From: Gerald A. Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Thu Mar 18 2004 - 14:21:28 EST
Hi Paul Z: > Compare Luxemburg's *Introduction to Political Economy*. She doesn't get > to "Commodity Production" until her six chapter! Her long third chapter > is "Elements of Economic History: Primitive Communism" and used some of > the exact same source materials as Marx was reading. (Marx, Luxemburg and > White all read Russian. Incidentally, half of Luxemburg's third chapter > is now translated into English in *The Rosa Luxemburg Reader*, edited by > Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson, Monthly Review, 2004, pp. 71-110.) > Luxemburg goes on to feudalism and the guilds. Wasn't "Introduction to Political Economy" a popular pamphlet based on her lectures at the Party (SPD) school? As such, it seems misguided to compare its internal structure to that of _Capital_. Perhaps a comparison to _Value, Price and Profit_ might be more relevant. What did Luxemburg identify as her aim in the "Introduction"? Did she identify her "ultimate aim" in the same way as Marx did in the July, 1867 "Preface to the First Edition" of Volume One of _Capital_? Even within the context of a systematic dialectical presentation, moreover, the subject of primitive accumulation could come first *if* it was understood to be a historical preface prior to the presentation of the theory. That is, it could be taken in that context to be a preface that comes before the actual starting point of the dialectical presentation. (I am reminded of an introductory economics textbook that _begins_ with economic history and only afterwards moves to the presentation of the theory.) Similarly, one could have included it as an "Appendix" or a lengthy footnote or relegated it to a possible continuation. If I were teaching a short, introductory class to Party members, I might also begin with the "easy stuff" -- economic history. In solidarity, Jerry
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