Greetings Economists, On Feb 12, 2006, at 9:42 AM, Charles Brown wrote: in the sense that Marx analyzes the commodity in Chapter One of _Capital_ , begins in Mesopotamia, and the cuneiform writing tablets were used to keep accounts of TRADE, COMMODITY EXCHANGE. Marx's analysis is an abstract discussion of what occurred historically precisely simultaneous with the origin of counting , appropriately enough, and accounting was the first WRITING.
Doyle, Well counting systems (your comment not Marx's point) aren't generally called writing now. The reason being they aren't grammatical. Removing your observation the point by Marx is right. Counting represents external 'things' we can do operations upon. This cognitive brainwork doesn't have to give meaning to internal mental operations. However graphic counting gives a strong pointer step toward what writing might do, if not really grasping the technical significance of a grammatical system of writing. This is an important distinction also. Writing represents speech, which is mainly dependent upon two brain areas, broca's, and wernicke. They structure the rest of brain activity in a particular way to exchange with other humans. Mathematics is not especially involved in the grammatical build of information for exchange between people. As a commodity for exchange the early parts of graphic expression of counting would serve the community, not the upper class. In the sense the commons can belong to everyone. Further, if we look at say a deaf person who was not trained in language, they can and there are living examples who learn counting techniques irrespective of their lack of language. Giving us insight that human minds are not strictly tied to language as the single determinant of brainwork production. Where writing arises, aside from commodity exchange there seems to be strong correlation with upper class attachment with religious activity. The ruler is the 'god' incarnate with a variety of writing tools built to represent a communal exchange of language to validate the social structure this represents. People bought these religious icons to indicate their participation in the communal connection process. Keep the evil away from just about any household. Make your neighbor not hate you. Blah Blah. Much later, when alphabets arose, they could be performed and used by a larger community base. This expanded how information could be tied to larger and larger commodity elements in the community. This labeling, or sign-age function seems to shift over time. Marx points out that feudalism with country dominating city also represented a broad historical retreat from writing skills in the so-called dark ages. Romans were literate more broadly than most subsequent feudal Europeans. It's the printing press in Europe where early capitalist structure rapidly built up, that spread literacy well beyond any Roman precedent. China preceded Europe with this sort of tool, but the commodity production of writing was not aimed at the same sort of social strata. The feudal Chinese market was not going to be the public mass which capitalist production demands, but a skilled intelligentsia with a narrow influence on the whole society as opposed to the more universal aspects of capitalist production. thanks, Doyle Saylor
