Marx's temporal bridges and other pathways

Abstract

In this article I reply to three critics. Responding to Cinzia Arruzza, I argue that capital encounters a large spectrum of differences of gender, religion and ethnicity, as well as differences generated by racism. Capital is able to use these differences to its own profit in order to differentiate wages and intensities of exploitation and thereby divide the working class. Responding to Peter Osborne, I contend that my temporal-layered framework elucidates how capital organises and synchronises different temporalities according to the dominant temporality of socially-necessary labour time. I combine Bloch's idea of 'multiversum' and Benjamin's idea of history in order to show how conflicting temporalities can disclose new political possibilities of liberation. Responding to Harry Harootunian, I articulate the relationship between my reading of Marx and the Postcolonial critique.