Ajit writes:>1. In the passage quoted from *Capital* by Harry it is quite
clear that the *cause* of so-called 'alienation' or rather dehumanization
is capital. In the EPM, however, it is the alienation that is the cause of
capital-- Capital comes into being due to alienation rather than the other
way round.<
that's my impression from my reading too.
But causation can go both ways as part of a dynamic (dialectical) process.
Capitalist exploitation and the production of surplus-value -- the
developed form that alienation takes in CAPITAL, which is based on the
domination of labor by capital in production, which dehumanizes labor --
allows the expansion of capital. Then, the expansion of capital allows the
further dehumanization of labor.
To my mind, much of the EPM and CAPITAL are complementary rather than in
conflict.
>2. The big problem we need to solve is whether the concept of *class* can
be reduced, at some level, to the concept of *Man*. If not, then there is a
theoretical problem in drawing a direct link from the EPM to *Capital*. <
the theoretical link would involve Marx breaking with Feuerbach, studying
the empirical world in much greater detail, reading and criticizing
political economy, etc. Marx's vision became clearer over time, as he
preserved some of the aspects of his earlier works and expunged or
transformed others. But as far as I can tell, there is no complete
rejection of the EPM's conceptions.
I don't see humanism -- which centers on the concept of "Man" (abstract
humanity) as conflicting at all with Marx's later perspective, in CAPITAL
and the like. This can be seen in the fact that he saw not only the
workers, but the capitalists as alienated, so that all of humanity is
alienated under capitalism: capitalists suffer from the fetishism of
commodities, the illusions created by competition. Further, they are
"accumulation machines" -- unless they want to drop out of their class. See
Bertell Ollman, ALIENATION, 1976, ch. 23 for more on capitalist alienation.
Clearly, the capitalists' alienation is qualitatively different from that
of workers, but in the end they share the characteristic of being humans.
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
"It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
