Marx Reloaded  

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Marx Reloaded (2011) is a German documentary film written and directed by the British writer and theorist Jason Barker.

It features interviews with several well-known philosophers, the film aims to examine the relevance of Karl Marx's ideas in relation to the Great Recession. The film's title is a wordplay on The Matrix Reloaded, the sequel to The Matrix, which is parodied in the documentary.

Marx Reloaded features interviews with several well-known philosophers, among them those often associated with Marxism and Communist ideas, including John Gray, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Nina Power, Jacques Rancière, Peter Sloterdijk, Alberto Toscano and Slavoj Žižek. The film also includes animation scenes with Marx trapped in a surreal world resembling the 1999 science fiction–action film The Matrix, which starred Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. In one such animated scene Marx (Jason Barker) encounters Leon Trotsky (Ivan Nikolic) in a pastiche of the red pill and blue pill scene in The Matrix in which Reeves' character Neo first meets Fishburne's character Morpheus.

Subtitles

[Music]

is capitalism destroying itself

and the wealth of the planet with it

i think that's total hogwash capitalism

doesn't destroy wealth capitalism

creates wealth

[Music]

today karl marx and the idea of

communism are back in vogue

the original revolutionary socialist has

become a cultural icon

[Music]

mark's capital band ends of the bullet

supreme

is a fairly

but can marx's critique of capitalism

really help us through our crisis-ridden

times

the question from marx which might be

slightly different for us now is what

comes after that critique

what might we learn from a thinker whose

ideas were supposed to have disappeared

with the fall of the berlin wall

more than 20 years ago

[Music]

asked

have we been living in a dream is the

capitalist world about to be

unmasked as an ideological illusion

and replaced by the communist system we

thought had gone for good

[Music]

[Music]

at last comrade marx

have we met let's just say

we are theoretically acquainted

do you believe in destiny comrade

no why not because

the emancipation of the politely art

requires the critique of bourgeois

ideology oh

i know exactly what you mean

do you want to know the truth comrade

your slave to a liberal ideology that

goes deeper than you can possibly

imagine

ideology is everywhere when you read

shakespeare when you pay for your

daughter's acting classes

when you buy you a hemorrhoid cream

no one can be told what an ideology is

carl you must see it

not to believe it take the blue pill

and you'll wake up in cologne as the

editor of a provincial newspaper and

join a masonic lodge

take the red pill and i will

show you how far the permanent

revolution

marx goes his life to studying

capitalism and its crises

but how did today's economists explain

the most

damaging economic events since the great

depression of the 1930s

Norbert Walter is the former chief economist at Deutsche Bank in america 100

in london the financial centre of europe

the crisis has also raised questions

about the future of the free market

Eamonn Butler

Eamonn Butler:

"One of the foundations of the modern economy is money and unfortunately money is a monopoly of the government and so what they tend to do is to debauch the currency they over inflate the currency they keep interest rates artificially low which the the market would not do we go out and we get loans and we buy houses and then we feel even and the houses go up in in value and then we feel even richer and then we go out and buy more things it's just like being on a drug you know you you have a drug and um it gives you an instant high and you say hey this is great but then then it starts to wear off so you take a bit more uh and then that wears off so you need an even bigger dose next time um and that's what governments have done to our economy unfortunately and that's why we are in a big mess and i really hope that they don't do the same thing again.

Bush television speech

My administration is working with congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets.

Antonio Negri on Bush

"Bush pouvait faire sa politique néoliberale et sa politique de guerre seulement si la classe ouvrière et en general tout les travailleurs américains était tranquile ... et pour le faire tranquile il falait leur permettre de s'acheter la maison et maintenir un certain niveau de consommation ... Donc, la crise c'est quoi? C'est le fait que le système néoliberale n'arrive pas aux gens de leur donner le prix de leur travail."

The rest

what was karl marx's approach to

thinking the economic system

we call capitalism how do his ideas

help us understand a system which has

come to dominate so many aspects of our

lives

as a thinker i would characterize marx

principally as a a brilliant theorist of

capitalism

but as well as being a theorist of

capitalism he was also a

the leader of a political movement and

what i would call a utopian theorist

what i mean is that he

believed he'd discovered a kind of logic

in history

a kind of logic of human development a

logic of the development of the entire

species

whose built-in endpoint although it

might not be achieved

was a condition of universal freedom

there's a beautiful

phrase by or expression by ernest bloch

writing about marx where he says well

marx is often accused for having this

uncompromising you know brutalizing kind

of impersonal thinking

and blocks as well you know this is um

this is a result of marx having to think

like capitalism so he says uh just like

the best detective has to think like a

criminal

the best detective has to enter into the

mentality

of the criminal which is a very

dangerous practice and of course many

marxists who have tried to think like

capitalism have

effectively become apologists of

capitalism and that might be the reason

why

but that in a sense is i think a great

way of understanding marx's

method and the energy and combativeness

of his thought you know what does it

mean

for uh for a detective to uh

to think like a criminal

a specter is haunting europe the specter

of communism all the powers of old

europe have entered into a holy alliance

to exercise this specter

pope and czar mettenik and gizel

french radicals and german police spies

the communist manifesto is marx's most

famous political work

it seems light years away from our

modern liberal concerns

the communist manifesto has always had

really interestingly delayed effects in

history you know it's not a book even

though it's written with this tone of

urgency because it's a manifesto it's

this kind of you know

uh uh breathless text in a way

nevertheless the kind of real effects of

that weren't sort of seen for kind of

you know

50 or so years later and i think

you know it goes through various um

reiterations you know reappears and and

you know its relevance and different

parts of it are stressed at different

times

what is capitalism capitalism is an

economic system

driven by the profit motive according to

marx

capitalism thrives on the exploitation

of the working class

in order to make a profit the capitalist

pays his workers less than the true

value of their labor time for marx

such exploitation was the main cause of

social conflict

or class struggle between capitalists

determined to

increase their profits and workers

struggling to earn a living

bottom level i mean you know there

really are only two classes and and you

know

one of them exploits the other

but do marxist theories of exploitation

and class struggle

still hold true today or is the way in

which capitalists make their profits

changing slavoy jizek

is a slovenian philosopher at the

forefront of a popular revival in

marxist and communist thinking

it's obvious and marx already had an

idea awake of it that

with knowledge emerging as a sun

central factor of wealth production this

classical logic of exploitation no

longer works

vulgar example bill gates owns what marx

calls part of our general intellect our

the substance our symbolic substance

means of communication

and it's as if in order for us to

communicate

among ourselves we have to pay him a

rent so

and also this i think changes the very

definition

of what is proletariat today

proletarian procedure is no longer just

the working class it's no longer typical

even to be a little bit cynical today

those

it's almost as if most of the protests

today

protests of the unemployed and so on are

ironically sustained by a demand

please provide us a job where we can be

at least in a normal way exploited

for many thinkers the question of

exploitation

remains as important today as it was in

marx's time

but capitalism has evolved and modes of

work have changed

in ways which marx himself was unable to

predict

according to italian political

philosopher antonio negri

[Music]

is the co-editor of marx and engel's

complete works

he teaches politics at the humboldt

university of berlin

[Music]

along with antonio negri michael hart is

the co-author of best-selling books on

globalization

like negri heart sees knowledge

information

and natural resources as the common

wealth of

all peoples i think instead what what

has happened is capitalist economy has

developed towards um

centering on precisely the production of

many

immaterial and in some ways immeasurable

goods it's it's no longer

centered on the the production of

countable

automobiles and and refrigerators and

and toasters but but rather centered on

the

the production of ideas the production

of social relationships through services

um a variety of they're not unreal but

but

often intangible assets

the theorist alberto toscano is more

orthodox

when it comes to thinking the relation

of work and exploitation under

capitalism

people in a call center might be

engaging in activity which could refer

to as cognitive

or immaterial but they are also

and in fact most importantly working in

an environment

which is organized in terms of very

classical forms

of labor despotism of very classical

forms

of how to extract you know every second

or

millisecond how to scientifically manage

work in such a way that it can be more

productive and in such a way that the

rate of exploitation as mark would put

it is intensified

though i think you know heart and negri

are entirely right to identify

certain tendencies

i don't think that immaterial labor for

instance

is the source you know will be the

source as such of you know

future uh uh emancipatory

politics

jacques rossier is a renowned thinker of

working class politics

for us here economic exploitation is

not the dominant factor in all social

struggles

potassium

[Music]

for mark's class struggle was part of

everyday life

but the theory of exploitation was not

marx's sole contribution to

understanding capitalism

in order to grasp capitalism's true

power and persuasive hold over us

we must delve into the strange and

mystical world

of the commodity

[Music]

it is clear as noonday that man by his

industry

changes the forms of the materials

furnished by nature

in such a way as to make them useful to

him the form of wood for instance is

altered

by making a table out of it and yet the

table continues to be that common

everyday thing wood but so soon as it

steps forth as a commodity

it is changed into something

transcendent

capital marx's landmark study of

political

economy begins with a chapter devoted to

commodities

and the fetishism of commodities

today we're used to hearing about sexual

fetishes

but for marx the commodity fetish was

something quite different

norbert boltz is a leading media

theorist and the author

of the consumerist manifesto

[Music]

he

is

peter slotterdijk also sees ongoing

relevance in marxist theory of commodity

fetishism

in our modern consumer way of life

so the

[Music]

uh

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the theory of commodity fetishism

describes

how we accept value as a natural quality

of things

but according to marx such belief is an

illusion

every commodity like every value must be

produced

even something as seemingly natural as

water is commodified

purified packaged and transported to the

customer

a process from which the capitalist

julie extracts a profit

value is in the eye of the behelder

value doesn't exist in

objects what i would say is that

commodity fetishism is only the

capitalist version of a type of

objectification which is humanly

universal

is this the real world or are we the

victims of a marketplace that seduces us

mystifying our senses with its fantasy

objects

for marx commodities exist not to

satisfy our needs

nor because they are really useful to us

but

simply to be bought and sold

[Music]

um

[Music]

fetishism is an illusion which is part

of reality itself

you have this wonderful double reversal

that things are the way they are you may

be conscious

how things really are but in your

practice you follow

an illusion of which you are not

conscious well i i think our tendency to over invest importance in particular objects is a matter of human psychology rather than of

economics it's it's the way we are and

we follow fashion for example so we look

and see

what are the great celebrities wearing

or eating

or driving and we want one of those and

that's that's human nature the economic

system is is

is morally neutral on on this subject it

simply produces what people want

how does commodity fetishism apply to

the new social networks of the

information

age is it possible that the commodity

extends from what we buy

to the very core of who we are

the modern media so to speak colonize

partly create partly colonized partly

mobilized

collective fantasies um

i think that sort of transcends anything

which you find in marx because the

technology and the uh the level of

development wasn't such that it

permitted that kind of

um uh insight at that time

[Music]

today the commodity or consumer way of

life is everywhere

and in everything we do we see the world

through commodity eyes

so that every social encounter becomes a

potential sale

not just of material possessions but of

our individual

selves

Sloterdijk on commodity fetishism, Benjamin and prostitution, c 27:00

Der grundgedanke von marx dass die wahren fetische sind wurde im 20

jahrhundert aufgenommen besonders bei

den denken der frankfurter schule und da ist es wiederum walter benjamin der den

interessantesten beitrag zur

modernisierung des fetischismus

geleistet hat denn er entdeckt die

strukturelle ähnlichkeit zwischen der

menschlichen war und der sachlichen ware

zum auto benjamin universalisierung die

kategorie der prostitution und

prostitution liegt immer dann vor wenn

ein schönes ding leben vortäuscht und den passanten mit einer mit einem

angebot verführen möchte.

The rest

[Music]

the whole mystery of commodities all the

magic

and necromancy that surrounds the

products of labor

as long as they take the form of

commodities vanishes therefore

so soon as we come to other forms of

production

for marx the expectation was that the

commodity

would eventually give way to other forms

of economic production and cooperation

in which value is no longer measured

purely in monetary

terms can we imagine a world without

commodities

dimension for the organization complex

often

people are trying to think about you

know different ways of living living

sustainably

to try and create these kind of like

homeostatic modes of existence where

there is no waste

um you know and maybe even live in a

kind of collective way or a

you know hint a communal way of living

um

you know and i think there is that

people do feel a real kind of need

sometimes or a desire for that sort of

uh let's say a simpler but kind of more

creative and more interesting life

you know to to have proper relations

with people um

that aren't mediated through this kind

of you know commodity

uh fetishism

today there is growing disquiet in

western societies

on a range of social economic and

environmental questions

a new generation of marx-inspired

thinkers

sees ecology as a decisive political

issue

the management of the ecological

common of the air the earth the

atmosphere by private property

and even by states has led us to the to

the brink of disaster

but similarly i think in economic terms

we're we're ever

more handicapped

in our um even in economic functioning

by the rule of private property and even

the mechanisms of

of of of of accumulation through profit

communism in the sense of we are dealing

with

commons our earth as natural substance

somehow we have to manage it together if

you look at the common in communism

it gives you a very different view than

than we've inherited from

either from soviet ideology or from a

u.s anti-communist ideology

[Music]

can marx's work present a green

alternative

to the management of our planet's

natural resources

[Music]

john gray believes that global

capitalism

develops in ways that are not only

difficult to predict

but also impossible to control

where the uh neoleninists

but also the greens

are correct is in

arguing that human action

has destabilized the

planetary environment where they

are deluded is in believing that

human action can restabilize

the planetary environment what

from the fact that humans have triggered

this

instability it does not follow that

humans can

stop it even if humans were capable of

acting as a global collective which they

are not

and will not be

an under-regulated banking sector is

often regarded as having been

responsible for the economic crisis

which began in 2007

but is state regulation of the economy

the only solution

which examples from history might help

us avoid

ever greater catastrophes in future

it was a very interesting time in the

19th century

in the united states where in boston

there was a bank called

the suffolk bank and at that time banks

would produce their own currencies

and the suffolk bank would take the

currency of any bank

and it would give you hard currency hard

cash back it would take the notes in

and it would give you coins out if it

didn't trust

a particular bank if it thought a

particular bank was

perhaps taking too many risks it might

only give you

95 cents on the dollar now that's a

brilliant system because what it means

is

that banks become very aware of the

risks that they're taking

that's a kind of utopian

pathology of deluded thinking on the

right

which is recurrent because what it

refuses to

confront are the inherent contradictions

which emerge in

rapidly developing capitalist economies

the reason um

we are where we are now and how the type

of large banking systems and so forth

that we do have is that at every point

in its history

capitalism has been intertwined with

state power last year we found 17

billion dollars in cuts

this year we've already found 20 billion

what power

or incentive do governments have to

reform capitalism

as in the maximum force an indicator is

before

until endless

and young pronen the kind of capitalism

that has entered into crisis is a

capitalism that is producing ever more

of what marx called superfluous

populations or surplus populations

uh what mike davis and the planet of

slums have has called a kind of surplus

humanity

that is to say it's not entirely clear

that uh capitalism

exists today needs people needs workers

in the same way that it needed before

[Music]

capital functions through crises so

crisis doesn't mean

um the demise of capital

capital functions by breaking down it's

a it's a paradoxical way of

uh working but that's the way it works

and and often what happens

this is of course one of the things

that's happening as a result of the 2008

economic and financial crisis is that

crisis allows

uh the possibility for new

concentrations

of capital uh sometimes through

through privatization sometimes simply

through uh the concentration of wealth

or

or power in in fewer hands

there's a way in which kind of

capitalism is is undead you know it

keeps going even though

you know no one has any faith in it

anymore no one believes in it

you know and and you know this idea of a

kind of free market

is is was always a joke but it's even

more of a joke now i mean you know the

level of state intervention

you know we're seeing the way in which

this kind of plays out

badly for the losers i mean look at

what's happening in greece at the moment

if the state and the economy is so

closely intertwined

and if capitalism needs crisis to

function

then what sense is there in believing

that another world is possible

is there any way out of our

crisis-ridden times

[Music]

control

uh

[Music]

hmm

today capitalism's flaws are leading

people to consider

political alternatives of which

communism is one

but given the communist disasters of the

20th century

how can we really take the idea of

communism seriously

but the deepest moment of the false

fidelity

to the 20th century communism is i think

the rejection of all really existing

socialisms on behalf of some authentic

working-class movement just around the

corner waiting to explode

not only in its totalitarian aspect

communism as we knew it but that's

important to add

now i will get less and less popular

everyone would agree with this

then i add to it also social democratic

welfare state

but not only social democracy even

that's my nastiest thesis even

the darling of the radical democratic

left

this idea against the ossified state

structures

spontaneous local self-organization

direct democracy councils and so on

even that should be written off

mr brumlik is a critic of the new

marxist thinking

for brumlik the prospect of creating an

alternative to capitalism

which neglects democracy is highly

problematic

we are missing their

how practical is the idea of communism

does it offer a political alternative to

the state socialisms of the past

or is it a philosophical debate

i do think it's important to struggle

over the term you know to to

because the terms have such a history of

hope and suffering

that are attached to them what's meant

by communism in common language it's

meant

the exact opposite of what i mean by it

it's meant

absolute state control of the economy

and society which

seems to be counter to everything mark

said about it too

marx imagined communism as a classless

society for jacques conciere

the political challenge today is one of

creating an

emancipated society in which everyone

has an equal share

this actually would be important

capital

foreign

side because

[Music]

a communist society would be a society

where you everyone would be

allowed to dwell in his or her own

stupidity

you know you know who gave me this idea

even fred jameson who said

what if you imagine communism not as a

perfectly normal society

but like a crazy society that you find

like in some bregel's painting proverbs

you know

a madman here there is a man who thinks

who thinks he is a chicken and ah

gaga walks like this there is a man who

thinks he is napoleon box

you know all this madman politely exist

wouldn't this be nice

is the idea of communism a fantasy

is communism only realizable in our

imagination

it can't be some kind of utopian fantasy

about what comes after the apocalypse

you know people

are thinking all the time about this

kind of uh the end of the world and this

kind of you know

somehow it's supposed to be easier to

imagine the end of the world than the

end of

capitalism the end point is knowledge

things are getting

so rational because you know there is

the paradox of knowledge

everybody knows of intellectual

properties that

with ordinary material property we have

a competition because

if we have here a nice steak if i eat it

then you don't eat it no

you know what i mean like through use it

gets used with knowledge it's the

opposite if i know something and tell it

to you

knowledge not only doesn't get used in

the sense of

of less functional true but it even gets

rich knowledge knowledge is commodity is

effectively an anti-capitalist

commodity

[Music]

there's no proletarian revolution

movement there are no mass

communist parties

the left is in pretty well universal

disarray

uh there is no agency there is no

historical agency i mean this is

entirely

uh the neo-bolshevist near bolshevik and

neil then this movie is entirely

uh a creation of the media

of um cultural criticism

of hermetic seminars

of um cabaret-like

performances it does not exist in

any form of practical politics anywhere

in the world

and will not mention this

[Music]

today perhaps the attraction of marx's

ideas

can be explained by our desire for clear

alternatives in a world where few exist

a simple choice between a blue or a red

pill

the blue pill for the cozy retreat into

our consumer fantasies

or the red pill which finally reveals

the truth

i'm not sure i do think this is very

helpful at all i think

you know the only way to really

understand the world is to be kind of

continually curious

and and skeptical and cynical about it

perhaps

but always perhaps with a sort of

underlying optimism that things can

get better and that you yourself can

contribute to

making the world a better place in my

world it's the blue pill which is the

reality of course

red my ultimate position maybe i changed

my position and no would have been no

there must be a third pillar

i want the third pill but of course when

you take the third pill

you see that this is the true second

pill anyway i would go along with him if

he wants the third pill i want the third

pill too

there are no pills no pills can

stabilize any of these constructions all

these constructions are highly fragile

this is kind of fragrant

[Music]

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my

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my

[Music]

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you

See also

• Karl Marx in film
• Communism
• Marxism