La crise organique comme décompensation du corps capitaliste : Gramsci et Spinoza

Abstract

By its very name, Gransci’s “organic crisis” hints at a view of the social formation as a political body. Yet, a general theory of bodies such as Spinoza’s is required to give this intuition all its conceptual rigour. Combined with Marx and the heterodox Marxism of the so-called “Régulation” theory gives way to an unexpected use of Spinozism concepts of “form” and “figure” in order to conceive the capitalist bodies. The organic crisis then indicates a decompensation threshold of the political capitalist body. It can then be appraised as a “figural crisis”; a crisis in which the capitalist body has to find a new figure in order to persevere in its form. Gramsci suggests that this “refiguration” endeavour mostly takes place within the realm of the political institutions through which the inherent and intrinsic antagonisms of the capitalist form itself - its fundamental social relations (Marx) - are ultimately accommodated. A characteristic refiguration is that of Caesarism that consists in a transformation in the geometry of the common affect, the “lattice” common effect of the institutional complex mutating into the radial geometry of the “Caesar” as an affective focus.

Keywords

• organic crisis
• Spinoza
• political bodies
• Caesarism
• common affect
• Enlightenment