From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Sun May 30 2004 - 21:04:21 EDT
Hi Costas. > The state is surely not exogenous to 'capitalism'. But I take it that > the capitalist mode of production is a structured whole in which the > sphere of the economy is analytically prior to the state and politics. > It is in that sense that I prefer endogenous (to the process of > exchange) explanations of money's emergence. That does not preclude the > state playing an important economic role in general. The issue, though, of the emergence of money (from both a historical _and_ logical standpoint) presumes an analysis of The State. I.e. even if we could make a claim at one level of analysis that the emergence of money stems from the nature of market activity (and hence is tied to the commodity-form), one would _still_ have to explain at a more concrete level how this is modified by the state. Perhaps it would have been easier for us if Marx had written a footnote which read something like: "The further analysis of this subject presumes an analysis of The State which will be addressed in Book IV." Alas, no such footnote exists. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jun 02 2004 - 00:00:02 EDT