----- Original Message ----- From: Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, December 18, 1999 2:07 AM Subject: Re: Commodity Fetishism (was Re: Grumpy lefties and VENONA)
> Yoshie comments:
>
> >Marx counterposed _history_ to the "science" of economics, and it
> >is this fact that both posties and empiricists neglect.
>
> I would appreciate a quote or reference because I have been impressed by
> some who insist that Marx claimed to be writing only a critique of
> political economy, not a political economy itself - but perhaps this is
> another point.
>
Giovanni Arrighi, Terence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, in _Anti-Systemic Movements_ quote Marx from _Capital_ and the _Manifesto_ to the effect that capital induces both the immiseration and the strengthening of labor in the workplace. They write:
"As we know, Marx never imagined to reconcile these two contradictory tendencies that he discovered in the abode of production, let alone work out fully and systematically all their implication for the analysis of class contradictions in capitalist society. Instead, Marx, in some of his historical writings, gave up the critique of political economy and reverted to the Smithian paradigm of class analysis, reviving rather than carrying out the critique of political economy" (10).
All best Christian