From: Dogan Goecmen (Dogangoecmen@AOL.COM)
Date: Sat Dec 02 2006 - 07:14:46 EST
Hi everybody, I came accross a passage in the Grundrisse, that may be seen as a critique of the notion of the 'invisible hand'. As A. O. Hirschman has shown this notion was broadly used by almost all philosophers since the 16th century in Europe. I think that this notion can even be traced back to Aristotle's conception of 'unmoved mover" and followed up to Hegel. Christopher Hill argued that this notion played at one point in history a progressive role and not only in the interests of ruling classes but also in the interests of subordinated classes. I have only the Greman version of the Grundrisse. So I tried to translate the passage into English. I hope it is up to your standards! In the chapter on money Marx talks about mutual dependence of production and so on. German ------------ Diese wechselseitige Abhängigkeit ausgedrückt in der beständigen Notwendigkeit des Austauschs und in dem Tauschwert als allseitigem Vermittler. Die Ökonomen drücken das so aus: Jeder verfolgt sein Privatinteresse und nur sein Privatinteresse; und dient dadurch, ohne es zu wollen und zu wissen, den Privatinteressen aller, den allgemeinen Interessen. Der Witz besteht nicht darin, daß, indem jeder sein Privatinteresse verfolgt, die Gesamtheit der Privatinteressen, also das allgemeine Interesseerreicht wird. Vielmehr könnte aus dieser abstrakten Phrase gefolgert werden, daß jeder wechselseitige die Geltendmachung des Interesses der andern hemmt, und statt einer algemeinen Affirmation, vielmehr eine allgemeine Negation aus diesem bellum ommium contra omnes resultiert. (K. Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, Berlin: Dietz Verlag 1953, p. 74) English ----------- This mutual dependence expressed by the permanent necessity of exchange and by the value in exchange as all-round mediator. The economists express this as follows: everyone pursues his/her private interest and only his/her private interest; and in so doing [he/she] serves the private interests of all, without wanting it, without knowing it. The joke does not consist in that that, while everyone pursues his/her private interest, the whole of private interests, that is, general interest is achieved. On the contrary, it can be concluded from this abstract phrase that everyone hinders mutually the realisation of the interest of others, and instead a general affirmation, there results from this bellum ommuim contra omnes a general negation. Voila... Cheers, Dogan
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