I have looked at the reference Andrew gave to Capital Volume 1, the last pages of the last section of Chapter 1 ("The fetishism of the commodity and its secret") and I would like to take the debate further.
I would also prefer to read the Notes on Wagner in a context where I am discussing specific points since the medium is inherently daunting, to try to piece out what are marginal sometimes sarcastic remarks by Marx about a rival, and what are core ideas of his.
With no offence to Doug, the success of LBO-talk does not really lend itself to this sort of debate. I am wondering if Andrew has any other suggestion. Marxism-thaxis to which I am subscribed appears much quieter and more theoretical these days. If PEN-L is quieter perhaps I could subscribe there.
Obviously I will be guided by Andrew's suggestion hoping the idea is agreeable to him, but marxism-space is becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated, and it may be that others have a suggestion.
Chris Burford
London.
At 02:52 PM 6/2/98 -0400, you wrote:
>I thank Chris Burford for his kind words.
>
>I'd be delighted to send you the paper by snail-mail, Chris, if you will
>give me your address (off-list?). Or maybe I should try again
>electronically?
>
>"One idea I received from Andrew more than two years ago, before he
>understandably left an unmoderated list, was that Marx's theory of exchange
>value needs to be placed in the context of an overall concept of social
>value, which was not specific to capitalist economies.
>
>[...]
>
>"What I would appreciate now, and hopefully is reasonably to hand, and is
>suitable to communication on an internet list, is whether Andrew could give
>the references to where Marx appears to refer to an overarching concept of
>value."
>
>The core truth here is that Marx didn't think value is transhistorical.
>("Value" is the term he used to refer to that which commodities have in
>common; "exchange-value" is the *form of appearance* of a commodity's value.
>E.g., we say a coat is worth 1 oz. of gold; the value of the one commodity,
>coat, *appears as* a physical amount of another commodity, gold. However,
>Marx shows, this appearance is misleading, because it is actually impossible
>for any commodity to be the "substance" of value, as the gold appears to
>be.)
>
>But I apologize to Chris for having given the impression that Marx thereby
>thought value (of commodities) is one species of a larger category of value.
>I don't think he had an overarching concept of value. Indeed, he rejected
>this more or less explicitly.
>
>The best reference here is his "Notes on Wagner"; I use the text in Terrell
>Carver, _Karl Marx: Texts on Method_ (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975).
>(The most relevant passages are cited in the above paper.) He makes clear
>that Ch. 1 of _Capital_ is not a discourse on the concept of "value," or of
>"exchange-value," but an analysis of the form taken in capitalism by the
>product of labor, i.e., the commodity. (The two main purposes of my paper
>are to clarify the meaning of this difference, and to explain the
>distinction between value and exchange-value, through a reading of the
>opening section especially.)
>
>There are also many passages throughout his work (and Engels') that argue
>that value is not transhistorical, that it pertains only to commodity
>production and especially to comprehensive commodity production (i.e.,
>capitalism), and that value will not exist under socialism. One important
>citation is near the end of Ch. 1 of _Capital_ I (pp. 174-75 of the
>Penguin/Vintage ed.) in which he says that value belongs to a society in
>which "the process of production has mastery over man, instead of the
>opposite." Many other passages are cited in Ronald Meek, _Studies in the
>Labor Theory of Value_ (NY and London: Monthly Review Press), pp. 256ff.
>Get the latest edition possible, because I'm not sure this stuff is in the
>first ed.
>
>Various postmodernists do try to say that exchange-value is one species of
>value. I think this runs counter to Marx's method, which is to begin from
>determinate forms of human activity, or the artifacts of that activity
>(e.g., commodities) rather than from abstractions. I also think it
>misunderstands his distinction between value and exchange-value.
>
>Not being one of Doug's "The Best and the Fastest," I'm finding it hard to
>participate on this list, but I will try to stick it out a bit longer.
>Volume was only one of the problems I had with the proto Marxism list.
>
>Ciao
>
>Andrew
>
>
>Andrew ("Drewk") Kliman Home:
>Dept. of Social Sciences 60 W. 76th St., #4E
>Pace University New York, NY 10023
>Pleasantville, NY 10570
>(914) 773-3951 Andrew_Kliman at msn.com
>
>"... the *practice* of philosophy is itself *theoretical.* It is the
>*critique* that measures the individual existence by the essence, the
>particular reality by the Idea." -- K.M.