific role and modalities through which I
S
subjects realize their production and reproduction. This objective
determination is established independently from their consciousness &
(they can subjectively be convinced of the opposite of what they do if C
hegemonically subjugated). The phenomenal perception of their objective R
action takes place at the superstructural level through historical figures. I
T
Understanding these figures as manifestations of respective forms is not I
always easy: it is more simple in determined phases (industrial system, Q
factory worker), less in others (automation, computerization, etc.). Always, U
E
but in particular when the perception is not easy, the functional definition
of class (based on the role in social reproduction) gets confused with a /
sociological classification based on income level, living standard, etc. In Volume 10
the latter, aggregation is not based on functions but on phenomenal data, Issue 1
and a class becomes a summation of empirically identified individuals.26
In the capitalist mode of production, the two functional poles of
the production relationship are not capital and factory workers, as it was
interpreted for a long time, but capital and wage work: the productive
forces are labor and means of production; they gets polarized on the one
hand as wage-workers (labor-power - labor in potentia) and capitalists
(bearer of means of production) on the other. The core relationship of each
mode of production is defined by the specific form through which these
elements get combined, a specific connection of dead and living labor:
wage workers and capitalists are these specific forms in the capitalist
mode of production. None of the two poles can be conceived without
the other. Overcoming capitalism implies then not destroying capital, but
moving to a different configuration of that connection. Marx calls “capital”
both the connection as a whole (the capitalist mode of production) and
one of the two poles of that connection (capitalist as bearer of means of
production); flattening to the same level these two different meanings can
lead to serious theoretical and political mistakes. Capital is not even just
capitalists’ decision making; the range of their possible choices is limited
within the possibilities of the reproduction of the capitalist system, whose
general trends are beyond their control. The same on the workers side:
no subjective action can be successful if they don’t take into account the
general trends of the system as such.
Understanding factory workers as figures does not mean that they
are not forms: in that specific historical configuration, that figure was the
most matching concrete instantiation of the capitalist form of movement;

26 The second meaning corresponds to the most common English use such as “upper class”, “middle
class”, etc. Other languages have different words for those concepts; in Italian f.i. we have “ceto” and
“classe”; in German “Gesellschaftsschichte” and “Klasse”; in French “rang” or “extraction” and “classe”.
In common use, they get frequently mixed.

99 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

the point is to go beyond just figures and see how other figures are more C
R
matching instantiations of those forms in other configurations. I
S
I
S
Definitions
&
Let’s now expand the picture and try a more general systematization; the C
formal elements to functionally identify the wage-worker class are the R
following (class definition 1): I
T
I
1. Exchanging labor-power with capital, receiving a salary. This can Q
take place in the most different, irregular forms of salary, from the U
E
traditional ones to the hidden contemporary variants of piecework,
alleged freelance work, etc. /

Volume 10
2. Valorizing capital. One’s labor expenditure is part of a process that, Issue 1
in the intention of capitalists, valorizes anticipated capital. Capital
valorization means not only producing value and surplus-value,
but also participating in all those passages that are as necessary
as production so that actual valorization might take place, that is
including circulation, sell, promotion, etc. If produced commodities
are not sold, there is no capital valorization.

3. Labor process takes place in the above-mentioned forms:

cooperative work, partial worker, appendix worker, with doubled
finalism: individual and global, where the global one is posited
by capitalists. The more formalistic the living labor, the easier its
replacement with a machine if this increases capital valorization. Here
is the core contradiction of the capitalist mode of production: on the
one hand it is based on exploitation of living labor, on the other expels
living labor out of the labor process.

In current “crepuscular” capitalism,27 the long run dynamics of capitalist

production has created a tendential growth in the technical composition of
capital28, that is the ratio between machines and living labor has dramatically
increased. Less and less workers are necessary in the production of single
units of product. Good, stable employment becomes more and more
difficult in the difficult valorization process of over-productive capital. As
a consequence, the elastic character of unemployment gets more and
more rigid, and re-hiring workers fired because of automation becomes

27 For an outline of this concept see Fineschi 2022.

28 Setting aside the question of organic composition, which is the relationship between technical and
value composition. Tangentially, it is to highlight that in the traditional debate on the tendential fall of
rate of profit the focus has mostly been only on value composition.

100 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

extremely difficult. A growing mass of unemployed is a systematic effect C
R
of crepuscular capitalism. We need to consider this in a broader definition I
of class and class conflict. We can outline three categories that expand S
the previous framework (class definition 2): I
S

1. Workers that are active in the actual capitalistic production as &

defined before (in class definition 1). C
R
2. A growing mass of potential workers within the advanced I
T
capitalist system that can’t find a job; they live by their wits or of I
the crumbs from the table (inclusive of State assistance shaped Q
in different forms). However, they are not outside the system, U
E
since their exclusion is a structural moment of it. Because they
are excluded from any collective productive praxis, they don’t /
perceive themselves as class, but just as individuals, as allegedly Volume 10
autonomous atoms; individualist ideologies will easily have a grasp Issue 1
on them. This opens the broader chapter of ideology and self-
consciousness.

3. A third relevant level includes that huge mass of people that

live in parts of the world that have not been completely subsumed
under capitalist production; their system is still part of global
capitalist reproduction, since they - either as colonies, or half-
colonies, or for commercial trades - are a moment of it, but not in
the Western form, that is without having experienced the social
transformations and “progress” that took place there. To most
of them, the Western world and capital are just imperialism and
violence, they have not seen any progress in this relationship.
The crucial point however is that they will never experience any
progress, since crepuscular capitalism is not in the condition to
expand further its production, because of structural overproduction
of commodities and capital. In spite of that, they are still a variable
of the system, inasmuch as their reproduction, even if not in the
Western form, is entangled in the global capitalist one. However,
their self-perception and transformation perspectives would be
very different from those of the first two groups, affected by pre-
modern (or even anti-modern) features and ideologies.

To keep these three souls into the same body and have it fight for a
possible different organization of production and reproduction is the
multifaceted and complex task we have to deal with. However, this re-
configuration of the class concept provides an instrument that at least
allows to pave a theoretical way toward class reorganization in a broader
sense (class definition 2) on the basis of Marx’s theory of capital.

101 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0

 BIBLIOGRAPHY C
R
Backhaus, Hans Georg, Dialektik der Wertform: Untersuchungen zur Marxschen I
Ökonomiekritik, Freiburg: Ça ira. S
Badaloni, Nicola 1971, Per il comunismo. Questioni di teoria, Torino: Einaudi. I
Bellofiore, Riccardo and Fineschi, Roberto 2009 (eds.), Re-reading Marx. New perspective S
after the critical edition, Basigstoke, Palgrave.
Cazzaniga, Gian Mario 1981, Funzione e conflitto. Forme e classi nella teoria marxiana dello &
sviluppo, Naples: Liguori.
Corradi, Cristina 2005, Storia dei marxismi in Italia,Roma; Manifestolibri. C
Diaz, Furio 1956, Storicismi e storicità, Florence: Parenti. R
Favilli, Paolo 1996, Storia del marxismo italiano. Dalle origini alla grande guerra, Milan: Angeli. I
Fineschi, Roberto 2008, Un nuovo Marx. Filologia e interpretazione dopo la nuova edizione T
storico-critica (MEGA2), Roma: Carocci. I
– 2009a, ‘Dialectic of the Commodity and Its Exposition: The German Debate in the 1970s – A Q
Personal Survey’, in Bellofiore and Fineschi 2009, p. 50-70. U
– 2009b, ‘“Capital in general” and “Competition”, in the Making of Capital: The German E
Debate’, Science & Society, 2009/1: 54-76.
– 2013, ‘The Four Levels of Abstraction of Marx's Concept of 'Capital'’, Bellofiore R., Starosta /
G., Thomas P. (eds.), In Marx’s Laboratory. Critical Interpretations of the ‘Grundrisse’, Boston-Leiden-
Tokyo: Brill. Volume 10
– 2021, La logica del capitale. Ripartire da Marx, Naples, Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Issue 1
Filosofici.
– 2022, ‘Violence and Crepuscular Capitalism Structural Dynamics and Superstructural
Forms of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation’, Fusaro L. and Alcala’ Sandoval L.J. (eds.),
The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation in Latin America and Beyond Actuality and Pertinence,
Lanham MD: Lexington Books, p. 41-53.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 1995a, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im
Grundrisse, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
– 1995b, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
– 1996a, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
– 1996b Wissenschaft der Logik, vol. I, t. I, Die objektive Logik: Erstes Buch; vol. II, t. I, Die
objektive Logik: Zweites Buch; t. II, Die subjektive Logik, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
– 1998, Phänomenologie des Geistes, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Hobsbawm, Eric (1978-82) (ed.), Storia del marxismo, Torino: Einaudi.
Labriola, Antonio 1977, Saggi Sul Materialismo Storico, Roma: Editori Riuniti.
Luporini, Cesare 1974, Dialettica e materialismo, Roma: Editori Riuniti.
Marx, Karl 1859, Zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie, Berlin: Duncker.
– 1976-81, ‘Ökonomische Manuskripte, 1857/58’, Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Vol. II/2,Berlin:
Dietz.
– 1976-82, ‘Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie’, Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Vol. II/3,Berlin:
Dietz.
– 1991, ‘Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, Erster Band, Hamburg 1867’, Marx-
Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Vol. II/5, Berlin: Dietz.
Karl, Marx and Engels, Friedrich 1973, ‘Briefe. Januar 1881 bis März 1883’, Werke, Berlin: Dietz.
Mazzone, Alessandro 1981, Questioni di teoria dell’ideologia, Messina: La libra.
– (1987), ‘La temporalità specifica del modo di produzione capitalistico’, Marx ei Suoi Critici,
Urbino: Quattro Venti.

102 Marx’s Class Theory 2.0