sartesian wrote:
I appreciate Ted's reproduction of Smith's comments on this process, but... Brenner shows how Smith has to assume capitalist relations in order to explain these capitalist relations. Brenner goes into this pretty extensively in several works....I would recommend Property and Progress: Where Adam Smith Went Wrong; I would recommend it but I'm not sure it's been published yet. Shame on me.
The main point of continuity between Smith and Marx is the conception of the transition as the substitution of the capitalist for the feudal "passions." In Marx, this involves as well the destruction of "petty industry" in both agriculture and manufacturing and the coming into dominance in both of "new passions," "passions the most infamous, the most sordid, the pettiest, the most meanly odious." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm> Marx has also taken from Smith and from Hegel's sublation of Smith the idea of the "passions" in this sense as productive of positive consequences not consciously intended by those motivated by them, i.e. as productive, as Hegel puts it, of "deeds shared in by the community at large." "I shall, therefore, use the term 'passion;' understanding thereby the particular bent of character, as far as the peculiarities of volition are not limited to private interest, but supply the impelling and actuating force for accomplishing deeds shared in by the community at large." http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/history3.htm What role does Brenner give to the "passions" in this sense in the transition? Ted
