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Endnotes 2: Misery and the Value Form
This volume contains the following essays:
Crisis in the Class Relation
Taking the capitalist class relation as a self-reproducing whole, the horizon of its overcoming appears as an invariant aspect of this whole, albeit one with a historically variant quality. Surplus population and capital's basic problem of labour characterise core dynamics underlying the shift in this horizon beyond the old programme of workers' power.
Misery and Debt
A re-reading and historical interpretation of Marx's “general law of accumulation”— the tendency for the expanded reproduction of capital to throw off more labour than it absorbs—in light of the growth of surplus populations and surplus capital in the world today.
Notes on the New Housing Question
Preliminary materials for a theory of home-ownership, credit, and housework in the post-war US economy. How is the fundamental separation between production and reproduction transformed when the home becomes the commodity through which all others are sold?
Communisation and Value-Form Theory
The theory of communisation and Marxian value-form theory emerge from the same historical moment, mutually complement each other, and point towards the same radical conception of revolution as the immediate transformation of social relations, one in which we cease to constitute value and it ceases to constitute us.
The Moving Contradiction
A reconstruction of the systematic dialectic of capital as a dialectic of class struggle. The forms of value which are constituted by and regulate social practice are totalising and self-reproducing through the subsumption of labour under capital. The totality so constituted is inwardly contradictory, and ultimately self-undermining: capitalist accumulation is a moving contradiction, i.e. a historical contradiction, between capital and proletariat.
The History of Subsumption
The philosophical/logical concept of subsumption is employed in various periodisations of capitalist society, such as those of Théorie Communiste, Jacques Camatte, and Antonio Negri. A critical examination of this concept and its historical uses.
Sleep-Worker’s Enquiry
Worker's enquiry in the cynical mode: the unrevolutionary working life of the web developer.
Crisis in the Class Relation
Taking the capitalist class relation as a self-reproducing whole, the horizon of its overcoming appears as an invariant aspect of this whole, albeit one with a historically variant quality. Surplus population and capital's basic problem of labour characterise core dynamics underlying the shift in this horizon beyond the old programme of workers' power.
Misery and Debt
A re-reading and historical interpretation of Marx's “general law of accumulation”— the tendency for the expanded reproduction of capital to throw off more labour than it absorbs—in light of the growth of surplus populations and surplus capital in the world today.
Notes on the New Housing Question
Preliminary materials for a theory of home-ownership, credit, and housework in the post-war US economy. How is the fundamental separation between production and reproduction transformed when the home becomes the commodity through which all others are sold?
Communisation and Value-Form Theory
The theory of communisation and Marxian value-form theory emerge from the same historical moment, mutually complement each other, and point towards the same radical conception of revolution as the immediate transformation of social relations, one in which we cease to constitute value and it ceases to constitute us.
The Moving Contradiction
A reconstruction of the systematic dialectic of capital as a dialectic of class struggle. The forms of value which are constituted by and regulate social practice are totalising and self-reproducing through the subsumption of labour under capital. The totality so constituted is inwardly contradictory, and ultimately self-undermining: capitalist accumulation is a moving contradiction, i.e. a historical contradiction, between capital and proletariat.
The History of Subsumption
The philosophical/logical concept of subsumption is employed in various periodisations of capitalist society, such as those of Théorie Communiste, Jacques Camatte, and Antonio Negri. A critical examination of this concept and its historical uses.
Sleep-Worker’s Enquiry
Worker's enquiry in the cynical mode: the unrevolutionary working life of the web developer.
176 pages, Paperback
Published April 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 31, 2020
I first started reading Endnotes in 2016, initially finding it quite compelling. Then I soured on it for several years, partly as a consequence of the organizing spaces that I was present in. Returning to Vol. 2 when the crisis of social reproduction is more apparent than ever feels something like a breath of fresh air. Of course, I have my complaints with Endnotes’ theorization and historical understanding:
1.) communization, in its apparent voluntarism, sometimes strikes very close to the feel-good prefigurative politics of radical liberalism, even if it does avoid the latter in its more grounded moments;
2.) the rejection of ‘worker’s identity’ as a starting point for a struggle which aims at the total abolition of the class relation, while possessing some basis in history and theory, sometimes appears like a means for pandering to academics and the petite bourgeois, who after all are nearly as distanced from commodity production as the surplus population who ostensibly constitute the subject of today’s communist horizon—but this could be said of the vast majority of post-programmatic communist theory, including the strains of operaismo, autonomia, and value-form theory, with which Endnotes converses;
3.) Endnotes doesn’t go as far as some others (maybe Aufheben, for example) in rejecting the results and lessons of 20th century revolutions, representing these struggles as the result of a horizon of theory which did make some sense in its time and place. However, they do these revolutions little justice by basing their new horizon of communization on French, Italian, and West German critiques of actually existing socialism like value-form theory, which were explicitly rooted in the rejection of class struggle and a turn towards endless theoretical debate which even the so-called esoteric Marx would have recognized as abstract and half-formed. (Yes, I still find value-form theory interesting and compelling in many of its aspects, for better or worse.) Paying closer attention to the failures of past revolutions—why did most people actually desire an increase in their standard of living, rather than an end to the value-form? and why shouldn’t they?—would have led to much stronger results, and a probable rejection of the apparent voluntarism which their theory of communization endorses.
One of the central claims which buttresses the horizon of their practical theory is the idea that “capital gradually deserts a world in crisis, bequeathing it to its superfluous offspring,” (19). If you believe that capitalists will just give up social control of populations which constitute a problem for them, you have not been paying attention, and of course you’d see the productivism of 20th century revolutions as unnecessary or even reactionary. “Silly workers— they should have just ignored the people trying to kill them and convert them, and they should have built the commune instead!” Again, I’m not saying that these revolutions ever fully posed the question of value’s abolition which Endnotes identifies and desires—we can and should rebuke them for that fact, and note that the persistence of capitalist social forms in today’s and yesterday’s actually existing socialism(s) is undeniable—but a thorough study of these revolutions would greatly deepen and enhance the analysis of both past and current theoretical and practical horizons.
(I’ll revisit Vol1– preliminary materials for a balance sheet of the 20th century—and update the review if I end up feeling differently. Here my distaste is fueled by their half-hearted critique of Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program, and their too-quick rejection of the idea that communism emerges and grows out of capitalism, that a stage of transition is needed in order to transform the conditions that reproduce workers as such. One could also point to their claim that Value-qua-capitalism constitutes a closed system that cannot be eliminated by parts—a claim which at least to my amateur eye is lifted directly from Chris Arthur. My critique of Endnotes voluntarism, which could also be posed as a critique of their utopianism, presupposes that the struggle against value’s domination involves something resembling an overcoming, and not simply an abolition carried out at will.)
Even with all of these critiques, Endnotes Vol2 earns four stars for being one of the clearest expositions of the problem posed by surplus populations—the virtual paupers which Marx identifies in the general law of capitalist accumulation—for capital and for the reproduction of the class relation more generally. I’m also thankful for the introduction they gave me, years ago, to the value-form theory which has greatly influenced me. As for Endnotes’ conception of communization: Especially now during COVID, their prediction of a crisis of reproduction and an attendant rise of mutual aid as revolutionary strategy (even if they wouldn’t have called it that), seem to prove that Endnotes got something very right about the horizon of communist theory and practice today. We can’t afford to ignore the idea that the immediate, wage-less reproduction of those who are left out and excluded and deemed worthless—the “essential workers” in the current parlance of our shared hellscape, along with the chronically un/deremployed—might be the clearest path forward for today’s revolutionists.
Even if one believes (as I do) that the reproduction of the vast majority must still involve some seizure of the means of production, one cannot help but pay attention to what the writers at Endnotes have been saying.
1.) communization, in its apparent voluntarism, sometimes strikes very close to the feel-good prefigurative politics of radical liberalism, even if it does avoid the latter in its more grounded moments;
2.) the rejection of ‘worker’s identity’ as a starting point for a struggle which aims at the total abolition of the class relation, while possessing some basis in history and theory, sometimes appears like a means for pandering to academics and the petite bourgeois, who after all are nearly as distanced from commodity production as the surplus population who ostensibly constitute the subject of today’s communist horizon—but this could be said of the vast majority of post-programmatic communist theory, including the strains of operaismo, autonomia, and value-form theory, with which Endnotes converses;
3.) Endnotes doesn’t go as far as some others (maybe Aufheben, for example) in rejecting the results and lessons of 20th century revolutions, representing these struggles as the result of a horizon of theory which did make some sense in its time and place. However, they do these revolutions little justice by basing their new horizon of communization on French, Italian, and West German critiques of actually existing socialism like value-form theory, which were explicitly rooted in the rejection of class struggle and a turn towards endless theoretical debate which even the so-called esoteric Marx would have recognized as abstract and half-formed. (Yes, I still find value-form theory interesting and compelling in many of its aspects, for better or worse.) Paying closer attention to the failures of past revolutions—why did most people actually desire an increase in their standard of living, rather than an end to the value-form? and why shouldn’t they?—would have led to much stronger results, and a probable rejection of the apparent voluntarism which their theory of communization endorses.
One of the central claims which buttresses the horizon of their practical theory is the idea that “capital gradually deserts a world in crisis, bequeathing it to its superfluous offspring,” (19). If you believe that capitalists will just give up social control of populations which constitute a problem for them, you have not been paying attention, and of course you’d see the productivism of 20th century revolutions as unnecessary or even reactionary. “Silly workers— they should have just ignored the people trying to kill them and convert them, and they should have built the commune instead!” Again, I’m not saying that these revolutions ever fully posed the question of value’s abolition which Endnotes identifies and desires—we can and should rebuke them for that fact, and note that the persistence of capitalist social forms in today’s and yesterday’s actually existing socialism(s) is undeniable—but a thorough study of these revolutions would greatly deepen and enhance the analysis of both past and current theoretical and practical horizons.
(I’ll revisit Vol1– preliminary materials for a balance sheet of the 20th century—and update the review if I end up feeling differently. Here my distaste is fueled by their half-hearted critique of Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program, and their too-quick rejection of the idea that communism emerges and grows out of capitalism, that a stage of transition is needed in order to transform the conditions that reproduce workers as such. One could also point to their claim that Value-qua-capitalism constitutes a closed system that cannot be eliminated by parts—a claim which at least to my amateur eye is lifted directly from Chris Arthur. My critique of Endnotes voluntarism, which could also be posed as a critique of their utopianism, presupposes that the struggle against value’s domination involves something resembling an overcoming, and not simply an abolition carried out at will.)
Even with all of these critiques, Endnotes Vol2 earns four stars for being one of the clearest expositions of the problem posed by surplus populations—the virtual paupers which Marx identifies in the general law of capitalist accumulation—for capital and for the reproduction of the class relation more generally. I’m also thankful for the introduction they gave me, years ago, to the value-form theory which has greatly influenced me. As for Endnotes’ conception of communization: Especially now during COVID, their prediction of a crisis of reproduction and an attendant rise of mutual aid as revolutionary strategy (even if they wouldn’t have called it that), seem to prove that Endnotes got something very right about the horizon of communist theory and practice today. We can’t afford to ignore the idea that the immediate, wage-less reproduction of those who are left out and excluded and deemed worthless—the “essential workers” in the current parlance of our shared hellscape, along with the chronically un/deremployed—might be the clearest path forward for today’s revolutionists.
Even if one believes (as I do) that the reproduction of the vast majority must still involve some seizure of the means of production, one cannot help but pay attention to what the writers at Endnotes have been saying.
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December 4, 2025me ha servido muchísimo! creo que volveré a ello periódicamente para refrescar... sobre todo sobre forma-valor y la crisis de la relación de clase
solo opino que en algún momento deberían dar el salto de decir lo que NO hacer a lo que podría hacerse... o eso es programatista? no sé chicas
también es de coña mala que el capítulo anteúltimo sea sobre subsunción después de mencionarlo reiteradamente en todos los anteriores
pero me ha encantado la narrativa final! es como si te dieran una piruleta de premio por haberte portado bien
solo opino que en algún momento deberían dar el salto de decir lo que NO hacer a lo que podría hacerse... o eso es programatista? no sé chicas
también es de coña mala que el capítulo anteúltimo sea sobre subsunción después de mencionarlo reiteradamente en todos los anteriores
pero me ha encantado la narrativa final! es como si te dieran una piruleta de premio por haberte portado bien
July 19, 2024
magnífic
July 3, 2023
Hi ha moltes coses que no he acabat de pillar, però és boníssim i millor que l'anterior
November 1, 2025
ba ez dakit dakitzuen kapitalismua ez jatela gehixegi gustetan...
May 16, 2024
No tan bien como el primero, condensa un desarrollo muy complejo en muy poco espacio y no favorece tanto el diálogo de las ideas, más bien sienta las bases teóricas para seguir desarrollando la propuesta de la comunización. Anyways está bien, pero no para leer aislado.
June 25, 2025
Bastante mejor que el primer libro, me ha hecho reconciliarme en cierto sentido con TC. Ahora bien, bajo mi punto de vista la estructura no es correcta: presenta de forma muy temprada el concepto de subsunción y la dialéctica sistemática para explicarlas en los dos últimos capítulos. Otra cosa que me chirría un poco es que la conclusión principal siempre es la misma: "La única perspectiva revolucionaria que ofrece el ciclo actual de luchas es el de la autonegación del proletariado, con la consiguiente abolición del capital mediante la comunización de las relaciones entre individuos."
Vale, sí, seguramente tengais razón, pero eso como cojones se hace? Hablan mucho de comunización (concretamente 500 páginas entre este libro y el anterior, pero me sigue sin quedar claro qué es. Igual soy tonto y ya.
Por lo demás me ha gustado mucho.
Vale, sí, seguramente tengais razón, pero eso como cojones se hace? Hablan mucho de comunización (concretamente 500 páginas entre este libro y el anterior, pero me sigue sin quedar claro qué es. Igual soy tonto y ya.
Por lo demás me ha gustado mucho.
August 10, 2025
Bueno, pues tras leer el primer Endnotes, he de decir que éste explica de una manera mucho más detallada la parte de la subsunción (tanto formal como real) y su vinculación con la plusvalía absoluta y la relativa respectivamente.
Por otro lado, la parte de crítica al estudio de la historia del capital, si bien acierta en la crítica al determinismo en estos análisis, puede desarrollarse de manera más completa.
En resumen, me gustó más que el primero pero con los "peros" mencionados.
*Siempre se agradece un apoyo a la lectura más kafkiano (aka encuesta a un obrero somnoliento) para entender la subsunción real. Ahora a leer a Jameson jajaja
Por otro lado, la parte de crítica al estudio de la historia del capital, si bien acierta en la crítica al determinismo en estos análisis, puede desarrollarse de manera más completa.
En resumen, me gustó más que el primero pero con los "peros" mencionados.
*Siempre se agradece un apoyo a la lectura más kafkiano (aka encuesta a un obrero somnoliento) para entender la subsunción real. Ahora a leer a Jameson jajaja
November 12, 2023
Encara millor que el primer. La teoria de la comunització i la teoria de la forma valor s'uneixen generant un dels textos més estimulants que he llegit en tot l'any. El tema que em va deixar amb més mal gust de boca en l'Endnotes 1, la periodització segons la subsunció, es reprèn de forma més crítica i diria que més satisfactòria. Imprescindible per la comprensió actualitzada del mode de producció capitalista, les seves dinàmiques, contradiccions i canvis.
Petonets comunitzadors
Petonets comunitzadors
October 21, 2018
A recent and refreshing source on value-form, taking off from Marx's lesser-appreciated writings and including a wide variety of writers from the 20th century. The sophomore volume of Endnotes means more to its reader directly than the first.
June 13, 2025
Despite my points of contention with communization theory, Endnotes 2 deserves five stars. The discussions here are important, and this is, quite simply, as elegant as contemporary Marxist theory gets.
May 13, 2019
Well-enough-formulated politico-economic analyses of recent years.
July 5, 2022
Me esperaba algo más. Mucho más de hecho. Buena introducción marxista y alguna patinada con respeto a la dinámica de acumulación.
March 6, 2024
No entendí todo 😔
December 30, 2024
Tienen una liada con la relación forma-contenido que da dolor de cabeza intentar seguirles lo cual es frustrante porque su aclaración parece central para todo lo que comentan
December 7, 2025
brillant
November 14, 2010
Good look at the internal contradictions of the CMP in terms of progressive expulsion of living labor from the production process etc.
Now with ecological meltdown staring us in the face as the definitive "external limit" of the system's capacity to smoothly reproduce itself,such matters are often given short shift.
Now with ecological meltdown staring us in the face as the definitive "external limit" of the system's capacity to smoothly reproduce itself,such matters are often given short shift.
November 27, 2016
Better than the first issue, Endnotes 2 explores some of the conradictions of contemporary capitalism from a marxist/communisation perspective. This issue introduces the concept of surplus popularion which constitutes an essencial part of Endnotes` world-view.
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April 30, 2017good if you are a HUGE marx nerd
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews