butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Two people who haven't read capital. Swimmingly.
Reading Marx's 'Capital': Tips, Questions, Theory, Support and Bookclub Bunfight...
- Thread starter Riklet
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littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
You're right that I still don't grasp what Marx means by 'commodity'. The end of chapter 1 is where I've stopped when trying to read Capital before for the same reason. I've pushed on a bit this time, but clearly I still don't get it.
Thanks for making me feel stupid, though.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Come back tmw when you've done the whole thing.
Not all commodities are material.
Anything for sale. You´re making it more difficult than it is.
It´s both individual and general.
Personally though I think the individual act of consciousness has been unduly neglected in much Marxist analysis. That is after all where commodities are made (as commodities), and they can exist (as commodities) nowhere else.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Well here is my problem right here, I think. When I periodically come back to Marx, I'm always expecting some kind of Bertrand Russell-style straightforward analysis. But that isn't what I get. What I get is something I can't really grasp, expressed in a way that I don't see to be necessary, following in a philosophical tradition whose value I've always struggled to fathom. I'll duck out of this thread for now.
JimW
支那暗杀团
If there is a lack of that, it strikes me as right. We might live imagining ourselves as individual consciousnesses but seems clear that we're first and foremost the product of material and social processes and subjectivity follows after. Looking forward to getting on to the bits about species-being to see what Marx has to say about that.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Now while I haven't read Capital, I have read Harvey's companion book. He makes the point that Marx analyses capitalism in motion. That it only makes sense in motion, as a dynamic system, with each part influencing the other, with opposing concepts (use value Vs exchange value for example) which come together (into a commodity, for example). It's not a linear analysis, cos causality doesn't really work like that.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Right. I understand that! Thanks.
You wont find them in Capital, they´re in the earlier work, especially Theses on Feuerbach.
The problem is that Marx is drawing from three different traditions: German idealist philosophy, French political theory and English political economy.
One really needs to be familiar with all three of these traditions if one is to understand Marx properly, and very few people are.
However Marx is far easier and much more in line with common sense than any bourgeois economist. If you are ever forced to read what passes for economic theory in today´s disciplne of Economics, you´ll find Marx a walk in the park.
And I hope you don´t drop out of the thread. Your questions have been a lot more valuable than some people´s answers-
JimW
支那暗杀团
Ah, right. Will have to add them to the list then.
I think (and I think that Marx thought) that the process is dialectical.
Subjectivity is the result of wider social processes, but these wider social processes are also produced by subjective agency.
The categories ´subject´ and ´object´ are mutually definitive and form a single whole, so it makes no sense to speak of one pole of the dichotomy producing the other.
No need really. Number 6 is the relevant one:
"Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human essence. But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations."
This "essence" is what Feuerbach calls "species-being." He defines it as the collective capacities of the human race, and claims that "God" is just a projection of "species-being." But Marx says that Feuerbach´s concept remains idealist, and that "species-being" is actually humanity´s collective material practice. So we can see that (a) Marx´s conception of the human essence is the direct philosophical descendent of God, and (b) that Marx does not depart from the formal logic of Hegel or Feuerbach but simply inverts it.
JimW
支那暗杀团
But there'd be no place for too much on the individual part of that in the sort of analysis Marx was attempting, or you'd end up with something not far from a great men view of history. Place for individual consciousness is lit, art and all the rest.
Aye. Though I don´t think Marx had a problem with individualism as such. In the early work, such as the 1844 Manuscripts, his criticism of capitalism is that it destroys the individual.
The anti-humanist interpretation of Marx (Althusser et al) was an unmitigated disaster imo.
magneze
🎧
love detective
there's no love too small
i'm sure by this stage even the less astute following the thread will have worked out a number of things about Phil:-
1) He has not read the book he claims to know so much about
2) He makes up his own theories about something that is covered in the book and attributes these to being accurate representations of Marx's
3) When caught out doing (2), which happens very often due to (1), he claims that his is still the correct interpretation because even though Marx's words & ideas directly contradict his, apparently none of us have access to what Marx really meant. Not content with this excuse however, we are even told that it is a mistake to try to recapture Marx´s original meaning. Obviously oblivious to the fact that these two excuse are in direct contradiction to what he so laughably tries to do in (2) above
4) When caught out and exposed, noise & bluster and personal abuse are thrown around in an attempt to take the heat away from the web of contradictions that have become apparent in his posts
5) He's been on the radio
1) He has not read the book he claims to know so much about
2) He makes up his own theories about something that is covered in the book and attributes these to being accurate representations of Marx's
3) When caught out doing (2), which happens very often due to (1), he claims that his is still the correct interpretation because even though Marx's words & ideas directly contradict his, apparently none of us have access to what Marx really meant. Not content with this excuse however, we are even told that it is a mistake to try to recapture Marx´s original meaning. Obviously oblivious to the fact that these two excuse are in direct contradiction to what he so laughably tries to do in (2) above
4) When caught out and exposed, noise & bluster and personal abuse are thrown around in an attempt to take the heat away from the web of contradictions that have become apparent in his posts
5) He's been on the radio
ItWillNeverWork
Messy Crimbobs, fellow humans.
To be fair, Phil has said a number of times that what he is writing is his own interpretation of Marx rather than what Marx originally meant to say. Then again, he does infer the opposite in a few places too. For example here:
and here:
Now, I wouldn't know a good interpretation of Marx from a bad, but as far as I'm concerned this is a thread for beginners and as such should be about the mainstream interpretation of Capital. When us newbies are familiarised with the ideas, then maybe interpretation has a place, and a diversity of opinions only makes the world more interesting. Until then though....
Anyway, that's just my two pennies worth.
love detective
there's no love too small
Yes, as I said above, he does this as a rearguard action when he's been caught out being wrong - and what use is an interpretation of marx, to people in a reading group on Capital, that literally states the opposite of marx's
I agree with the rest of what you say, which is why I warned people to treat his 'contributions' to threads like this with caution - he doesn't really understand what he's talking about yet his style is one which often exudes the impression that he does - which is not really what reading groups on capital at their early stages need, things are confusing enough as it is at those stages.
This is getting ridiculous now. Why won´t you stick to the issues?
Your claims that I haven´t read anything, don´t know what I´m talking about, and so on are not just false--they are demonstrably false (if anyone wants me to demonstrate their falsity just PM me). Furthermore you know perfectly well that they are false.
You are obviously being eaten alive by jealousy and bitterness. You should learn to disguise such ignoble emotions. It's getting slightly disturbing now, to be frank.
Oh aye.
I suppose that it is in the nature of capital to grow, or to shrink. If it remained static it would not be capital.
love detective
there's no love too small
why do you keep getting so much of it so badly wrong then?
you're now even being pulled up for taking crap by people who have only started to read it in the last week or so - see post above as an example
I don´t think we have access to what Marx "originally meant to say." Our interpretation is inevitably influenced by our own historical context. It is futile to search for the author´s meaning: we can only discuss what the text means to us.
But you´re right, I should be clearer about when I´m discussing Marx´s text and when I´m discussing my own ideas.
There is no "mainstream interpretation of Capital." A work of such complexity will inevitably be subject to widely divergent readings. Inded, wars have been fought over differing interpretations of Capital, which puts our disputes here into context a bit.
Personally I think this is a brilliant and unique forum for the discussion of Marx, precisely because there is such a range of knowledge and experience here. Nowhere else could people who have been studying Marx for 20 years debate with people who´ve just picked him up for the first time. It´s a very instructive experience for all involved.
Look dude, if I´m being honest then yes, you have been right on a couple of occasions here when I´ve been wrong. The distinction between simple and abstract labor for example--I´ll put my hand up and admit that I learned something from you then.
BUT the problem is that your attitude makes it completely impossible for me to make such concessions in debate because, at least to judge from past form, you will just pounce on any tiny mistake, gloat endlessly and at every available future opportunity, and use it as incontrovertible proof that I have never read even a single word of Marx, or in all probability anything else either. Most probably you feel the same way about acknowledging the errors that you may make. It´s not a productive method of discussion, is it?
So I suggest that you cease engaging in this daft game of who has read most, and that instead we both acknowledge that the other potentially has something interesting and useful to say, and that from this point on we play the ball and not the man.
Howzat?
love detective
there's no love too small
That's a very admirable and brave post phil and not one I ever expected to come from you. So of course, in light of that, i'm more than happy to do as you suggest
And in my defence i do not gloat at all at people I argue with who admit to being wrong, far from it, but I apologise if the thought of me doing so made it difficult for you to hold your hands up on those areas where you've been wrong.
I do go on endlessly however at people who insist that they are correct about something despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary (or people who insist they are correct about something that they clearly don't know that much about) - especially when it is a topic I think is important and also a topic that others reading the thread may be trying to learn from. This may come across as it being a personal attack at times, and indeed towards the end it does take on shades of a personal attack purely out of frustration and loss of patience at playing the ball and getting nowhere
So yes, well played, you're a better man than I had thought
Entirely mutual. I was 99% sure that your response would consist of a crowing declaration of victory. You have restored my faith in human nature, and at some point in the future I will be delighted to accept the drink that iirc you owe me from four years ago...
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Hi Rory.
