The production misconception. A political reading of the appropriation

Abstract

This study borrows from the academic field of communication,
the category of appropriation to offer a political reading of the complexities
of contemporary capitalism. Marx characterized this as a mode of production
in order to highlight certain oppositional properties pertaining more
to the political rather than to the economic thought. The paper proposes
that the fundamental relations of capitalism, as they unfold over time, are
revealed more akin to the appropriation than to the production. The political
density of relations between productive capital and state institutions or
financial and communication systems permits to see them as conflicting but
not contradictory. Moreover, the shift of the production category opens to
the sphere of consumption and its cultural dimension, an important component
to think about the nature of conflicts and social reproduction.