Consumption, Class Struggle, and Subjectification: Rethinking the Reproduction of Capital

• Author / Creator

  Mulcahy, Niamh A. G.

• This thesis offers conceptual means for a broadened approach to political
  economy by examining the reproductive role of consumption in advanced
  capitalist societies involved in the production of value and class struggle. I argue
  for a shift in the Marxist perspective, from reproduction of the means of
  production, to subjugation of labour-power through the circuit of the production
  of value, where consumption is ostensibly the reproductive moment, and the
  emergence of a micro-politics of class struggle. I suggest that social formations
  are characterized by an accumulation of contingent contradictions, rather than a
  general class antagonism, that disrupts the reproduction of capital. In the first
  chapter, I analyze the production-consumption identity in the reproduction of
  capital. Secondly, I address contingency in capitalist social relations, followed in
  the third chapter by the relation of the working class with consumption. In the
  final chapter, I re-theorize subjectification under the capitalist mode of
  production.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Class Struggle
  • Political Economy
  • Consumption
  • Subjectification
  • Aleatory Materialism
  • Capital

• Graduation date

  Fall 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3JP47

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.