expanding spiral, the capitalist needs to overcome the constraints of certain conditions by speeding up realization of profit. S/he does so by shifting to something that individuals
consume instantaneously – which is spectacle. And it is here that the “production of spectacle
becomes absolutely foundational.” It is why
marketing is critically necessary to reform lifestyle and the transformation of lifestyle.
Finally, Harvey claims that the cycle of distribution, which creates debt, is effectively a foreclosure of the future. Thus, in total, you “have to ground this system (Marx’s understanding of Capital) in space and time.”41
What we can learn from this is: without the introduction of time into space (or with what now has become an argument claiming time is an object that has a physical size which can be measured in laboratories),42 without the possibility of the fourth dimension that ultimately collapses space and time, allowing it to implode upon itself to create stasis, the capitalist system would forever be on a roller coaster ride of increased alienation that has no possibility of stopping. It really would be the expression of the logicality of the idea, wherein the mental process simply turns upon itself, producing a never ending series of new but equally contrived products of logic and names (of language) that are meaningless because there is no worth to them, no value produced by being products of something (man or God) that imbues them with value. It would be “totalitarian,” defined in the sense of being a process of constant movement, something argued by Robert Orr.43
It is also why Marx could claim: “Logic is the money of mind … thought which is alienated and abstract and ignores real nature and
man.”44 The essential basis for establishing a correlation is the dialectical view and process of analysis. Their divergence is also the accepted mode of use, especially Marx’s conception of
man as the creator of the universal (form), while
with Hegel’s thought it is the Idea (form) that has original subjectivity.
Again, the most notable thing about this process is that, once the division between mental and physical labor has been created, the formal concept as elicited through consciousness may move along unimpeded and completely removed from the material content of nature – evident again in the purely formal relationship of individuals in the social relation. This formalized structure is indeed demonstrated in language, because, as Marx claimed, “language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity of intercourse with other men.”45 Furthermore, the total divorce of the formal nature from its material nature is evident through the manipulation of these factors within language.
For example, where previously the construction of the objective world was the manipulation of inorganic nature and the “confirmation of man as a conscious species-being,46 the theoretical construction establishes a position where “consciousness, which man has from his species-life, is transformed through alienation so that species life becomes only a means for him … it alienates man from his own body, external nature, his mental life and human life.”47 The purely formal nature has thus been isolated. The division between these two natures – the way they present themselves as external manifestations and the overall
Marx could claim: “Logic is the money of mind … thought which is alienated and abstract and ignores real nature and man.”
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