> I'll be most readers - most educated readers - would find vol. 1 of
> Capital pretty rough going. And that was the vol. that Marx finished.
>
> He didn't just observe. He linked his observations to a theory, and
> the theory illuminated his observations. Even the most
> anti-theoretical person operates with some kind of implicit theory.
> Why the hostility to making it explicit?
Capital is a translation of a 19th century text on economics. It's a slog because it uses economic terms that are unfamiliar, but those terms are necessary because there are no more familiar substitutes. Whereas a lot of 'theory' seems to make up for shallow or obvious insights by dressing them up in obscure writing. Here's something Martha Nussbaum once wrote on the subject:
"Some precincts of the continental philosophical tradition, though surely not all of them, have an unfortunate tendency to regard the philosopher as a star who fascinates, and frequently by obscurity, rather than as an arguer among equals. When ideas are stated clearly, after all, they may be detached from their author: one can take them away and pursue them on one's own. When they remain mysterious (indeed, when they are not quite asserted), one remains dependent on the originating authority. The thinker is heeded only for his or her turgid charisma. One hangs in suspense, eager for the next move."
Seth