Re Jerry's 7123 > Re David Y's [7l2l] : > I would like to think that he could have >been referring to the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall - >'the most important law of modern political economy and the most >essential one for understanding the most complicated relationships. It is >the most important law from an historical standpoint....' (Grundrisse >p654 1953 German edition) < Hi David. Thanks, as always, for your >comments. As you say, Engels _could have_ been referring to the >LTGRPD. Yet, as we know, the drafts for what became Volume 3 were not >published by Engels until after his death. Nor do we have reason to >believe that Engels read the drafts prior to Marx's death -- do we? > This is a very important point which refutes David's suggestion and strongly supports the GLA solution, which shows increasing wealth at one pole and increasing misery at the other, as its result. > Nor do we have reason to believe that Engels, prior to Marx's >death, read the drafts for what were later published as the >_Grundrisse_ -- do we? Nor, of course, did Marx refer to the LTGRPD >as the "law of motion" of bourgeois society. However, I will grant you >that, _if_ you interpret "this work" to mean all of _Capital_, then it >is a reasonable possibility. It would, however, make the remainder of >what became Volume 3 somewhat of an anti-climax (and Marx had a >dramatic flair and the 'climax' of his 'stories' was generally reserved >for the end.) < I do not think this is entirely true for a number of reasons. 1. the chapter on colonies in V1 is an anti-climax, almost certainly to confuse the censor. 2. The true climax is brought forward to V1,namely the historical tendency stuff. 3. Marx's method is not linear but involves transitions to more concrete and detailed explorations of what had already been done abstractly. So it is not clear in these circumstances where any 'climax' is. Lukacs said the whole of Capital is in ch 1 sec 4. So I think the details after the LFRP do not contain any sort of climax. Chris 17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England
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