Steve: I also lean towards a Hegelian reading of Marx (concurring with Lenin's dictum that the first chapter of Volume I can only be understood without first reading Hegel's LOGIC). And certainly this implies giving much less weight to the economistic pursuits that see to dominate much of the discussion on this listserv. But isn't the antagonism between labor (and labor power) still vital aspect of the dialectical make-up of the commodity form in chapter 1 of Volume I? If 'value is a social relation' (i.e., an expropriative relation) then surely wage labor, in producing value, is also producing this antagonistic (dialectical) relation? The strength of this dialectical perspective lies in the kind of political Marxism it engenders (relative to the passive descriptions of many economistic readings). Praxis embodies this, by acknowledging how we may be both structured, and structuring, of our circumstances. Fraternally, TT ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Zarembka <zarembka@acsu.buffalo.edu> To: <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 1:35 PM Subject: [OPE-L:4278] Re: Re: Re: Steve on the worthlessness of labor at the source of surplus value > On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Steve Keen wrote: > > > Sydney back in the early 1970s. Some fellow activists with whom I found > > myself in frequent disagreement were great fans of Althusser then (don't > > know how many still are). I got sick of hearing the word 'praxis'. > > Allin's question would be mine. I rarely use 'praxis'. > > > With respect to the labor theory of value interpretation of Marx, I argue > > that it is based on incorrectly accepting the premise that labor is the > > only source of value, and working logically forward from there. > > Marx never, or almost never, used "labor theory of value" but rather > referred to "law of value". > > > The reason I call the premise incorrect is that, if you read Marx closely, > > after 1857 that was not his initial premise but a deduction from a prior > > set of dialectical premises about the commodity, exchange-value and > > use-value. I argue that working logically from those premises reaches a > > conclusion which contradicts the labor theory of value. > > My reference to Althusser was not entirely accidental. If I am defending > a non-Hegelian reading of Marx, why would I be interested your discussion > of "dialectical premises", derivative of a Hegelian reading? > > Paul Z. > >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Oct 31 2000 - 00:00:12 EST