From: Anders Ekeland (anders.ekeland@ONLINE.NO)
Date: Tue Jun 05 2007 - 20:59:24 EDT
Hi Jerry, I think the relation of the 2nd German edition and the French edition is more complex. Because - the second German is from 1873 - the French from 1975 - two years later And from the Afterword - and the time lag - it is clear that Marx most probably did not get all the changes made in the French edition into the 2nd German - "on the basis of the changes in the French edition" is probably not accurate. That is why Marx says in the Afterword that the French edtion has a scientific value of its own and should be read even by those who can read German. That would be a meaningless statement if all the changes made from the 1st German to the French version was incorporated into the 2 German edition - which - to repeat - came out two years before the French edtion - and new passages in the 2nd German is reproduced in the French version. The differences between the German and French edition is discussed partly in I Rubins book - do anyone know of any other comparison of these editions - maybe by members of the MEGA team? The substance of the matter: ---------------------------- The passage which I call the "education cost" passage is in the French edition like this: En examinant la production de la plus value, nous avons supposé que le travail, approprié par le capital, est du travail simple moyen. La supposition contraire n'y changerait rien. Admettons, par exemple, que, comparé au travail du fileur, celui du bijoutier est du travail à une puissance supérieure, que l'un est du travail simple et l'autre du travail complexe où se manifeste une force plus difficile à former et qui rend dans le même temps plus de valeur. Mais quel que soit le degré de différence entre ces deux travaux, la portion de travail où le bijoutier produit de la plus-value pour son maître ne diffère en rien qualitativement de la portion de travail où il ne fait que remplacer la valeur de son propre salaire. Après comme avant, la plus-value ne provient que de la durée prolongée du travail, qu'il soit celui du fileur ou celui du bijoutier <http://www.marxists.org/francais/marx/works/1867/Capital-I/kmcapI-7.htm#sdfootnote19sym#sdfootnote19sym>[Footnote 1]. D'un autre côté, quand il s'agit de production de valeur, le travail supérieur doit toujours être réduit à la moyenne du travail social, une journée de travail complexe, par exemple, à deux journées de travail simple <http://www.marxists.org/francais/marx/works/1867/Capital-I/kmcapI-7.htm#sdfootnote20sym#sdfootnote20sym>[Footnote 2]. Si des économistes comme il faut se sont récriés contre cette « assertion arbitraire », n'est ce pas le cas de dire, selon le proverbe allemand, que les arbres les empêchent de voir la forêt ! Ce qu'ils accusent d'être un artifice d'analyse, est tout bonnement un procédé qui se pratique tous les jours dans tous les coins du monde. Partout les valeurs des marchandises les plus diverses sont indistinctement exprimées en monnaie, c'est à dire dans une certaine masse d'or ou d'argent. Par cela même, les différents genres de travail, représentés par ces valeurs, ont été réduits, dans des proportions différentes, à des sommes déterminées d'une seule et même espèce de travail ordinaire, le travail qui produit l'or ou l'argent. The similar, but far from identical passage in the English version (which is a rather - but not quite - straight forward translation of the 4th German Ed. (if I remember correctly) "We stated, on a previous page, that in the creation of surplus-value it does not in the least matter, whether the labour appropriated by the capitalist be simple unskilled labour of average quality or more complicated skilled labour. All labour of a higher or more complicated character than average labour is expenditure of labour-power of a more costly kind, labour-power whose production has cost more time and labour, and which therefore has a higher value, than unskilled or simple labour-power. This power being higher-value, its consumption is labour of a higher class, labour that creates in equal times proportionally higher values than unskilled labour does. Whatever difference in skill there may be between the labour of a spinner and that of a jeweller, the portion of his labour by which the jeweller merely replaces the value of his own labour-power, does not in any way differ in quality from the additional portion by which he creates surplus-value. In the making of jewellery, just as in spinning, the surplus-value results only from a quantitative excess of labour, from a lengthening-out of one and the same labour-process, in the one case, of the process of making jewels, in the other of the process of making yarn. [18] But on the other hand, in every process of creating value, the reduction of skilled labour to average social labour, e.g., one day of skilled to six days of unskilled labour, is unavoidable. [19] We therefore save ourselves a superfluous operation, and simplify our analysis, by the assumption, that the labour of the workman employed by the capitalist is unskilled average labour." The two main differences are a) that the "whose production has cost more time and labour" is replaced by the much more general/vague "plus difficile the former" = more difficult to educate/make competent (in French "formation often have the meaning "education" b) but the main difference is that in the French Capital, the labour producing gold or money is used as numeraire: "les différents genres de travail, représentés par ces valeurs, ont été réduits, dans des proportions différentes, à des sommes déterminées d'une seule et même espèce de travail ordinaire, le travail qui produit l'or ou l'argent." (... these different types of labour, represented by their corresponding values, have been reduced, in different proportions by one and only type of simple labour, the labour that produces gold or silver (money?)". I do not have time to go into a more detailed and deeper analysis if the "French" solution, but it is clear that nowhere in the German/English editions is the gold producing labour given any particular role. In my opinion this only shows that Marx never treated this problem systematically/seriously. The logic of the concept of "abstract labour" makes the dichotomy simple vs. complex labour redundant. All particularities are done away with if one accept the concept of "abstract labour" - as I do. In my opinion the French version seriously weakens the textual support for the Hilferding/Okishio/Rowthorn "whose production has cost more labour" - that is the "education cost" solution to the labour reduction problem. Regards Anders At 23:30 30.05.2007, you wrote: >Hi Anders: > >I think the answer to your question is - no, there isn't a direct >English translation from the French edition from Volume 1. However, >Marx revised the 2nd German edition on the basis of the changes >made in the French edition. This topic was discussed briefly on the >list many years ago, see the following post by Riccardo: ><<http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/ope/archive/9605/0008.html>http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/ope/archive/9605/0008.html> > >btw, if you are not already familiar with it, >you should find the following item >from our archives (by Alejandro Ramos) to be of interest: ><<http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/cgi-bin/textify.cgi?HTML=9703/0309.html>http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/cgi-bin/textify.cgi?HTML=9703/0309.html> > > >In solidarity, Jerry
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