Marx did not share the illusion that the economy was a "machine" that automatically resolves value into price or whatever. Analysis more or less dictates that one treat production and exchange "as if" the economy were such a machine. But that doesn't make the economy a machine. A non-mechanistic analysis is thus an oxymoron.
In my reading of Marx, I certainly encountered enough disclaimers -- including the poetic Section Four of Chapter One on "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof" -- to enable me to understand that human intervention was perpetually required to bring about the transformations indicated by the analysis. I suspect that the misreadings are frequently willful and cover up naked ideological loathing with the trappings of "scientific" critique. One needs only to delve into the 18th century and early 19th century pamphleteer literature on machinery and unions (or the 17th century literature on money and credit) to get a sense of how thin the analytical veneer was on a class perspective that systematically validated the fancies of the propertied while patronizingly dismissing the legitimate grievances of the poor. The object of most of this literature was to prescribe ways to "improve the condition of the poor" by making them more useful to the rich. Reread that previous sentence until you fully grasp the self-serving "altruism" of the exercise. Analysis takes for granted the maintenance of the given social hierarchy. But at the same time, pushing that analysis to its limit offers a handle -- perhaps the only handle -- on that class ideological perspective. On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree. Marx didn't present his ideas very clearly in CAPITAL. It > would have been nice if he'd had an introduction which listed the > sections of the book, explaining the links between them and the > progression of his thoughts. The closest I've found is on the first > page of the main text of volume III. > > On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Julio Huato <[email protected]> wrote: > > Jim Devine wrote: > > > >> what is the origins of the notion that Marx's theory of value is first > >> and foremost a theory explaining the level of individual prices (or > >> relative prices)? Even Ricardo's labor theory of prices only concerned > >> long-term equilibrium prices (and only applied 93% of the time, > >> according to Stigler). Smith's idea that relative prices are > >> proportional to relative labor-values applied only in the imaginary > >> “early and rude state of society” preceding “both the accumulation of > >> stock [i.e., capital goods] and the [private] appropriation of land.” > >> Marx was also aware of the systematic deviations between prices and > >> values under real-world capitalism. > > > > I blame Marx (for not making it sufficiently clear to readers that he > > wasn't building on Ricardo, but breaking away from him, and for not > > hiring a competent assistant or secretary and leaving such a mess), > > Engels (for not funding Marx sufficiently), Bohm-Bawerk, and > > Hilferding for not getting the point. Then the confusions > > metastasized. > -- > Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to > be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But > in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Sandwichman
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
