Re: [OPE-L] Grundrisse. Help

From: Paul Bullock (paulbullock@EBMS-LTD.CO.UK)
Date: Fri Jul 21 2006 - 14:22:54 EDT


Chris,

In 

Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, 9, Autumn 1974,

 

Defining Productive Labour for Capital, by Paul Bullock





you will find the following footnote:



fn11.       K. Marx, Grundrisse Der Kritik Ocr Politischen Okonomie. Dietz Verlag, Berlin

1953, p.528, where we find, “. . .und es ist klar, dass diese relative Entwertung des Kapitals seiner Verwertung nicht :usetzen, sondern nur von thr abnehmen kann;. . .“ Nicolaus, on his page 634 translates Verwertung as Realisation. This is clearly wrong. Both from the context and Marx’s own usage we know that Verwertung is to be read self expansion and reproduction. Thus when Marx actually talks of the process of realisation of value he uses Realisierung. For example p171 (Berlin), where we find ‘Realisienung’ self realisation correctly treated by Nicolaus on his page 259. Again realisiert - p132 in the German - is correctly treated as realised, p221 in the English.





I always wondered why Nicolaus, in his forward, blatantly ignored ie no open acknowledgement - the good work that D McLellan had done in bringing the Grundrisse to the attention of English lang.readers. ( he Quotes Engels out of  McLellan in fn 52 alone), esp McLellan's Marx's Grundrisse of 1971.



You might note that the MELI version uses the originals for quotations from texts and not marx's own notes, ( N doesn't refer to this but if you go to p984 of the 1953 Dietz Verlag ed. and read note 35 you will see this.) whereas N. uses marx's notes and he says this on p66 (his Note on Translation), but it is not clear how he got these, since he himself says that the 1939 editors  switched passages at times into footnotes and N says himself that 'There is no way of distinguishing them. This would require checking  with the handwritten manuscript in Moscow' (Note on Translation  p 65 ). So it is unclear how /if he came to read the originals to do this. If you can explain this to me it will take a weight off my mind ( only joking!).



Cheers



paul bullock

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Christopher Arthur 
  To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU 
  Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 3:31 PM
  Subject: [OPE-L] Grundrisse. Help


  Comrades and Friends
  I have been commissioned to write a short piece on the translation and reception of the Grundrisse in UK and US.
  I would be grateful for amy comments on the two translations, and especially anything you can recall in the way of review articles etc. on the Nicolaus translation when it came out. Or indeed discussions of the bits that appeared earlier.
  Chris Arthur


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