Re: [OPE-L] Ch. 7 as starting point for reading Capital???

[John Holloway <johnholloway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Re: [OPE-L] Ch. 7 as starting point for reading Capital???

Very, very many thanks for all the replies. That is very helpful.

John


El 19/6/07 22:47, "Rakesh Bhandari" <bhandari@xxxxxxxxxxxx> escribió:

> > A request for help.
> >
> > I think someone on this list (Rakesh, perhaps?) made a comment once about
> > Althusser advising people to start reading Capital from ch.7. Is this right?
> > Does anyone have a reference, or even a quote?
> >
> > Many thanks if you can help me on this.
> >
> > John
>
> http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpalthusser11.htm
>
> If I said that I was mistaken. Althusser recommends beginning with Part II, chapter 4.  Korsch  said to begin with Chapter 7, though it would not serve as a good description of a wafer production facility or an automated assembly line! 
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/19xx/introduction-capital.htm
>
>
> > That is why I want to recommend to the beginner an approach that diverges somewhat from Marx's advice on a suitable start for the ladies (wherein we may sense a certain deference to the prejudices of his own time!). I hope that the approach I recommend will enable the reader to attain a full understanding of Capital just as readily, or even more readily than if he were to begin with the difficult opening chapters.
> > It is best, I think, to begin with a thorough perusal of Chapter 7 on 'The Labour Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-value'. There are, it is true, a number of preliminary difficulties to be overcome, but these are all internal to the matter in hand, and not due, as are many difficulties in the preceding chapters, to a really rather unnecessary artificiality in the presentation. What is said here refers directly and immediately to palpable realities, and in the first instance to the palpable reality of the human work process. We encounter straightaway a clear and stark presentation of an insight essential for the proper understanding of Capital - the insight that this real-life work process represents, under the present regime of the capitalist mode of production, not only the production of use-values for human eventually through the difficult parts as well as the simpler passages of the book should save this part up until he really does come to the end of Part 7, for Part 8 was intended by Marx as a final crowning touch to his work.
>
>
> Now that all this is all on line I can see that I spent way too much of my limited resources buying copies of all these books!
>
> In the course of our discussions Fred Moseley said I think that chapter 7 is the most important chapter. Obviously an intriguing position but he did not elaborate.
>
> Yours, Rakesh