Reflections on reading Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx (15)

The fifteenth night

A dog is standing on the arm of a huge balance which tips and tilts; first one way then another, as the dog adjusts its position above the pivot. It appears that the dog is preparing to jump to a place of safety. These scales weigh all state capital in balance with the totality of foreign debt. Far below lays the pit of human suffering, the scale of which is monstrous.
The dog looks down, a slow steady stream of saliva drips from its mouth; it is worried and howls for its master, but Marx is inside the bank looking for the dog’s lead. He is sure he had it locked away in a safe deposit box, but which one? He’s not sure. He decides to work out the box number through a complex system of numerology. With a white chalk stick he starts to write equations on a blackboard. Complex algebraic formula are becoming linked by directional arrows, brackets now containing words as well as numbers, the top half of the blackboard is now covered in complex white scrawl and out of this two lines emerge, one to the right and one to the left. He draws a circle at the end of each line, inside of the left one he writes, (1) and inside of the right one he writes (2). Beneath these two numbers he writes the word INTERPRETATION in capitals. From just beneath the T that sits between the N and the E he draws a line downwards angled towards the left and this time draws a rectangular box opening out from the line’s base. He starts to write within the box. Hypothesis 1. All measures are gaps between reality and ideas. Reality can compromise value, which in itself can only be measured by belief. Therefore the length of the lead is determined by the following:



Marx now draws a line downwards and sloping to the right from beneath the letter I that sits between the letters T and O. He draws another rectangular box and begins to write. Hypothesis 2. All measures of facts are questionable. The ideal is a fixed point. An economic analysis would therefore be determined by principles of inheritance. Therefore the length of the lead is determined by a Diophantine equation.



Marx stops, he is getting out of his depth, but whilst working this through he has intuited the whereabouts of the lead and now sets off to find it.