[OPE-L:6503] Re: totality

[glevy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Re Rakesh's [6502]:

> By vol 3, Marx is nearing his descent to the concrete totality,

Is he in V3 'nearing' concrete totality? I think it would be more accurate to say that he is getting *nearer* to that totality as the level of concretion gets less abstract. Nowhere does he suggest that by the end of V3 the descent to the concrete reality (as you put it) will have been accomplished.

Rather the descent to the end of _Capital_ represents a point of departure (a new beginning) for the next step in the reconstruction of the object of investigation (the capitalist mode of production) in thought. What comes immediately after _Capital_?  One hint comes in Vol 3, Ch 52.

> yet
> Marx seems not interested in *individual* capitals even as he
> approaches them because any one individual capital does not yield--as
> a result of the variance in compositions--surplus value at the same
> rate as would the *typical particular* capitalist (that is, the
> prototype of or a perfect aliquot of the whole class; Meek links
> Marx's typical particular of a capital of average composition to
> Sraffa's standard commodity).

Remember Marx's comments about the 'eventual continuation' (separate book) on 'Competition'?  From a methodological perspective, I think Marx wanted to present capital as simple unity before going on to present capital as difference and then unity-in-difference.  The question of the segmentation and fragmentation of the capitalist class
and the other two major social classes arises after 'the question to be answered next' which is 'What makes a class?'.

In solidarity, Jerry