Become an individual: the notion of self and other in the capitalist social bond

Abstract

This essay addresses a lacunar field in the critique of political economy: the study and dispute of the notion of person in the capitalist social bond. With this intention, we bring ‘the individual’ to focus, defending the idea that he or she configures a capitalist institution, that is, a rule of thought about the self and the other that gives consistency to society. We show, then, that this consistency can be perceived in Marx’s own analysis of capitalism, since the historical fulfillment of the meaning of labor and the logic of the
contents of the commodity require the production of essentially heteronomous subjects, submissive and driven by inequality. The individual is thus reconfigured, put in the place of a compromise solution that propagates an opposite discourse: that our individuality is an apparent mark of autonomy, independence, equality and freedom.