Re: [OPE-L] the third nation

[Howard Engelskirchen <howarde@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jerry,

Sorry, I don't get the connection you're making.

The reason I raised a question about the passage is in order to understand
what grasping the third nation has to do with understanding capital in
general in its real existence.  Marx is using the example of the loan of
capital to the third nation to clarify the real existence of capital in
general.  This is not about something we will understand in the future.  The
example is now.  The other example he gives is capital accumulating in
banks.  Assume we come back to it; what are we to understand now -- how does
it clarify?  In the first paragraph of the example he explained how the
elements of capital gathered in thought fix the reference we make to the
common determinations particular instances of capital share.  But he then
adds that a real form of capital in general actually exists alongside the
individual instances of this or that particular invested capital.  Here is
the passage again:

"Therefore, if e.g. it is a law of capital in general that, in order to
valorise itself, it must posit itself doubly, and must be valorised in  this
dual form, then e.g. the capital of a particular nation which represents
capital par excellence in opposition to another, must be loaned to a third
nation in order to valorise itself.  This double-positing, this relating
itself to itself as something alien, becomes damn real in this case."

Howard



----- Original Message -----
From: <glevy@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 4:36 PM
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] the third nation


> Howard:
>
> I think that the *end* of the paragraph is key for interprerting this
> passage.  Marx wroite:
>
> "We will return later to this point, which, WHILE HAVING MORE OF A LOGICAL
> THAN AN ECONOMIC CHARACTER, will nevertheless have a GREAT IMPORTANCE IN
> THE COURSE OF OUR INQUIRY" (emphasis added, JL).
>
> He continued:
>
> "The same also in algrebra.  For example, a, b, c are numbers as such; in
> general; but they are whole numbers as opposed to a/b, b/c, c/b, c/a, b/a
> etc. , which later, however, presuppose the former as general elements".
>
> He is making, then, a basic methodological point about the logical *order*
> in which the subject matter must be reconstructed in thought.  Before we
> can comprehend the inter-relation of capitals on a world level, we must
> first grasp capital-in-general. Before we can grasp "the third nation", we
> must first grasp capital more generally and abstractly. Book 1 comes
> before Book 6.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry