La terapeutica della crisi. Teoria della regolazione e crisi del marxismo.

Abstract

The starting point for my research is the hypothesis regarding the role played by Marxism in the financial crisis and, in particular, its capacity to provide a voice for the crisis. Based on the analysis of the theories on the regulation of capitalism, on the confrontation of the latter with some of Althusser’s observations and on Italian opéraismo arises the theory according to which the crisis of Marxism is a theoretical symptom of the crisis of modernity. In order to comprehend this aspect of Marxism, one should not attempt to reconstruct its theoretical unity, but rather follow its interior process of deconstruction. The deconstruction of theory is not per se a theoretical act, but a social process which develops through contradictions in the system. This hypothesis’ presupposition is that there is no such thing as unambiguous rationality, but that the capitalist market is the birthplace of regional rationalities. These domains are structured around two poles; one is rational in the sense of systemic rationality; and the other pole is that of behavioural ethics which refers to the subject of the needs. These themes have been developed by regulation theory through the analysis of the inflation crisis of the 1970s. This signalled the emergence of a new configuration of the relationship between the structure and the subject which gave way to the concept of crisis as a principle of regulation of the system. The main Marxist concepts are analysed by reference to this hypothesis and particular attention is paid to the subject of money. Money, in all its historical forms of credit and finance, represents most clearly the ability to become autonomous from one part of the whole. In this movement towards separatism, which is at the same time a movement towards abstraction, is situated the identity of modernity as a critical identity that is constantly in crisis. The crux of the problematic reveals the ambivalence of money as a social category and, at the same time, an epistemological principle. Beginning as a precious metal and in its evolution towards finance, the process with which modern philosophers announced the death of God is underway and is located at the origin of the politics of modern peoples and, at the same time, at the origin of scientific knowledge.