From: Tony Tinker (tonytinker@msn.com)
Date: Tue Nov 26 2002 - 19:28:07 EST
Jerry: Excuse me for not reprinting your original comments. I've moved to my home machine (and library) and am working from a hard copy, First, the relevant passages from Diane Elson's article "The Value Theory of Labor" begin around p. 144+ in VALUE: THE REPRESENTATION OF LABOR IN CAPITALISM (CSE Books, London: 1979). She describes four aspects of labor (abstract v concrete, social v private) as potentia ".... which can never exist on their own as determinate forms of labour.... Marx concludes that in capitalist society the abstract aspect is dominant" (p.149). Two aspects of this are pertinent to the current discussion: First, the dominance of this quantitative aspect of labor is integral to the pessimism of writers like Horkheimer and Adorno, who regard quantification and calculability as an important factor in the self-subversion of the enlightenment (and the everpresent possibility of regression into barbarism). And this is why all Marxists should become CPA's: accounting is the advanced technology of this calculability. Figuring -- about profitability, accumulation, investment patterns, resource allocation etc -- orchestrates the subsumption of labor, and therefore the realm of experience. Second, notwithstanding Elson's observation as to the "dominance" of abstract labor, her main thesis -- as indicated by the title of her book -- is that the purpose of Marx's analysis concerns the constitution of daily life under capitalism (This contrasts with the neo-classical agenda of price determination, as well as that of some brands of economistic Marxism). Clearly income distribution / price determination/ wage / profit division (and thus this version of class struggle) is an important component of daily life; but importantly, so are consciousness, culture, ideology, and sociability. Here resides (for writers like Adorno) the possibilities for transcendence. I am not so clear about the status of Marx's 6 Volume plan in all of this, and how this plan might have been radically revised as a result of adopting the commodity as the starting point.. Marx clearly did dwell at some length on resolving on a suitable starting point (which in part, meant developing Hegel's dialectic beyond Hegel). Volume 1 might be seen as the beginning of a radical restructuring of project that may have rendered the original plan obsolete (although now I'm speaking about matters that others are much better equipped to discuss). fraternally, Tony Tinker Professor and Co-Editor Critical Perspectives on Accounting The Accounting Forum Baruch College at the City University of New York Box B12-236 17 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10010 USA Email: TonyTinker@msn.com Tel: 646-312-3175 Fax: 646-312-3161 Critical Perspectives Conference: http://aux.zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu/critical/
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