The first time I tried to read Marx, I was a second-year graduate student at UC Berkeley (in English) and I simply could not understand what he was talking about. I thought he was making it all up, so I was very wary of accepting any of his conclusions. A year later, I got a part-time job writing accounting procedures for a multinational coporation. They hired me because they were experiencing a 65% rate of turnover every six months, and their fix was to have an english major write job procedures for every employee in the company. That way, when they inevitably left, the learning curve for their replacement would be less steep. Anyway, I spent an entire year sitting with every employee in that company: accounts payable, billing, cost accounting, etc. and documented every step of their jobs. THEN I read Capital again and realized that Marx was making nothing up. He was simply describing/analyzing the way things really work in the real capitalist world.
I mention this because there are times when being unable to understand something theoretical has less to do with its theoretical nature than with missing the experience upon which that theory is based.
The company went bankrupt a few years later--as well they should. After all, they could have certainly reduced their turnover rate by treating and paying people decently--rather than hiring a smartass grad student. But I was glad to have worked there and I haven't had any trouble with Marx since. Poststructuralism/deconstructionism is a different issue alltogether.
Joanna Bujes