A reply to Jerry's ope-l 3233.
People with similar outlooks and aims can share ideas and bounce things off on
one another, and people with different outlooks and aims can reach clarify
matters and reach conclusions when the issues posed are clear and decidable.
But I fear that without criteria by which to test interpretations, any
discussion between people with largely different outlooks and aims will be
inconclusive and largely a waste of time. We've seen it happen again and
again, and I'm beginning to get weary of it.
I also do not agree that there is no litmus test for interpretations. Why
not? What makes you sure? And if there's no litmus test, then what good is
offering "evidence"? If no possible change in the color of the litmus paper
can be conclusive, then is it really evidence?
I'm not even sure we agree on what an "interpretation" is, which, I suspect,
is why Jerry can say there's no litmus test.
The passage Jerry quoted seems to me neither to support the conclusion that
the results of the immediate process of production are altered by the
consideration of competition and multiple capitals, nor to have anything to do
with "levels of abstraction." Rather, Marx is indicating that Vol. III he
will develop the forms of appearance --- capital as it appears "on the
surface of society" and as it appears in the thinking of capitalists --- out
of the essential relations. And this is what I think he did.
Andrew Kliman