Re: query: Marx "quote"

[raghu <mraghu01@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 10, 2008 8:32 AM, Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> did Marx ever say anything like "Societal deviations in terms of the
> distribution of wealth for example, must be minimized"? (supposedly he
> said this in CAPITAL, according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, THE BLACK
> SWAN, p. 242.) It seems totally out of character.


I looked up this phrase on Google and it gives only one result

http://allomorphe.com/worldview.htm

--------------------snip
In particular, the emergence of Statistics led Adolph Quetelet and
others to formulate "a generalized notion of the normal as an
imperative"(Davis 11).  Through his construct of l'homme moyen
physique and l'homme moyen morale, a physical and moral average man,
Quetelet creates a range of deviance from this average which positions
all people either to the left or right of center and punishes those
who find themselves occupying the extreme left or right of the
statistical bell curve.  Contributing to an additive effect, Marx also
cites Quetelet regarding this concept of an average / normal man in
the context of labor theory of value, that within an enforcement of
normalcy, societal deviations "in terms of the distribution of wealth
for example, must be minimized"(13).


-raghu.