From: Christopher Arthur (arthurcj@WAITROSE.COM)
Date: Thu Oct 20 2005 - 06:11:23 EDT
Pressure of other work has preventd me from entering this interesting discussion but I am conscious that Fred's paper has been circulated which includes a critique of me. I just want to say this is written from Fred's perspective and doesnt cover my position as fully expressed in the two papers I have in The Culmination of Capital* eds M Campbell and G Reuten 2002. In my examination of Grundrisse I discovered Marx employed no less than 5 DIFFERENT definitions of cig so any discussion of what was dropped (or retained) has to say which one (or all) is referred to. There is little textual evidence for Fred's own definition as total capital - the one place in Gr is also a ref to uberhaupt not im allgemein (the usual stricter term); the tripartite logical distintion between gnerality, particularity and singularity occurs early (Gr 105) and seems to fall out in favour of a definition of the general as 'common' and the differences occasioned by competition of many capitals yet he undercuts this by references to the necessity of capital appearing as many capitals. MH is right the early plan had 'interest' in CiG but this drops out fairly quickly leaving the third book of Cig just as 'Capital and Profit' (Note to Mike L: profit here is your surface form of SV yet clearly positioned by Marx in Cig). When Marx does his Capital drafts he does bring in competition while at the same time referring to a further book on competition. I agree then with those who try and make a distinction between a level at which competition is form determining eg of prices of produiction and where it would deal with things like comparitive advantage. in a special book. I attach a rough draft of something I am working on about Cig My own reconstruction in *Culmination* tries to restore the tripartite logical division. Hence I distinguish between the broader sense of CIG contrasted with the competition book (and this I think covers production price but also I say could be expanded to include interest commercial profit but not rent), and More narrowly I argue that Vol 1 is at the level of the general, V2 at the level of the particular, and much of V3 at the level of the singular. I also agree with rakesh that the whole system is in some sense an individual So the enemy is not a class of capitalist firms but capital as such, a hydra headed monster organised through the capital markets. (The discussion between Andy and co is not about Cig any more so I will intervene separately) Chris 17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England
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