Re: [OPE-L] the third nation

[Howard Engelskirchen <howarde@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jerry,

Thanks very much for the Illyenkov reference!

Howard


----- Original Message -----
From: <glevy@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 10:08 AM
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] the third nation


> Hi Howard:
>
> It was very common for Marx, particularly in the _Grundrisse_, to indicate
> at the *end* of a section what needs to be developed further (a very
> Hegelian form of exposition). The section in question is "Capital coming
> out of the production process becomes money again" which *ends* with the
> paragraph which *begins* "Before we go any further, just one remark".
> This remark, I believe, is indeed a reference to what he planned to
> "return later" to.  He didn't return later to it in the _Grundrisse_, did
> he?  That's because I believe that the appropriate context for the fuller
> development of his point was the world market.  Recall that, whatever you
> think in terms of whether he wanted or did not want to complete the 6
> books in the 6-book-plan later in his life, there is no question that at
> the time he wrote the _Grundrisse_ it was part of his design to eventually
> write books on foreign trade and the world market ond crisis (Books 5&6).
>
> btw, did you know that Ilyenkov referred to the passage in question?
> He dealt more, I think, with the issue you are trying to get at.
> Check it out.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
> Ilyenkov
> DIALECTICAL LOGIC
> The Problem of the General in Dialectics
> <http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay11.htm>
>
> (2) If we are concerned with defining capital in general, then, as Marx
> specially remarked, we must take the following point of principle into
> account, which has 'more of a logical than an economic character'. '...
> Capital in general, as distinct from the particular real capitals, is
> itself a real existence. This is recognised by ordinary economics, even if
> it is not understood, and forms a very important moment of its doctrine of
> equilibrations, etc. for example, capital in this general form, although
> belonging to individual capitalists, in its elemental form as capital,
> forms the capital which accumulates in the banks or is distributed through
> them, and, as Ricardo says, so admirably distributes itself in accordance
> with the needs of production. Likewise, through loans, etc., it forms a
> level between the different countries. If it is therefore e.g. a law of
> capital in general that, in order to realise itself, it must posit itself
> doubly, and must realise itself in this double form, then e.g. the capital
> of a particular nation which represents capital par excellence in
> antithesis to another will have to lend itself out to a third nation in
> order to be able to realise it-self. This double positing, this relating
> to self as to an alien, becomes damn real in this case. While the general
> is therefore on the one hand only a mental (gedachte) mark of distinction
> (differentia specifica), it is at the same time a particular real form
> alongside the form of the particular and individual.' It is 'the same also
> in algebra,' Marx continued. 'For example, a, b, c, are numbers as such;
> in general; but then again they are whole numbers as opposed to a/b, b/c,
> c/b, c/a, b/a, etc., which latter, however, presuppose the former as their
> general elements'.
> (follow url and see rest of Ilyenkov for context, JL)