> Whatever light Althusser here throws on Marx's critique of classical
> economics (and honestly I have trouble following him),
didn't work for you? it might be best to read part 1 of _reading capital_ in full, especially the passages preceding the ones i cited, which are on, well, reading. if you're interested.
but i think there's an uncanny proximity between steedman's criticism of marx and that of marx's criticism of classical polec, esp here, where gordon writes:
>>> "An ambiguity lies concealed in the phrase 'how much.' Does this
mean how much in value terms, or in physical terms? That is to say, is
the question > at issue what quantity of bread the worker needs--or is
it, rather, what > the value of this quantity is? Marx took the question
in the second way. > The value of wages, in his view, depends on the
value of the bread the > worker needs.<<<
that is, steedman (via gordon) shows a blank in the phrasing, and it's this blank which, because of its presence in the text, enables a shift in perspective, a critique, a kind of immanent reading which makes for a break from established ideology.
but all this is over and above the issue of whether i think steedman or althusser are right on this point. i was trying, in the citation, to show a mode of reading and critique which is not premised on an enlightenment version of knowledge and critique in particular (of 'seeing' what is not there), but of how critique is possible given the omnipresence of ideology (of 'seeing' the 'blanks'). (there are different versions of immanent critique, but they follow a similar kind of practice.)
but what you raise is interesting for another, though related, reason i think:
is it really the case that marx answers the question with "the VALUE of labor pwoer is determiend by the the VALUE of the bread required to produce the laborer"?
otoh, he clearly does. and there is clearly a circularity there. but there's another sense in which he doesn't i think. (i'm hazarding, so any corrections would be appreciated)
a) the importance of marx's critique begins with the difference between labour and labour-power;
b) is this not, then, another way of putting sraffa's notion of labour as an 'exogenous variable'? that, in the difference between labour and labour-power, and specifically in their _connection_ within economic calculation, in the way labour is reduced to labour-power, both as a constant and constantly unsuccessful attempt -- in the discourses of political economy and in the social processes of reproduciton of capitalism, ideologically and really (to use a crap distinction) -- the remainder is exactly this quality of _labour_ as an extrinsic variable. what escapes the calculation, the attempt to predict and control the circuits of capitalist production, is exactly this 'arbitrariness' of labour (or the working class). arbitrary from the perspective of classical political economy's calculations. and, that it's this arbitrariness which makes for the persistence of political economy as a discipline -- to pun it, as a constant attempt to discipline this perceived arbitrariness. which is another way of saying what i'd noted before when i posted the althusser quote (below*).
c) and so, we get back to the issues we were discussing recently around 'the missing book on the wage' in marx's work. how much of a blank is this? negri, o'connor, lebowitz, others have answered this question in different ways, which is what makes their work interesting. but to some extent it's a question whose answer remains ambiguous, or rather can only be answered through an account of specific class struggles, since no answer can be formal but is always a question of the kinds of class composition (ie., it is by definition, variable) that obtain in particular moments of capitalist history. this is also why to some extent there was never a 'book on the wage', and why we can't write one at that level of abstraction.
Angela _________
*>>hence, classical political economy's remainder is this confusion, or rather non-identity between labour-power and labour, between the specific presupposition of capital (labour-power, abstract labour) and labour. it is a recognition in a fetishised way of this 'misfit' which serves to prompt the entire field of political economy, and which it then proceeds to render as 'blanks' in the answers it gives, thus to make this remainder manageable, to render it null and void within the answer by never entirely posing the question of its own preconditions, by making labour-power appear on a continuum with or identical with labour. the unstated question still remains, the management is never entirely complete or effective -- which is why political economy still appears as a viable form of knowledge.