METAPHYSICS OF CAPITALISM: Labor, Time, and the Second Founding of Modernity

This book presents a theoretical framework for analyzing capitalism as an ontological regime of social mediation. Its central argument is the dichotomy between latent and manifest capitalism — an ontological, not historical, distinction based on the degree to which abstract labor becomes universalized as the principle of social recognition. Latent capitalism designates regimes where capital, exchange, and accumulation exist, but abstract labor does not become the universal norm of recognition. The value-form remains sectorally limited, the state is not structurally bound to permanent accumulation, and time is not the absolute measure of human worth. Manifest capitalism, by contrast, represents a configuration in which abstract labor becomes an all-pervasive principle of social legitimacy: time measured by productivity penetrates all spheres of life, the state depends structurally on value reproduction, and individuals are evaluated by their capacity to bear labor-power. The book is structured in three parts. Part I (chapters 1–4) introduces the ontological framework and historically illustrates the difference between latent (Asian civilizations, European latent forms) and manifest configurations (Amsterdam as ontological rupture). Part II (chapters 5–9) analyzes the structural logic of manifest capitalism: time as ontological structure (Heidegger, Husserl), growth as structural imperative, autopoietic system reproduction (Luhmann), and anthropological-existential limits of capital. Part III (chapters 10–13) challenges the “standpoint of labor” (Postone), presents a thought experiment of a society based on status of existence (Arendt, Jung), analyzes the limits of modernity, and formulates the concept of a second founding of modernity as a possible shift from productivity to existence as the ontological basis of human dignity. Methodologically, the work combines Marx's critique of political economy, phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger), systems theory (Luhmann), and reinterpretations of Marxism (Postone, Arrighi, Wallerstein). It introduces original concepts including the autopoietic system of labor (applied to state socialism), society of status of existence, second founding of modernity, and the cycle of absorption of critique. This is not a political program but an ontological reflection on structural possibilities. It argues that modernity now has the material means to separate survival from labor integration—opening a horizon where human dignity might be reconceived beyond performance.

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