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Friday, November 27, 2009

Marxism and Insects: Wasps Force Ladybugs Into Slavery

Posted by on Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 8:37 AM

ScienceDaily reports:

A Université de Montréal entomologist is investigating a type of wasp (Dinocampus coccinellae) present in Quebec that forces ladybugs (Coccinella maculata) to carry their larvae. These wasps lay their eggs on the ladybug's body, a common practice in the insect world, yet they don't kill their host.

"What is fascinating is that the ladybug is partially paralyzed by the parasite, yet it's eventually released unscathed," says Brodeur, who is also a biology professor and Canada Research Chair in Biocontrol. "Once liberated, the ladybug can continue to eat and reproduce as if nothing happened."

We can not help but see in this form of slavery something that's like what Marx calls "formal subsumption." The masters, the wasps, do not fully absorb the slaves, the ladybugs, into their system of reproduction, but only partially absorb them. Full absorbtion, real subsumption (or total subsumption), would mean the whole of a ladybug's life is consumed by the wasp's system of reproduction. The ladybug cannot be separated from this system in the way that a laborer cannot separated from a system that has totalized capitalist production and reproduction.


From an email exchange with James Latteier:

What Marx assumed as a clear-cut separation between the time spent in the factory and the time allotted to recreation and family life has been effaced. Post-Fordist production recruits all living time. Factory
labour is replaced by immaterial labour. Its resources are not muscle power but the competencies of everyday life—language, interests, culture. Self-shaping toward the goals of economic productivity occurs
all the time. Today, in one way or another, everyone is "homo oeconomicus".

The permutations to capitalism that have occurred in the past decades that have seen its dominance in every sphere of activity and every realm of governance, public and private, make opposition extremely problematic. Even posing the question is difficult, like the proverbial case of the fish discussing water.

Real subsumption is permanent slavery (the Ladybug spends the rest of its life working for the wasp), and also death:
Females of various wasp species locate their prey and sting them. This paralyses the prey but does not kill them. The paralysed prey is then carried or dragged to the nest that in some cases is prepared before prey capture. This often involves enormous effort. The prey is then stored in the nest and once the nest is sufficiently stocked, the wasp lays her eggs. The eggs hatch and the larvae then have live food on which to feed. The prey lasts as long as required for the wasp larva to mature and dies by the time the wasp larva pupates.
In both cases, the whole life is used up.

 

Comments (5) RSS

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1
Insects of all countries unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
Posted by Vlad Ulyanov on November 27, 2009 at 9:33 AM
2
Okay, Charles, when you start indulging Marxist entemology, it's time to take a step away from the "Das Kapital."
Posted by peterga on November 27, 2009 at 10:00 AM
3
"We can not help but see in this form of slavery something that's like what Marx calls 'formal subsumption.'"

I think I'm going to have to object to the use of the word "we" in that sentence.
Posted by Monty on November 27, 2009 at 10:15 AM
4
This reminds me a little of PETA saying beekeeping is slavery. Making parallels between human behavior and insect behavior may be kind of fun when you're making a metaphorical point but it is not particularly illuminating about either human or insect behavior taken in any literal way.

People aren't bugs and vice versa.
Posted by Kafka on November 27, 2009 at 3:16 PM
ObeyTheFist 5
So, if that's Marxism, what's this?

http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/~araff/Ant…
Posted by ObeyTheFist on November 28, 2009 at 5:37 PM

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