The introduction of the concept of capital inCapital– with the words ‘we find’ – has provoked a great deal of discussion about the precise relation between the categories of simple circulation and the concept of capital. In this article, I argue that Marx derives the concept of capital by way of an analysis of the immanent contradictions of money, and that this dialectical derivation can be understood as a conceptual movement in which the concepts of money and capital progressively change (...) their modal status. Furthermore, I examine the development of this transition to capital throughout Marx’s writings from the period 1857 to 1872, arguing that the same arguments can be found in all the relevant writings. Finally, the article provides a critical review of the literature on the transition to capital. (shrink)

In this article I attempt to reconcile two seemingly conflicting theorisations of love, the one elaborated by Roy Bhaskar as part of his philosophy of meta-Reality and Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s historical materialist-radical feminist theory of love power. While Bhaskar emphasises the essentially non-dual character of love, envisioning it as a ‘no-lose situation’, Jónasdóttir stresses the antagonistic features structuring love relations by conceptualising love as a productive power that men tend to exploit women of. Rather than seeing these accounts as mutually (...) exclusive I show that they can be reconciled by aid of the general ontology elaborated by Bhaskar in his philosophy of meta-Reality. (shrink)

In this article I explore love's relation to gendered power asymmetries by comparing Anna Jónasdóttir's, Jessica Benjamin's and Teresa Brennan's respective theorizations of this theme. Despite the considerable differences between these feminist frameworks, they can all be read in terms of what I call the figure of the Dominant and its Constitutive Other. This refers to the contradictory relation whereby the powerful and ‘independent’ existence of the one is premised on that which is other to it, as well as on (...) the denial and obscuring of this constitutive dependence. Via a dialogue with critical realist and metaReal themes I move from a concern with how the feminine ‘Other’ tacitly constitutes the masculine Dominant through practices of love, to thematizing the basic stratum of being as the constitutive Other of the oppressive economy of love. The structure of the self emerges as a central organizing principle in the oppressive relations considered, and the article explores what might be a non-violent mode.. (shrink)