Today We Made Omelets and Diagrams

Some days all I can really manage to do is make an omelet. Not that I'm fishing for compliments — I'm aware and confident that this was a fucking phenomenal omelet, filled with beet greens sautéed with garlic, lemon zest, great-tasting olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and just a touch of brown sugar, then rounded out with grape tomatoes and goat milk blue cheese, and finished with cilantro. Tremendous. One for me, one for Ryan. And our kitchen conversation during the omelet forging somehow led to me drawing the following charts about the Cycle of Productive Capital:

cycle of productive capital part 1 — Both of these charts represent my still-dim comprehension of the concept, and if someone else has better charts or corrections to add, please share! Minimally, this illustration should probably be in the shape of a spiral to show how M'>M, and the extra (profit) gets re-invested? I dunno.

cycle of prodctive capital part 2 — Now we see some often-invisible stuff start to appear. Historically, huge influxes of money in capitalism come from stealing land, enslaving or exterminating people, or putting them into debt on purpose so their wealth can be taken "legally." So there's one invisible dynamic. Dead labor means that the maquiladora didn't just grow there on its own like a tree, but required the exploitation of people in order to be built. Finally, we see the reproductive labor that is necessary to reproduce labor power, but which is often rendered invisible as a "personal service" via enforced gender roles, nuclear family, etc.

Despite small fun doings, though, overall the week’s felt like a bit of a shipwreck, and not only here on the blog. (HOW did I ever manage to post 5 days a week? How?)

But take heart! Because my friend in Brooklyn has started hawking amazing-looking vegan truffles. And also, next week here on Kloncke we’ll have a special Zine Feature! Five dope zines in 5 days, spanning 5 x 5 = 25 years! (Okay, only one of the five is more than like a year old…but it’s from 1985 and it’s super cool.)

Til then, take care, friends!

love,

katie

soapbox May 14, 2011 / 3:36 am

these are tight drawings. i was talking to ryan about it earlier. reproductive labor prolly goes into fixing up the old dead labor as it breaks down too. looking forward to more marxist drawings!
kloncke May 14, 2011 / 11:57 am

thanks so much! i wish i’d been able to come to yr class — i’m sure it would’ve inspired many more drawings and diagrams. :)

and thanks for the insight abt reproducing the old dead labor, but can you explain a little more? when i imagine fixing up / maintaining a run-down factory, for instance, i imagine people getting paid wages to do that work, like in any other service commodity. which seems different from reproductive labor?
Maia Duerr May 14, 2011 / 8:21 pm

I’ve got an idea for you, Katie… you could give seminars in progressive economics on Sunday mornings along with serving up omelets. I would SO love to come if I lived in the Bay Area…