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In OPE-L 2576, Jerry attributed to me the view that capital is a thing:
"Didn't Andrew make the point that for Marx capital *is* a thing? Thus,
it not only *appears* as a thing but *is* a thing."
In OPE-L 2578, he attempted to support this claim by means of two quotes:
"Rather the commodity itself is a fetish in the strict and original sense
of the term, a thing that has un-thingly power."
"... the commodity-fetish has more developed subsidiary forms,
money-fetish, capital-fetish, etc. ...."
Neither of these quotes say that capital is a thing. But Jerry appears
to "reason" as follows:
A commodity is a thing.
The capital-fetish is a more-developed form of the commodity-fetish.
Therefore, capital is a thing.
This is of course nonsense.
If, moreover, this "deduction" can be used to accuse me of holding that
capital is a thing, it can equally be used to accuse Marx of the same
thing, since the 1st and 2nd premises are his:
"The commodity is, first of all, an external object, a thing which
through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind" (_Capital_
I, Vintage, p. 125).
"If we then make the mistake of treating it [the value-form of the
product of labour] as the eternal natural form of social production, we
necessarily overlook the specificity of the value-form, and consequently
of the commodity-form together with its further developments, the money
form, the capital form, etc." (ibid., p. 174, note 34).
Andrew Kliman
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