From: David Yaffe (david@DANYAF.PLUS.COM)
Date: Sat Jul 22 2006 - 07:18:51 EDT
Jurriaan, How does the term valorisation vaguely help? How would a person reading Capital for the first time understand that concept without explanation? Please address the problem raised - is not 'reproduction and expansion' of capital etc far more helpful in understanding what Marx was talking about? Why was Engels satisfied with this translation? David Yaffe At 00:09 22/07/2006 +0200, you wrote: >I think it is useful to read Nicolaus's own "Note on the Translation", pp. >65-66. He says "The translation aims at a tight fit to the original, >including the roughness of grammar". Thus, his translation of this difficult >text is mostly rather "literal". > >This method has its advantages, but you could also "read between the lines" >a bit more than Nicolaus does and thus elucidate, in translating, more >precisely and clearly what Marx tried to convey, taking into account the >total context in which he says it. Once a translation has been made, it is >usually easy to improve it (e.g. the Pelican translation of Capital is >superior to previous ones), and personally, if I would do that (which I am >not about to), I would try to make the Grundrisse text more readable using >the information we now have about the totality of his project, and add an >analytical index. Plus, obviously, 33 years later a better introduction is >possible, elucidating the method and approach Marx adopted, and why he >adopted it, and why the text is still relevant and significant today (though >Nicolaus also makes many good points). > >One specific problem with Nicolaus's "literal" translation is that he makes >some mistakes in interpreting Marx's concepts, in my opinion (cf. Sweezy and >Mandel's comments about this). One good example is the concept of >"Kapitalverwertung". This tends to be translated as the "realisation of >capital" or the "self-expansion of capital" where it should really be >translated as the "valorisation of capital", which is a specific concept. >I've tried to sketch that meaning simply here: >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valorisation. > >Marx of course also penned some other preparatory "economic" manuscripts >that should - I often think - really be included with the Grundrisse texts. >These include the later "Zur Politischen Okonomie" of 1861-63 published by >Dietz in 1976-1982 (the Grundrisse was drafted in 1857-58) and the >"Resultate" (1864). Ben Fowkes's translation of the manuscript on "The >Production Process of Capital" (1864) is available here: >http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/economic/ch11.htm . > >If you were to do a Grundrisse project again, to understand how capital >functions these days, no doubt you would have to take an approach in some >ways similar, i.e. you would take the given concepts in the modern >literature and accounting standards, and critically re-examine/synthesize >them and their interconnection, taking into account the various attempts >that already exist, in order to understand better their social meaning and >implications. But this is obviously a very time-consuming process and, like >Marx's Grundrisse labour, a rather thankless task (well maybe people might >thank you for it a hundred years later, by which time you're dead for many >years). It would possibly be more a collective project of people who don't >like the economic dogma's of the age and somehow can fund themselves to do >it. > >Jurriaan
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