> My point was that the conception of modes of production as simply
> context conditioned rational means of surplus extraction and
> accumulation isn't Marx's.
[and]
> The conception of all "ideas" as epiphenomenal and/or as ideological
> camouflage for an invariant class interest in surplus extraction and
> accumulation also isn't Marx's.
You are putting words in my mouth in both of the above instances.
> > But were these "new passions" related to surplus extraction and
> > accumulation
> > in general, or the means by which these were achieved and by which
> > social
> > classes? The latter, IMO.
>
> As I've said, it seems to me that accumulation for the sake of
> accumulation is treated by Marx as a "passion" whose dominance is
> specific to capitalism. How do you make your view of these "new
> passions" as "means" consistent with the description of them, in the
> passage you quote, as the "stimulus" of primitive accumulation and with
> the elaboration of them in the other passages I quoted?
I know of no passage in Marx which conclusively shows what you're saying, and it doesn't make any more sense to me than stating that 18th Century European haute bourgeois were "opposed" to accumulation, which is also superficially true. They may have affected such a disdain but they still did accumulate, just like the Greek slave owners. It's possible that some isolated statements by Marx do suggest this. In any such cases, I would say Marx was at odds with his own cardinal rule of proceeding from a thorough investigation of material circumstances (just as, e.g., he was at odds with this method when he posited the "inertia" of pre-modern India, based on limited and biased sources).
> There is a sense in which these irrational "passions" are means, but
> that sense is derived from Hegel.
>
> To begin with, for Hegel (as for Marx), "passions" are not "means" in
> what I take to be your sense.
My original sentence should have read "or related to the means". Sorry for the confusion. In any case, I think you are conflating Hegel's ideas and Marx's; they used words differently, just as (e.g.) Lukacs or Gramsci used Marx's terminology in ways that were at odds with the way Marx use them. There is obviously a lot more to Marx's philosophy than Hegel; there is, for example, _materialism_. For that reason, I really can't see Marx being very concerned with the psychological motivations (i.e."passions") of the accumulators; a decidedly non-materialist concern.
regards,
Grant.