[PEN-L:1587] Re: Re: Enlightenment insight

[Ajit Sinha <ecas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 13:08 15/12/98 +1100, Angela wrote:
>i didn't really expect any treatment of marx to be exhaustive. can't be
done me
>thinks, if only because of sheer volume.   and, actually, you've hit the
nail on
>the head:  i was thinking of the a is also not-a stuff.  as in, workers both
>labour-power and not-labour-powere (where the latter would be in terms of
>workers's needs (as excess to capital's image of 'itself' in money and
exchange) -
>but, i don't mean here needs as immutable, but as marx regarded them as
socially
>constituted.  this is exactly why marx talks about ghosts and haunting so
often -
>it is a central motif.  derrida is right to point to this as an important
motif,
>but he misses the fact that marx's concept of surplus value is inherent to
this
>motif and the most effective way marx can see to present the complicated
>relationship between the identity of capital (as it is advanced in the
science of
>political economy) and the non-identity of labour (or, better, the sheer
>objectification of labour as presented in political economy and political
>economy's tortuous attempts to misrecognise that capital is only surplus
labour) -
>marx plays around with this endlessly, back and forth, twisting and
turning.   you
>know: subject (labour) becomes object (labour-power - surplus value -
capital);
>object (capital) becomes subject (the fetishism of capital).
>
>so, labour is both dead (objectified as labour-power) and alive (what
animates
>capital and the production process).    i just can't see how derrida would
turn
>away from this.  and, i think he is smart enought to see it, but decides -
for
>reasons i guess at - not to take it on.
>
>what do you reckon?  is it possible to talk about the spectre of communism
without
>talking about suplus labour?
>
>be well,
>
>angela
________

Hi Angela!

I find your spin on labor and labor-power etc. quite interesting. But I'm
not sure if I understand it all--i.e. I'm not sure where is this dialectics
going. It would be nice if you could elaborate on it--given that what you
say above is so interesting. My general, and of course very limited, sense
is that labor-power being a commodity is only an ideological (in a more
conventional sense than Althusserian sense) aspect of capitalism, but it
would be incorrect to maintain it so as a 'scientic' category in Marx's
writings. A long section (section IV) of my paper entitled 'A Critique of
Part one of *Capital* vol. one: The Value Controversy Revisited' in
*Research in Political Economy* vol. 15, 1996 deals with this particular
issue. I'll be happy to send you a copy if you are interested. On Derrida:
I doubt that there is some political reason for him to shy away from the
idea that capitalism is based on exploitation of labor. Cheers, ajit sinha
>
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