C W Sedley wrote:
>
> This is almost exactly the perspective of Moishe Postone, who I think
> Carrol likes a lot. If you can get into JSTOR, the article where he
> develops this idea is here:
Sounds interesting. I have access to JSTOR and may look it up.
The object of Postone's analysis is, I think, an abstract capitalism, i.e. the _tendencies_ which characterize any cpaitalist system, present, past, and future. Those tendencies operate, of course, in a world dominated by contingency, hence knowledge of them does not provide a basis for empirical prediction, but they do establish the _hisoricity_ of capitalism. Postone turns extremely vague (and his grad students turn seriously silly, when they turn to the question of_how_ we are to end that system. He does in his core interpretation of Marx beautifully underline what it is about the system that justifies Luxemburg's "capitalism or barbarism," and the theory that that forumla is grounded in: contingency and the more or less equal probability of both alternatives. In her developed thought she is clear that capitalism does not in any way automatically or necessarily evolve into socialism.
Where Postone, and I think actually Marx himself, differ from most Marxism, is in seeing that the Marxian dialectc is relevant only to the analysis of CAPITALISM, not to the undrstanding of human history as a whole.
Carrol