At 13:08 15/12/98 +1100, Angela wrote: >i didn't really expect any treatment of marx to be exhaustive. can't be done me >thinks, if only because of sheer volume. and, actually, you've hit the nail on >the head: i was thinking of the a is also not-a stuff. as in, workers both >labour-power and not-labour-powere (where the latter would be in terms of >workers's needs (as excess to capital's image of 'itself' in money and exchange) - >but, i don't mean here needs as immutable, but as marx regarded them as socially >constituted. this is exactly why marx talks about ghosts and haunting so often - >it is a central motif. derrida is right to point to this as an important motif, >but he misses the fact that marx's concept of surplus value is inherent to this >motif and the most effective way marx can see to present the complicated >relationship between the identity of capital (as it is advanced in the science of >political economy) and the non-identity of labour (or, better, the sheer >objectification of labour as presented in political economy and political >economy's tortuous attempts to misrecognise that capital is only surplus labour) - >marx plays around with this endlessly, back and forth, twisting and turning. you >know: subject (labour) becomes object (labour-power - surplus value - capital); >object (capital) becomes subject (the fetishism of capital). > >so, labour is both dead (objectified as labour-power) and alive (what animates >capital and the production process). i just can't see how derrida would turn >away from this. and, i think he is smart enought to see it, but decides - for >reasons i guess at - not to take it on. > >what do you reckon? is it possible to talk about the spectre of communism without >talking about suplus labour? > >be well, > >angela ________ Hi Angela! I find your spin on labor and labor-power etc. quite interesting. But I'm not sure if I understand it all--i.e. I'm not sure where is this dialectics going. It would be nice if you could elaborate on it--given that what you say above is so interesting. My general, and of course very limited, sense is that labor-power being a commodity is only an ideological (in a more conventional sense than Althusserian sense) aspect of capitalism, but it would be incorrect to maintain it so as a 'scientic' category in Marx's writings. A long section (section IV) of my paper entitled 'A Critique of Part one of *Capital* vol. one: The Value Controversy Revisited' in *Research in Political Economy* vol. 15, 1996 deals with this particular issue. I'll be happy to send you a copy if you are interested. On Derrida: I doubt that there is some political reason for him to shy away from the idea that capitalism is based on exploitation of labor. Cheers, ajit sinha > > >
