“First of all, there is a limit, not inherent to production generally, but to production founded on capital.” From this he deduces that “capital is not, as the economists believe, the absolute form for the development of the forces of production.”⁴⁸⁵ But that “absolute form” exists: this is Marx’s dream, as Hilbert’s dream will be complete axiomatization. No Gödel stepped in to put him right.

“We have already seen that the sphere of circulation has a gap in it, through which gold (or silver, or the money material in general) enters as a commodity with a given value.”⁴⁸⁶

The “gap” is self-reflection. Among all objects there is always one that represents the representation of objects. And that single object is enough to compromise the order of all the others that have gone before it.

“A thing can be a use-value without being a value.⁴⁸⁷ This is the case whenever its utility to man is not mediated through labor. Air, virgin soil, natural meadows, unplanted forests, etc., fall into this category.” From this paradox, which Marx formulates marginally in Das Kapital, is derived the articulation of a whole world. Let us follow the ceremony: the significant area has been marked out: it is the area of value. We touch its substance, which is labor. We search for its unit of measure, which is work-time (this, so far, is Ricardo). We observe its character, which is abstract labor, sans phrase (a crucial addition by Marx): an empty notion, which serves to seal the system at every point: “la différence est le langage sensible de la ressemblance—difference is the perceivable language of likeness)” (Marcel Schwob). By affirming the uniformity of elements, it eliminates the immeasurable—just as, in Saussure, the arbitrary nature of the sign (en principe) allows language to exist as a system; in the same way that, in Freud, the phallus is the primary signifier that allows exchanges of libido to occur, and to be calculable. In the end, this system based on emptiness reproduces the totality of nature: but this time it is nature that is processed, matured by the alchemical process of production (of commodities, of signs, of ghosts).

The potlatch is based on the impossibility of equal exchange: the exchange has to be unequal. Reciprocity is ruled out, since it is a perpetual deception. Equivalents exist only in the inverted world of initiates, since initiates communicate in a shared epiphany.

Equal exchange is mystical exchange—that of twins, of transparent speech. The machine of capitalism imposes mystical exchange as usual exchange. “Twins have the right, equal word.⁴⁸⁸ They have the same value. They are the same thing. The man who sells, the man who buys, they too are the same thing. They are twins.”

The fetishistic character of commodities can be considered in two ways: as a deceptive superstition that persists in the everyday secular world or as a daily opportunity to experience the marvel of the fetish. Marx had the genius to recognize that marvel. But he felt a deep resentment to the marvelous, since he knew it was just the beginning of the terrible. And those exposed to the marvelous are unreliable, are unusable. The slightest gust from the Powers sweeps them away. It is better to put an end to the marvelous in its extreme form, smashing shop windows and devastating their goods. So Marx could offer his gift to a remarkably dull, submissive, and vibrant multitude: he could instruct them how to blow the lock off a world in which every marvel has vanished—or lies dead on the ground, where it is displayed to children as an enemy of the people.