In this sense I’m convinced that my ideas of appropriation fit under a small part of the very large umbrella of surplus appropriation R&W develop (if this makes any sense?) as an example of specific instances of [capitalist-activist-other] appropriation.

This is why I can’t really say if there is always a 1-1 correlation between the cycles of economics and rhetoric. In my thesis I use production->invention and delivery->distribution somewhat carelessly, but I do not always think that these correlations exist. When one is engaging say, the capitalist press, such a correlation does exist. But when one is say, engaging other activists in an economy focused on the use-value of a thing and not its ability to crank out surplus value, this does not seem to be a 1-1 to me.

Are you working toward such a dictinction? I’d ve very interested in hearing your thoughts on this!

Jim

I think there are important instances where a 1-1 parallel should be explicitely drawn. But I should say that I don’t know how to do this all of the time. Let me explain where I am with my work right now:

I’ve talked with you about rhetorical velocity (which is a compositional consideration of invention looking toward future potential instances of deliery), and I call the success of this rhetorical strategy “positive appropriation.” This is a theory of rhetoric that takes economy into consideration.

What I have a deep future interest in is what I am calling negative appropriation, which is not a direct opposite but is something still quite antipodal. This is my attempt to develop a theory of economics that takes rhetoric into consideration.

Negative appropriation is, simply put, when one’s product of labor is either pejoratively re-used in counter-rhetorical ways or in ways that work against the labor value of the producer.

In my concept of negative appropriation I’m attempting to take directly into consideration both rhetorical intentionality and economic valuation.

For rhetorical intentionality, its useful to explain when a strategy for future appropriation fails — when theorizing with rhetorcial velocity has adverse consequences.

For economic valuation, I mean negative appropriation as a critical concept to prompt the asking of several questions:

(1) How are the material conditions for the production of “texts” changing?

and

(2) How is the value of these “texts” for capital changing?

and

(3) How does this impact how capital values existing and future labor?

In my thesis I look at how the introduction of the digital and the rise of “immaterial” production (which constitutes a significant change in the means of production) may be seen as to have very real changes on specific kinds of labor. I spend a while talking, thanks to some help from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, about how the import of wages based on the time needed to create a discrete material thing are starting to erode in certain types of immaterial production.

For example, a programmer may be hired to write code for a corporation, paid a certain wage for her or his time, and then let go at the end of the project. But the product of the programmer’s labor time may be re-appropriated in later projects. This is a known possibiliy for many contract programmers, but what’s less visible is the labor time of the programmer re-participating in a future production cycle.

I call this condition “hyper-production”, which is simply put (1) the ability of the product to participate in future production cycles and (2) the ability of the product to partcipate in the future reserve army of labor of the producer.

A better example for rhetoric is stock video footage, where the reporter on assignment is increasingly creating not only the evening broadcast, but is also creating digital archives that will mean future reporters will not need to create as much copy for future broadcasts. This has an impact on labor.

To go back to the three questions I pose, I think that these questions prompt activists to answer how changes in the means of production may impact future labor conditions — which has impacts on things like, say, everything from media consolidation to dropping wage scales in many sectors of IT.

I believe these things all have political ramifications that may be useful in informing specific campaigns

Thank you for the review and for attending our session! I’ve been checking out your website and I’m interested to learn more about your work.

When I’ve thought of rhetorical velocity I’ve considered it in two ways: as applicable to the invention stages of composition and to reflective or critical analysis.

In the inventive stages when delivery (particularly mass delivery) is a concern, rhetorical velocity is the specific set of reflections that involve thinking far and wide through the possible distributions of a text. This includes considerations of economic landscapes and moments and places where textual appropriation may occur.

In the press advisory example, one thinks beforehand of publication deadlines, reporters material conditions (including how local reporters prefer to recieve and process the text) and these considerations are calculated along side the rhetorical goals of the advisory writer(s). This equation that makes up the delivery and compositon considerations of the writer in relation to future goals for reproduction and distributon is to approximate the rhetorical velocity of a text. And in this sense rhetorical velocity considers the future time (and in particular moments) and place(s) of texts as part of a distributive strategy.

In the reflective or critical analysis, determining the rhetorical velocity of a text is looking back at how a text circulated, particularly when the text had moments of reproduction and/or appropriation.

I defended my masters thesis a couple weeks ago and I’m currently making revisions to my final draft. I introduce in my thesis an economic theory for writing production you may be interested in checking out. If you want I’d be more than happy to shoot a copy your way!

Thank you again for reviewing this session!

Jim