This ultimately gets into the question of how you read Marx. Ted takes a view of Marx's work as continuity, whereas Carrol is following the argument made by Postone that their is a theoretical shift made in Marx's work (Postone focuses on the Grundrisse) that draws on ideas developed earlier, but within a different problematic. Incidentally, I am less convinced that Postone's view is as much of an innovation from Althusser's view than Postone is, but I am also considering a set of text of Althusser's (namely the Humanist Controversy) that were not available to Postone. I think that this notion of the 'fall' is one that cannot be found as a central concern in the 'mature' (or if we use Althusser's term 'scientific') texts. Incidentally, Althusser eventually came to the conclusion that Marx's epistemological shift was never fully complete, and one can always find remnants of the earlier problematic.
Incidentally, I think it brings up another interesting issue, that of the position Marxism as a form of analysis (probably could be phrased better) and Marxism as a form of political advocacy. (Althusser probably would have phrased this as the scientific vs ideological in his early days.) When Marxists enter the field of the class struggle, they are going to inevitably utilize the language that the class struggle is formulated in (that is the language of common sense, or ideology)in order to engage in those struggles. So although Marx offers stringent critiques of the notion of equality (as equivalence) one will find Marxists using that language in daily struggles. My suspicion is that many of these old christian notion enter the language of the everyday class struggle as well, and must be dealt with by Marxists within those struggles. Althusser discusses the impact that this can have on modes of analysis, but that is entering into another conversation. robert wood
> =============================
>
> How is this "work as compulsion" under capitalism not a secularized
> version of the biblical fall -- "by the sweat of the brow" and all
> that?
>
> How does the overcomeability of moralese contribute to the
> overcomeability of labor contracts under contemporary conditions [of
> way too many weapons in too many hands] or/rather, do we have to
> overcome legalese a la Pashukanis as well?
>
> Ian
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>