I was thinking of the study of capitalism like the study of the disassembly of an already-invented engine. But there are always limits to the machine as metaphor.
Capitalism, and civilization for that matter, was not invented. It came into being, it emerged, almost with a will of its own, amidst a set of self-reinforcing patterns that were sustained and repeated over a period of time.
And we really only partially understand the very reality that we collectively make. A science of capitalism, or economics, or even political economy, had to develop after the process was already well underway and in motion. Indeed, the understanding developed concurrently with the process itself.
We have competing understandings of the same things, based on our respective social and spatial arrangements. Capital's sycophants, for example, worship it as a deity, as a value-creator that bestows blessings on those fit to receive them. That understanding is conditioned by the deeper need to maintain one's socio-spatial arrangement.
The understanding is bound up with the thing itself. What the hell is it?
