Re: [OPE-L] Albritton on Marx's value theory and subjectivity

[glevy@xxxxxxxxx]

Jurriaan,

Feeling a tad grumpy today?

You wrote:

> The idea that Albritton is also presenting this paper in Cuba is
> laughable to me, and it shows how far Marxism has intellectually
> degenerated. With "friends of Marx" like that, there will never be
> any viable socialism anywhere.

This is a non sequitor.  Whether or not individual Marxists agree
with Albritton's perspective on use-value or not has no necessary
connection to whether socialism will be viable anywhere.

>  ".the project of Grand Theory - to find a total systematised
> conceptualisation of all history and human occasions - is the original
> heresy of metaphysics against knowledge.it is an exercise of closure,
> and it stems from a kind of intellectual agoraphobia, an anxiety before
> the uncertain and the unknown, a yearning for security within the calm
> of the absolute"

Well, yes, E.P. Thompson is in a certain sense correct -- but not
necessarily in the way that he intended.  An attempt to develop a
Grand Theory for _all_ human history is indeed misplaced since such
a perspective eternalizes social relations and therefore blinds us
to the specific social characteristics (relations) of individual
modes of production and social formations.  Within Marxian theory,
this often arises in connection with an effort by some to put forward
a Grand Theory of Value for all modes of production.

In solidarity, Jerry