I had written:
>>Further, for Marx, the notion of "productive" labor is
>>linked to capital's viewpoint: productive labor _produces_ surplus-value
>>(and thus allows the appropriation of profits, interest, & rent). So the
>>role of the capitalist director as "productive" is justified totally in
>>capitalist terms, even if there is no justification when we look at it from
>>a more objective viewpoint.
Tom answers:
>It's futile to talk about a "more objective viewpoint" unless and until we
>understand capitalism from capital's viewpoint. Then, and only then, can we
>critique that viewpoint.
Why this two-stage process? why can't we look at the system from capital's
viewpoint at the same time we try to look at it from a socialist or some
other non-capitalist viewpoint? IMHO, Marx tried both. He not only defined
"productive" as being from the point of view of capital, but constantly
compared capitalism to other modes of production (e.g., the famous
Wallachian Boyards of vol. I, etc.) His (rare) comparisons of capitalism to
workers' co-operatives are part of the latter.
> Jim, writing in 1998, effortlessly erases two lines
>written by Marx over 130 years earlier.
That's absolutely not true. I did not ignore those lines at all. Please
don't condescend.
>What would it take to get those two
>lines back? Thanks to the magic of electronic data storage I can retrieve
>those two lines:
>
>"We are concerned here only with capital within the immediate process of
>production. The other functions of capital and the agents which it employs
>within them form a subject to be left for later."
>
>A subject to be left for later, indeed. I can testify that I have tried to
>bring up that subject-to-be-left-for-later in any number of ways for 20
>years in any number of forums. I have encountered such systematic
>incomprehension that I can think of only two possible explanations: I'm
>stark raving mad or "the subject left for later" creates such anxiety that
>people can't even think about it (cognitive dissonance). In other words, the
>riddle of the Sphinx.
You'll note that the "Results of the Immediate Process of Production" is at
the end of vol. I of CAPITAL, which is about "The Process of Capitalist
Production" (the subtitle of the volume). As Mandel notes in his
introduction, the "Results" is a "bridge" to later volumes which concern
"The Process of Circulation of Capital" (vol II) and Production and
Circulation together (vol. III, I don't have a copy here). The "later"
referred to in the two sentences are likely somewhere in those two volumes, no?
I think it quite likely that "capital within the immediate process of
production" refers to the societal process of the creation of surplus-value
and the accumulation of capital, the main subjects of vol. I. The
discussion of individual factories in vol. I is an effort to understand the
society as a whole in microcosm.
On the other hand, "the other functions of capital and the agents which it
employs
within them" refers to the various fractions of capital introduced in vol.
II and discussed more seriously in vol. III, i.e., industrial capital,
commercial capital, money-dealing capital, land-owning capital. On the first
page of the text of vol. III, Marx makes it pretty clear that the volume
will be discussing the various types of capitalist agents and would be
approaching the realm of appearances step-by-step, starting from the pretty
abstract level of vol. I.
But I think it's a mistake to take _anything_ in Marx's posthumously
published mss. too seriously. He never edited them for publication; later
editors (including Engels) had a lot of trouble with his handwriting and
it's possible he made a mistake (most people do). Longer passages, chapters,
and entire books deserve more attention that single sentences or pairs of
sentences. There's no reason for anyone to feel anxiety or go stark raving mad.
Analyzing individual passages is not a matter of developing a better Marxian
political economy but is instead one of scholasticism. It's true that the
latter might help with the former goal, but IMHO, the former is what we
should be engaged in first and foremost. We shouldn't be engaging in
quotation-mongering or -analysis simply for its own sake. Even the task of
discovering "what Marx (really) said" is only instrumental to attaining a
more complete understanding of the world.
In any event, why does the topic of the "functions" of capital or
"unproductive labor" deserve so much attention?
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
