Sorry to be so late catching up n thisintersting thread. In Howard's 5531 the following is stated: > >The other thing about the quote is that this is exactly what accounts for >the peculiarities of the equivalent form . . . or almost does. The first >peculiarity is that use value becomes the phenomenal form of its opposite, >value. So far so good. The second peculiarity is that concrete labor >becomes the form under which abstract labor manifests itself -- again, the >sensibly concrete can be considered the form of appearance of the >abstractly general. But then what of the third peculiarity? Instead of >saying *private labor becomes the form of expression of social labor,* the >text reads that "the labour of private individuals takes the form of its >opposite, labour directly social in its form." > >What accounts for this peculiarity of the third peculiarity? > >In other words, the third peculiarity does not show the inversion we might >have expected. > What accounts for it is a mistranslation. I quote from a review article I wrote: "A mistranslation Now we come to an actual mistranslation which - astonishingly given its importance - has remained undiscovered until Cyril Smith recently drew attention to it in his paper 'Hegel, Economics, and Marx's Capital'' (in History, Economic History and the Future of Marxism eds T. Brotherstone and Geoff Pilling, Porcupine Press, London 1996, p. 245-46). In the first chapter of Capital Marx undertook a study of the interchanges of use value and value, concrete and abstract labour, private and social labour. In the equivalent form of value there were said to be three 'peculiarities' (Collected Works 35, pp.66-69). The third one was that the labour of private individuals 'becomes the form' of its opposite, labour directly social in its form: 'daß Privatarbeit zur Form ihres Gegenteils wird, zu Arbeit in unmittelbar gesellschaftlicher Form' (MEW 23 p.73). Yet in Collected Works 35 this is mistranslated as 'takes the form' (p.69), Smith rightly complains. Unfortunately, having brought off this coup, Smith then 'blows it' in his gloss by muddling the six categories in question; he writes: 'use-value, concrete labour and social labour ... appear in the shape of value, abstract labour and private labour, respectively' (p.246). But what Marx says about the three peculiarities of the equivalent form is that use-value, concrete labour and private labour become the form of value, abstract labour and immediately social labour, respectively. One can find this account buried in the 1859 Contribution... and the first chapter of the first edition of Capital, but they first appear prominently as 'peculiarities' with separate headings in the Value-Form Appendix (Mohun edition pp.17-21). Then they are repeated without headings in the final version of chapter 1 (Collected Works 35, pp.66-69). It is a remarkable fact that all three translations of Capital made this same mistake; but both existing translations of the first edition Appendix got it right. Interestingly, the Appendix lists a 'fourth peculiarity' which turns out to be 'fetishism of the commodity-form'. Obviously Marx realised it had a more general importance so he then wrote it up as an independent section of the first chapter for the second edition." The private labour concerned will inthe end be that in gold production. Chris Arthur 17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England
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