From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Sat Dec 14 2002 - 10:14:39 EST
Re Hans's [8172]: > I just uploaded a bilingual version of Marx's "Notes on > Adolph Wagner" to the MIA. I understand that this is his > last economic manuscript which has some interesting > methodological remarks. The URL is > http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/01/wagner.htm Thanks for doing this. Of all the writings of Marx on political economy, the "Marginal Notes on Wagner" (MNW) has been the hardest for students and scholars to obtain. Making this available on the Internet is consequently an important service. I also think that the layout of the current version, including the joint publication side-by-side of the German original and the English translation from the M/E _Collected Works_ , is much to be preferred to the Spring, 1972 publication of another translation in the journal _Theoretical Practice_. Furthermore, the MIA (and _CW_) publication has the merit of *not* being introduced by a lengthy essay (by Athar Hussain) since such an introduction puts forward an interpretation of the work rather than lets the reader study the primary source itself free of a interpretation and critique of the work. > The MIA wants me to add a paragraph about the importance of > this manuscript. Does anyone have any suggestions what to say? MAXILIEN RUBEL and MARGARET MANALE have a credible summary (subject to the following questions below***) in _MARX WITHOUT MYTH_ (Harper & Row, 1975, p. 320): "Sometime between late 1879 and the end of 1880 Marx began a critique and refutation of passages in Adolf Wagner's _Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie_ [Textbook of Political Economy (2nd ed. 1879)] which attributed to Marx a 'socialist system' and falsely construed his value theory. Marx made some twenty-odd pages of notes and commentary, but left the work unfinished. Wagner failed, for example, to differentiate between the theories of Marx and Ricardo, the latter having dealt with labour 'only as a *measure of value*' and therefore established no connection between value theory and the 'essence of money', as had Marx. Ricardo had, moreover, confounded value and production costs, whereas Marx had emphasized, as early as the 1859 *Zur Kritik*, that '*values* and *production* prices (which simply express the costs of production in money terms) *do not* coincide' (MEW 19: 359). Stating that commodities as values have a 'double nature', Marx rejected the argument that certain goods have a social use value for the commodity as a whole: 'WHERE THE STATE ITSELF IS A CAPITALIST PRODUCER, AS IN THE EXPLOITATION OF MINES, WOODLAND, ETC., ITS PRODUCT IS A "COMMODITY" AND HAS THEREFORE THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF EVERY OTHER COMMODITY['] (MEW, 19:370) (emphasis, i.e. capitalization added, JL). 'Value', according to Marx, represents only the 'social character of labour' and is produced through the 'expenditure of "social" labour power' (MEW 19: 375). Wagner also attributed to Marx the view that surplus value created by the worker was 'unjustly' appropriated by the capitalist. On the contrary, Marx replied, ' ... at a certain point the production of commodities necessarily becomes "capitalist" commodity production and, according to the law of value which governs the production system, THE 'SURPLUS VALUE' IS DUE NOT TO THE WORKING MAN BUT TO THE CAPITALIST' (MEW 19: 375)" emphasis added again, JL). Questions on Rubel/Manale summary: -------------------------------------- *** (1): Is the quote that begins 'Where the state is a capitalist producer ....' an accurate rendering of the German original and does it appear in the above words in the _CW_ translation? I ask this since I couldn't find it in the MIA version. ***(2): What is the rendering of the last quote about how the s "is due not to the working man but to the capitalist" in the original German and in the _CW_ translation? This quote, it seems to me, has relevance for some recent writings by Chris, and comments by Nicky on OPE-L. Comment on method: --------------------- I, of course, agree with Hans that that there are interesting -- and important -- methodological comments in the MNW. What strikes me as particularly interesting are Marx's comments on the commodity which he remarks is the "concretum", the "subject", and the "concrete form of the product of labor". Contrary to some interpretations (e.g. by Althusser) this strikes me as *perfectly consistent* with the methodological comments that Marx made in the 1857-58 Economic Manuscripts (i.e. in the "Introduction" to the _Grundrisse_). So, in re-reading his methodological comments in the MNW, I am struck by the consistency between the perspectives advanced in the MNW and the 57-58 Manuscripts which leads me to question again Althusser's assertion of an 'epistemological break' that he claimed was apparent in the MNW -- I see no 'epistemological break' here. Perhaps others on the list (Paul Z?) disagree; do others -- however -- agree? In solidarity, Jerry
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