On Jan 15, 2012, at 1:41 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Capital is NOT an empirical account of any vcapitalist society. It is NOT a
> history of capitalism. It is not a history of money. The Critique is totally
> abstract.
>
> Alan has it pretty right it seems to me.
>
> And because it is abstract theory, NO concrete political conclusions
> can be drawn from it. The gap between theory and practice is sharp: one does
> not lead to the other.
There are reams of quotes from British factory inspectors, Economist editorials, Parliamentary testimony of senior bankers, observations of the way the Bank of England works, etc. etc. That's rather empirical it seems to me.
And if there were no implications for political practice, why did Marx spend all that time on writing it? There are no obvious political conclusions, but understanding how capitalism works is pretty important if your goal is smashing capitalism.
Doug