Please don't bother me with fictional letters from Marx. Pen-l deserves
better than efforts to deflect discussion with lame efforts as humor.
Besides, I don't care about "what Marx said" (since no thinker is totally
consistent and all can be quoted out of context). Instead, I see Marxian
political economy as a living tradition and debate in social science, not a
matter of dead texts.
At 10:10 PM 05/24/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>Jim Devine:
> >Of course, debates about definitions aren't really very substantive:
> >whether or not the "mita" was capitalist depends more on one's definition
> >of capitalism than it does on the empirical nature of the mita.
>
>But based on this August 11, 1873 correspondence Karl Marx agrees with me,
>not you:
>
>Meine Liebe Friedrich,
>
>It has been a busy week at the British Museum where I have been sifting
>through data on 16th century Peru and Bolivia as part of my ethnological
>survey of pre-Columbian society.
>
>I have made the most extraordinary discovery. In Peru the Spaniards had an
>institution they called the 'mita' which required the Indians to fulfill
>labor obligations. While superficially resembling precapitalist class
>relations, the 'mita' has more in common with contemporary Great Britain
>once you see through to the dialectical nub of the matter. Hegel said
>apropos of this--of course absent the materialist 'sine qua non'--that,
>"Oyfen himmel a yarid!"
>
>Please tell Fleigelheimer to send funds immediately. My darling Jenny has
>been gaining a pound a week lately and I have to buy her new knickers.
>
>Keep the faith,
>
>Karl
>
>Louis Proyect
>Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
