From: Fred B. Moseley (fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu)
Date: Sat Oct 05 2002 - 17:26:32 EDT
Riccardo, thanks for your comments. My replies below.
On Sat, 5 Oct 2002, Riccardo Bellofiore wrote:
> At 22:36 -0400 4-10-2002, Fred B. Moseley wrote:
> >
> >I always thought that this quote meant something like "put up or shut
> >up". But I reread the translator's (Fowkes) footnote tonight, and he
> >says that this quote is a reference to Hegel, and specifically to the
> >Preface to Hegel's Philosophy of Right. According to Fowkes, Hegel
> >"uses the quote to illustrate his view that the task of philosophy is to
> >apprehend and comprehend WHAT IS, rather that what ought to be."
> >(emphasis added)
>
>
> of course, "a hypothetical total
> surplus-value proportional to the labor-time embodied in surplus
> goods" has nothing to do with "what ought to be". this
> characterization would apply to a Ricardian socialist, not to a
> Marxian (or to most of Marxians).
>
> in the specific instance, the idea you criticize is (or may be seen)
> as essential to understand what is. this is true: both if we accept
> or if we deny that this notion is actually the Marxian one, relevant
> to read Capital vol I.
1. I am glad that you agree that the aim of Marx's theory of
surplus-value is to explain the actual total surplus-value ("what is").
2. However, you seem to suggest that is possible to have a
"two-stage" theory of the actual total surplus-value (the term is mine,
not Riccardo's but I think it accurately reflects the theory that Riccardo
is suggesting; please correct me if I am wrong):
Stage 1: determination of a hypothetical total surplus-value (dM*)
Stage 2: the transformation of this hypothetical total surplus-value into
the actual total surplus-value (dM).
You suggest that this "two-stage" theory is possible, whether or not it is
Marx's theory in Capital.
3. In the current discussion, I am interested only in what is Marx's
theory in Capital.
4. And I see no textual evidence at all, in any of Marx's manuscripts,
that he himself followed such a "two-stage" method. Quite to the
contrary, there are many, many passages, throughout the various drafts of
Capital (as I have documented in several papers) which suggest that Marx
himself understood his own logical method of the determination of the
actual total surplus-value to be a "one-stage" method. The actual total
surplus-value is determined in one step, in Volume 1.
The second step in Marx's theory is NOT to transform a hypothetical
surplus-value into the actual total surplus-value. Rather, Marx's second
step presupposes a GIVEN, predetermined total surplus-value (Marx said
many times) and explains the division of this given total surplus-value
into individual parts. The second step is DIVISION of the total
surplus-value, not ALTERATION of the total surplus-value. There is NO
TRANSFORMATION of a hypothetical total surplus-value (dM*) to the actual
total surplus-value (dM) in Capital.
5. Therefore, I think we have to conclude, don't we, that Marx himself
understood his theory to determine the actual total surplus-value in one
step, i.e. in Volume 1? Whether or not a "two-stage" theory of the actual
total surplus-value is possible, and why one would want to explain the
actual total surplus-value in two stages rather than one, are separate
questions. But I think it is clear that Marx's own theory of the actual
total surplus-value is a "one-stage" theory.
>
> so, Fred, I think you are creating a straw man (or woman).
>
> riccardo
I don't thing I am creating a straw man. Rather, I think I am trying to
clarify the logical method that Marx himself used to construct his
economic theory. And, as I said, I think it is quite clear that Marx's
own theory of the actual total surplus-value is a "one-stage" theory.
Comradely,
Fred
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