Re: [Marxism] reading Capital

["Paul H. Dillon" <illonph@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis wrote:

> > I read Marx's Capital back in 1968 and confess to having read it only
> > once.
> I also read Ernest Mandel's 3 volume tome on Marxist economics, but
> generally steer clear of Marxist economic theory--especially as it relates
> to the Okishio theorem, etc. I look in on Jerry Levy's list from time to
> time, but it mostly strikes me as a kind of Talmudic inquiry into side
> issues. I don't begrudge anybody for scholarly pursuits, it is just that a
> person with a full-time job like myself has to pick and choose.
>
> My interest is more focused in history and political theory. The Marxist
> literature I keep returning to includes 18th Brumaire, Trotsky's history
> of the Russian Revolution, etc. I am trying to find time to write a
> radical history of the Jewish people and don't think that mastering vol. 2
> & 3 of Capital is necessary. On the other hand, Kautsky's book on the
> origins of Christianity is.

There is a clear tension  between the historical and structural (e.g. econ
theory) elements of Marx's works.  It is something of a bell curve stretched
across the period from 1840 through his death - beginning with the early
Hegelian/philosophical inquiries in the early writings, followed by the
truly great historical works (18th Brumaire, Civil Wars in France, etc.),
then moving through the detailed economic analyses that led to the three
volumes of Capital and Theories of Surplus Value and then returning in his
later years to the ethnological and anthropological studies.  It's not a
pure mixture as elements of both were present throughout his life.

I wrote the following for a review article for Historical Materialism but I
don't believe Sebastian, who badgered the hell out of me about it and
finally sent galleys, ever published:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . Pertti Honkanen, an economist, provides a useful contextualization of
Ilyenkov's theories in relation to the way past and present Marxist
economists have approached value theory, the Marxian lynchpin of Ilyenkov's
work..   He begins with a Brechtian classification: there is Marxism without
Ricardo and there is Marxism without Hegel.  Economists, who focus on the
economy as a system of quantitative relations between economic categories
rather than on the categories themselves, ' . . . soon forget Hegel and
finds much in common with the Ricardian deductive way of thinking.' [266]

Ever since Engels published his annex to the third volume of Capital, there
has been division amongst economists over the logical or the historical
character of Marx's analyses, especially the analyses of the commodity in
volume one.  The extremes of the tendencies are well known; e.g., Althusser
and E.P. Thompson, but Honkannen believes that, in general, the fundamental
question: 'What is the interrelation between the logical and the historical
in the economic theory of capitalism?' [270] has remained unanswered with
corresponding confusion between logical and historical approaches. For
Honkannen Ilyenkov clearly gives primacy to the logical school:

In his analysis of economic theories and categories developed by his
predecessors (not only Adam Smith and David Ricardo but even Aristotle),
Marx confidently applies the logical mode of critique, using the historical
mode only occasionally and as an auxiliary one. [206]

The Uno school of Japan represents 'a radical break' with the tendency of
persons identifying with the logical approach to Capital to dissociate
themselves from Hegel. Rather, they seek to develop 'a logic of pure
capitalism, cleaned from all historical features and contingencies.' and
reject the interpretation of the theory of capital itself as a theory of the
history of capital. [271] They constitute a Marxism with 'very much Hegel
and also with Ricardo,' To accomplish this, a theory of stages is inserted
between the pure, self-contained theory of the capitalist mode of
production, and the concrete history of its development.  'The points of
connection between general economic theory and specific sociological (or
political, socio-political etc) studies require(s) a very careful
definition.' [273] Honkannen provides an example of how this separation of
economy and history can resolve the feminist criticism that Marxist theory
contains patriarchal and sexist presuppositions.  From the Unoist
perspective, these 'lapses' in Capital are not part of the economic theory
itself but of the contingencies.  The law of value can adapt itself to many
family types or gender relations  'The general or pure economic theory are
not intended to explain these concrete historical and sociological
relations.'

Since the Unoist School does not ascribe any historical determinacy to the
theory of capital, they avoid the danger in the historical interpretation of
Capital of predicting a breakdown of the system, one that clearly hasn't
come about.  This abdication of determination by the economic base fits well
with contemporary directions in so-called 'post-Marxism'.[1]   However, and
in spite of the quoted statements on the role of logic and history in Marx's
analyses, Ilyenkov's concept of historicism is more complex than the one
Honkannen presents.  Ilyenkov distinguishes between abstract and concrete
historicism.

The historical development of a concrete whole, conceived in its essence and
expressed in logical development does not coincide with the picture that is
to be found on the surface of events . . . The essence and the phenomena
here also coincide only dialectically, only through contradiction.[2]

Marx considered this form of historicism, i.e., taking '. . . phenomena in
the sequence they follow one another in historical time . . .', to be ' . .
. inexpedient and wrong . . .'.  Nevertheless Ilyenkov does identify a
genuine historicism.  In fact,

Logical development of categories in the system of science corresponds to
the genuine historical sequence concealed from empirical observation, but it
contradicts the external appearance, the superficial [accidental] aspect of
the sequence. . . . The correctly established logical order of development
of categories in the system of science discloses the secret of the real
objective sequence of development of phenomena. [3]



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Cutler, et al. 1977 LaClau and Mouffe 1985;  Sim 1998.

[2] Ilyenkov 1977, p. 212

[3] Ilyenkov 1977, p.218


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