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The End of the Economy and the


Realization of Art
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Asger Jorn
Internationale Situationniste #4 (June 1960)

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Translated by Reuben Keehan

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FOR HUMANITY, time is nothing but a succession of phenomena from a


point of observation in space, while space is the order of the co-existence
of phenomena in time or process.

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Time is the change that is only conceivable in the form of a progressive


movement in space, while space is the solid that is only conceivable in its
participation in a movement. Neither space nor time possesses a reality or
value outside of change or process, that is to say outside of the active
combination of space-time. The action of space-time is the process, and
this process is itself the change of time in space and the change of space in
time.
We see, then, that the augmentation of quality,
or resistance to change, is due to quantitative
augmentation. They march in step. This
development is the goal of socialist progress:
the augmentation of quality by the
augmentation of quantity. And it allows this
double augmentation to be strikingly identical
to the diminution of value, of space-time:
reification.
The magnitude that determines value is
space-time, the instant or the event. The
space-time reserved for the existence of
human space on the Earth demonstrates its
value in events. No events, no history. The
space time of a human life is its private
property. This was Marx's great discovery in
the perspective of human liberation, but at the same time it is the point of
departure for the errors of the Marxists, because property only gains value
in its realization, in its liberation, in its use, and what makes the space-time
of a human life a reality is its variability. What gives the individual a social
value is the variability of their behavior in relation to others. If this variability
becomes private, excluded from social valorization as is the case under
authoritarian socialism human space-time becomes unrealizable.

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Therefore, the private character of human qualities ("hobbies") has become


an even greater valorization of human life than the private property of the
means of production because uselessness, in socialist determinism, is
nonexistent. Instead of abolishing the private character of property,
socialism does nothing but augment it as much as possible, rending
humans themselves useless and socially non-existent.
The goal of the development of artistic liberation is the liberation of human
values by the transformation of human qualities into real values. Here
begins the artistic revolution against socialist development, the artistic
revolution that is tied to the communist project...
The value of art is therefore a counter-value in relation to practical values,
and its measure in a sense inverse to the them. Art is the invitation to
expend energy, with no precise goal other than what spectators themselves
can bring to it. This is prodigality... Some still imagine that the value of art is
in its duration, its quality. And they think that gold and precious stones are
of artistic value, that artistic value is an inherent quality of the object in
itself. By this logic, the work of art is nothing but the confirmation of
humanity as the essential source of value...
The capitalist revolution was essentially a socialization of consumption.
Capitalist industrialization brought humanity a socialization as profound as
the socialization proposed by the socialists that of the means of
production. The socialist revolution is the fulfillment of the capitalist
revolution. The one element removed from the capitalist system is saving,
because consumption's richness has already been eliminated by the
capitalists themselves. It is so rare to find a capitalist these days whose
consumption exceeds the meanest demands. The difference between the
lifestyle a great lord of the 17th century and that of a great capitalist of the
Rockefeller era is ridiculous, and the gap is always widening.
The richness of consumption's variability was economized by capitalism,
because the commodity is nothing but an object of socialized use. It is for
this reason that sociologists avoid occupying themselves with the object of
use.
The socialization of the object of use, which can be considered as a
commodity, has three principle aspects:
a) On its own, the object of use of a common interest, desired
by a great enough quantity of people, can serve as a
commodity. The ideal commodity is the object desired by all.
In order to open the way toward such a socialization of
industrial production, capitalism must destroy the idea of
individual and artisanal production, under the guise of
"formalism";
b) In order to discuss the commodity, it is necessary to have a

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quantity of exactly the same object. Industry is only concerned


with objects in series, manufactured in larger and larger
numbers;
c) Capitalist production is characterized by a propaganda of
popular consumption that reaches incredible power and
volume. The demand for a socialist production is only the
logical consequence of the demand for a socialized
consumption.
Currency is the completely socialized commodity, showing everyone the
measure of common value...
Socialization really constitutes a system built on absolute saving. Indeed,
let us consider the object of use. We have indicated that the object of use
becomes a commodity the moment as soon as it becomes useless, when
the causal link between consumption and production is exhausted. On its
own, an object of use is transformed in saving, stockpiling, becoming a
commodity, but only in the case where a quantity of objects is stockpiled.
This system of storage, which is the root of the commodity, is not eliminated
by socialism. In fact, the opposite is true: the socialist system is founded on
the stockpiling without exception of all production before its distribution, with
the goal of perfect control of this distribution.
To date, no analysis has been made of
accumulation of stockpiling or saving
in its own form, that is the form of the
container. Stockpiling occurs according
to the relationship between container
and its contents. We remarked initially
that the substance, known as the
contents, is none other than process;
and in the form of content, it signifies a
material in storage, a latent force. But we
have always considered it from its own
stable form. The form of a container is a
form contrary to the form of its contents;
its function is to prevent the contents
from entering into process, except in
controlled and limited conditions. The container-form is therefore a
somewhat different thing to the form of the material itself, where there is
never anything but the form of the contents; here one of term is found to be
in absolute contradiction with the other. It is only in the domain of biology
that the container becomes a basic function. All biological life has evolved,
so to speak, by opposing the container-forms with the forms of the material.
Technological development continues on the same path; all systems of
measurement, of scientific control, are placed in the relationship of
objective forms to container-forms.

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Container-forms are established contradicting measured forms. The


container-form normally conceals the form of its contents, and thus
possesses a third form: that of appearance. These three forms are never
clearly distinguished in discussions on form...
Money is the measure of time in social space... In a given space, that of
society, money is the means of imposing speed itself. The invention of
currency is the basis of 'scientific' socialism, and the destruction of currency
will be the basis of the supersession of this mechanical socialism. Currency
is the work of art transformed into numbers. The realization of communism
will be the transformation of the work of art in the totality of everyday life...
Wherever it is manifest (in capitalism, in reformism, in so-called 'communist'
power) bureaucracy appears as the realization of common counterrevolutionary socialization, in a certain manner, in the various rival sectors
of the modern world. Bureaucracy is the container-form of society: standing
in the way of process standing in the way of revolution. In the name of
the control of the economy, bureaucracy economizes without control (for its
own ends, for the preservation of what exists). It has every power but the
power to change things. And all change will always be made against it...
Real communism will be the leap into the domain of freedom and of value,
of communication. Contrary to utilitarian value (normally known as material
value), artistic value is the progressive value because, by a process of
provocation, it is the valorization of humanity itself.
Since Marx, economic politics has shown its impotence and its cowardice.
A hyperpolitics will need to strive for the direct realization of humanity.
This text is taken from a brochure by Jorn: Critique of Economic Politics,
which
will be issued in a series of "Reports presented to the SI" (Brussels, May
1960).

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