From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@STANFORD.EDU)
Date: Wed Jul 14 2004 - 18:47:49 EDT
I found this to be the best introduction to his work L Krader, The Periodization of World History According to Karl Marx. In Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Gene Weltfish, ed. Stanley Diamond Mouton Publishers, 1978. But see also his contribution to A History of Marxism, ed. Hobsbawn. Perhaps Krader's critique of the Asiatic Mode of Production is too gentle. In writing after his book on the topic (1975), he seems to me to underestimate less to what extent the putative independence of the fabulated archaic villages had dissolved under Mughal rule, and to recognize something of a weak internal dialectic to so called Asiatic society. Daniel Thorner's essay from the mid 60s reprinted in The Making of Modern India is still a great introduction to Marx's writings on India, ethnology, Morgan, and Maine. Thorner is more critical of Marx than Krader, and had a better appreciation of what Irfan Habib and DD Kosambi had already said. In the analytical account of Marx's theory of history (Cohen, Elster) one does not find reference to Thorner's article and Krader's book; also almost completely forgotten are Richard Jones, Phear and Maine, Morgan. Marx's critical encounter with 19th century Anglo evolutionism which both predates and postdates Darwin seems worthy of much more in-depth study. Cyrill Levitt editor of this book and former student of Krader's has written on the theme of evolutionism. [But it seems to me that a lot more needs to be said about how colonial power and ideas about race structured this evolutionism that Marx analyzed in his ethnological notebooks. As Thomas Trautmann shows in Aryans and British India, the Aryan mythology that was to cost the lives of millions of Jews and Roma has its roots not in German thought but British colonial history, in particular in mythologies about how original "Aryan" social and linguistic forms once common in the East and West no longer indicated a commonality of race after a long period of social evolution in the West). The genocide of the gypsies raises the question of how a people whose language root was Sanskrit (and hence Aryan) were excommunicated from the Aryan race and murdered en masse. The colonial origins of Nazi racism are also explored by the Marxist Enzo Traverso in his excellent recent book.] Also, the other Russian emigre Kovalevsky may have been as important to Marx as Sieber. Krader's work is very stimulating in regards to all these thinkers. But this book is about another topic, and I am having difficulty comprehending his critique of objective theories of value. Rakesh Labor and Value by Lawrence Krader, Cyril Levitt (Editor), Rod Hay (Editor) Product Details * Hardcover: 325 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.00 x 9.00 x 6.25 * Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing; (November 2003) * ISBN: 0820467987 From the Publisher Labor and Value reexamines the history of the theories of labor and value from Aristotle to the present. In a systematic way, it seeks to combine the leading theories of objective and subjective value and breaks new ground in subjecting both theories to a radical historical and anthropological critique. Set within a newly conceived theory of the orders of nature, it finds the treatment of both theories problematic in that each treats its subject matter pars pro toto. Lawrence Krader identifies both conceptual and terminological confusion in the traditional discussion of labor and value by writers within the Marxist tradition. He also demonstrates the negative consequences of abandoning an objective foundations in value theory on the part of the Austrian School in spite of its important contribution on the side of subjective value. This book revisits and deepens the discussion on labor as it was developed by Aristotle, Hegel, and Marx. Synopsis Comprises the first posthumous publication of scholar Lawrence Krader (1919-1998), professor and Director of the Institut für Ethnologie at the Freie Universität, Berlin, whose wide-ranging work includes manuscripts in the fields of noetics, mathematical logic, linguistics, and other topics. In this volume, he examines the history of the theories of labor and value from Aristotle to the present, offering a radical historical and anthropological critique. He identifies the conceptual and terminological confusion in the traditional discussion of labor and value by writers within the Marxist tradition and demonstrates the negative consequences of abandoning an objective foundation in value theory on the part of the Austrian School. Lacks a subject index. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Table of Contents Lawrence Krader In Memoriam Editors' Introduction Introduction 1 Pt. I Labor 3 Labor, the Process of Human Reproduction 3 Production and Consumption 11 Objective and Subjective Relations of Labor 16 Labor Form and Substance 23 Relations of Social Labor 35 Labor and the Periodization of Human History 72 Labor in Civil Society 85 Labor, Productive and Unproductive 106 App. I On the Theory of Technics 117 App. II Diremption and Alienation of Labor 124 Notes 127 Pt. II Value 139 Labor and Its Expression by Value, Quality and Quantity 139 Value, Exchange Value, and Use Value 164 Value Form and Substance 183 Periodization of the Value Process 196 Value, Essence and Reality 230 Value and Price 232 Calculation of Value 247 Social Labor and the Laws of Value 254 App. I Aristotle, Marx, and the Theory of Exchange Value 255 App. II Value and the Mental Process 268 App. III On the Market Economy in Russia and China 269 Notes 274 Bibliography 293 Index 299
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