From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Wed Apr 13 2005 - 09:02:23 EDT
> On the question of critique and political economy, for what it's worth, > there's a passage from p. 202 of Beyond Capital: > The critique of the political economy of capital is completed only by > the realisation of the political economy of the working class--- a > communist society. As long as producers are not their own mediator, > the mystification of everyday life and the alienation of human beings > from their own powers continue: > The veil is not removed from the countenance of the social > life-process, i.e. the process of material production, until it > becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their > conscious and planned control (Marx, 1977: > 173). Hi Michael L, The realm of critique for Marx extended far beyond the critique of political economy: "If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the _ruthless critique of the existing order_, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be." (Marx to Ruge, September, 1843; (full letter: <http://eserver.org/marx/1843-letters.to.arnold.ruge/1843.09-ruthless.critique.txt > Note that he wrote this in 1843. Did his perspective on the *scope* of critique change in later years? What are the implications for the critique _of_ Marx and Marxism? Will the "ruthless" critique extend into a socialist society? Does it "whither away"? In solidarity, Jerry
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