[OPE-L:8136] Re: philosophy and political economy

From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Fri Dec 06 2002 - 17:02:28 EST


Paolo wrote in [8135]:

> I may be wrong but what I am arguing is that a "condition for" cannot be
> identified as a  "reason for"...It is something similar to the joke Marx
> makes at a certain point in  Capital: the condition for digestion is a
> good stomach. Actual digestion, on the other  hand, needs something
> more..."  That is, the condition for the existence of surplus
> value cannot be identified with an explanation for why it exists.

*Source*: Responding to a quote from Rossi, Marx wrote:
"When we speak of capacity for labour, we do not speak of labour, any more
than we speak of digestion when we speak of capacity for digestion.  As is
well known, the latter process requires something more than a good stomach."
(Volume 1, Ch. 6,  in paragraph which begins "It is an extraordinarily cheap
kind of sentimentality", Penguin ed., p. 277).

Tony T take note:  to find the above, I went to the M/E archive at
www.marxists.org and did a word search of the 3 volumes _Capital_ for
"digestion" and "stomach" (there was only the 1 match) and then found
the corresponding page number in the Penguin edition.

In solidarity, Jerry


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