From: BHANDARI, RAKESH (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Thu Sep 29 2005 - 21:11:08 EDT
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 20:56:02 +0100 clyder@GN.APC.ORG wrote: > Quoting Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU>: > > >> Just guessing: Too Scottish meaning taking individuated individuals >> as the starting point, rather than the social relations of labour >> which appear as buying and selling commodity relations between those >> individuated individuals. Not understanding that cooperative social >> labour is ontologically fundamental, the Scottish Enlightenment >> thinker looks (fetishistically) for the source of value not in the >> invisible relations of social labor but in the material >> characteristics of the things themselves, e.g. its durable >> vendibility. >> ??? Just guessing. >> > > > That does look like just guessing, and I think, underestimates > Smith's grasp of historical materialism. Haven't read Smith Essays on Jurisprudence; nor could have Marx. But the point is not whether Smith had such grasp but what Marx meant by too Scottish. Too Scottish could have meant commitment to Robinsonades (though Defoe spied for the British against the Scots, no?) which then meant inability to understand ontological priority of social labor which then led could not be an explantory factor which was sought rather than in the material quality of things. Is this what Marx very roughly meant by too Scottish? Rakesh > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
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