(OPE-L) logical order and historical order

[glevy@xxxxxxxxx]

Rakesh wrote:

> But Marx's movement from the accidental to the expanded to the
> general form of value is not meant simply as a dialectical unfolding of
> ideas in an analysis; it is also a a practical dialectic. Exchange
> beginning in simple barter--the purely occassional exchange of this for
> that--did develop into systematized exchange, into buying and
> selling, which presupposes logically and historically an accepted
> universal form of value, distinct from and opposable to all
> particular exchange values, whatsoever. In a word, exchange
> begets--Money. At every point the movement of Marx's dialectical
> analysis (the inadequacies or incompleteness of the lower forms of
> value) reproduces (or claims to reproduce) the actual historical
> movement. Money did grow out of barter.


While Marx, at various steps in _Capital_, suggests that a
particular logical category or trendency is mirrored by an
actual historical process, the question is whether this
represents a _necessary_ step in the dialectical reconstruction
in thought of the subject matter. You will, of course, recall
what Marx wrote in the "Introduction" to the _Grundrisse_ about
why one should _not_ begin with population.

I suppose we could go on to discuss simple commodity production
....

In solidarity, Jerry