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In response to Jerry's OPE-L 3229:
I had written that the negation of the negation "is the culmination of
_Capital_, the expropriation of the expropriators."
Jerry replied:
: This would have been a great culmination, or ending, to
: _Capital_. And it would have been a culmination, or
: ending, consistent with many of Marx's other writings.
: The only problem is that was *MOT* the culmination or
: end of _Capital_. (should read *NOT* above).
Negation of the negation wasn't the *ending*. But it is the
*culmination*. The two aren't the same. The non-astronomical definition
of "culmination" given by my dictionary is "the act of attaining the
highest point; the state of being at the apex; also, the highest point of
any ascending progress; the top; summit; acme."
I would say that the expropriation of the expropriators qualifies as the
"highest point of [the] ascending progress" of _Capital_. Wouldn't you
agree?
The ascending progress issue is very important, since it is the
*positivity* of the dialectic of negativity, the forward movement, to
which Paul, like many other critics of Hegel, objects.
Jerry continues: "Let's look at the empirical evidence in _Capital_. ...
So, the empirical evidence on what the culmination of _Capital_ is does
not support your interpretation. ... In any even[t], I think that the
empirical evidence is pretty clear that the "expropriation of the
expropriators" was NOT the culmination of _Capital_."
Once the distinction between "culmination" and "end" is clear, I think
the empirical evidence provides overwhelming support for my
interpretation. Wouldn't you agree?
Andrew Kliman
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