[OPE-L:1535] Re: surprising agreement?

glevy@acnet.pratt.edu (glevy@acnet.pratt.edu)
Sun, 24 Mar 1996 11:19:38 -0800

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Re Fred's [OPE-L:1534]:
======================

Maybe there is some room for a (non-so-surprising) agreement.

*If* we can agree that the subject matter of _Capital_ is capitalism
(which, I think, Mike, Gil, Fred, I, and some others have agreed to);
*and*,

*If* we can say that it is appropriate to ask not only what topics a
particular level of analysis answers but *also* what questions are *not*
answered at that level of analysis,

*then*,

couldn't we say that while the relation of capitalism to issues
associated with non-capitalist modes of production aren't analyzed in any
systematic way in _Capital_ they nonetheless *need* to be investigated at a
more concrete level of determination?

What would such a level of analysis be? Would it begin by examining
landed property or foreign trade or the world market and crises or what
the Uno-school calls stage theory?

To the extent that capitalism, while being the dominant economic system,
is not the *only* mode of production in existence, i.e. there are still
remnants of pre-capitalist social formations in many parts of the world
today, this would seem to be an important question.

Do others agree with what I take -- perhaps optimistically -- to be a
not-so-surprising agreement?

In OPE-L Solidarity,

Jerry