On Oct 25, 2006, at 11:37 AM, Jerry Monaco wrote:
> We all have our superstitions and for some reason one of yours is that
> Marx's Capital provides knowledge of something in the real world.
> Capital is worth reading for its way of thinking, but the model
> matches nothing that we can point to today and didn't match much of
> 19th century English Capitalism, either. There were a few insights,
> but nothing that is worth calling a "theory", except in a very loose
> everyday sense.
I must rise to Marx's defense! I have to confess to never being able to get through Capital Vol. 2, but Vols. 1 and 3 are splendid. The structure of his analysis is thoroughly compelling, and revealing: starting from the simple commodity and expanding cumulatively into the social system that both produces it and grows up around it - the factory, imperialism, finance. The antagonistic nature of capitalist production, the structure of classes, the control of labor, the role of the state, the division of surplus value into profit/interest/rent - that's all applicable to the world of 2006. More relevant, in some ways, because capitalism has pervaded almost every nook and cranny of the earth, and even our consciousness, far more than in the mid-19C.
Doug