Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

[blindpig]

anaxarchos
10-04-2009, 08:24 PM

Not only are there a few decades worth of correspondence which shows just how closely the two worked together but there is the fact that Freddy's hands are all over Capital. He put together Volumes II & III, as well as the three volume set of Theories of Surplus Value. He comments ten-thousand times in his later writings, "As Marx definitively proved...", and so on. Still, Freddy clearly deferred to the decade and a half that Marx spent on Political Economy. The earlier works carry both of their names while from the Groundplan, forward, it is Marx alone. It is often commented on by many, that Marx became encyclopedic on the subject as time passed.

The only thing that I can think of is that Freddy is so straight-forward and practical... much more difficult than Marx to transform into a toothless academic icon.

I think he was merely being deferential, an etiquette that neither LaSalle nor Bernstein suffered from.

[blindpig]

Kid of the Black Hole
10-04-2009, 09:44 PM

"as has been commonly noted"..sort of facetiously because I do not see that at all, except that Engels is perhaps a touch more concerned with taking pains to impart the key points almost didacticly without some of the flourish and pomp, the sort of cherry-on-top that Marx always tosses in

It is ridiculous some of the shit that gets slung at Engels..didn't "understand" Marx, tried to subvert Marx, and on and on..the hell?

[blindpig]

meganmonkey
10-05-2009, 07:00 AM

Is it basically saying that although the specifics (skills?) of the labor may not be identical, in terms of how the labor creates value in the commodity all labor is measured as equal? And that this is done in order to allow it to be measured in the abstract, in the quantitative rather than the qualitative?

This is where I find out if I am as caught up as I think.

[blindpig]

blindpig
10-05-2009, 07:09 AM

I can hang with that, so far, so good. We are working our way to the 'universal solvent', these demonstrations showing it's elemental essence.

The uniform/mufti allusion I did not get, is that so important?

When he refers to "it's buckram body" he is talking about use value, yes?

The Franklin footnote was interesting. Can't help but know that he was a 'stupor mundi' but I didn't know he was concerned with theoretical economics.

And now Les McCann and Eddie Harris are in my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT4-mBAC6KA

The podium is yours, maestro.

[blindpig]

Dhalgren
10-05-2009, 07:25 AM
Karl says specifically that weaving and tailoring are different kinds of labor and are only equatable as "congealed labour" embodied in different commodities. The equation of different labors is only in the "abstract", after the creation of exchangeable commodities. The "value" is in "abstract labor", not in "physical labor", per se[i/].


I think...

[blindpig]

blindpig
10-05-2009, 07:44 AM

I think.

[blindpig]

meganmonkey
10-05-2009, 08:17 AM

I think...

Am I the only one who looked up 'congelations' just to make sure it meant what it looks like? I don't think I've ever encountered variations on the word congeal in any context other than gooey stuff, heh.

[blindpig]

blindpig
10-05-2009, 08:48 AM

I had to look up 'buckram' and that Latin.

It is gooey stuff, hope it sticks

[blindpig]

anaxarchos
10-05-2009, 10:28 AM

The murky social stuff (all labor treated as if it were the same - goo) comes to rest in commodities as they are produced, and sets once they enter the world of commodities - congeals.

[blindpig]

anaxarchos
10-05-2009, 10:48 AM

(so yes, you are caught up)

...but here, he is saying slightly more. He is saying that when commodities stood on on their own, we could explore their two-fold nature. But, when commodities enter into even this simplest of relationships with other commodities (the Accidental Form of Value), they cease to have a two-fold nature. They exist as "values" alone. Every commodity which enters into this relationship is qualitatively identical. The only weaving left in the thing is "the weaving of values". They differ from each other only quantitatively (which we are about to explore).

The commodities in our equation are commensurable. How do we know this? Because the equation measures the value of the first relative to that of the second. They could not stand in this relation if they were not. (How do we measure length with a scale?)

Turn your last sentence on its head: Because exchange is based on quantity, all qualitative distinctions have already disappeared.