At 16:15 -0700 16-05-1997, Michael Williams wrote:
>Just a brief note to thank Riccardo for reminding me of these arguments of
>Colletti. I read Colletti whilst a Masters student in the 1970s, and I fear
>neither Geert nor I really identified the importance of these arguments in
>our own later development of the value-form approach (I guess we are all
>unconsciously in debt to many more thinkers than those whose contribution
>we can trace and acknowledge. In my case, I moved away from Colletti when I
>became disappointed by his attempt to cash out 'actual contradiction' as
>some kind of 'opposition'.
>Michael
Me myself I am rereading this old stuff for other reasons. I think Colletti
blocked himself at the beginning of the argument, but was on the right
track. My persuasion is that Colletti's argument was deepened substantially
by Napoleoni in the early '70s. Unfortunately, most of the relevant papers
by the latter are not available in English. I am not saying that Napoleoni
provides all the answers. I am saying that the solution to the problesm
that we two find as interesting can be helped by taking into account the
Napoleoni's development of the Colletti position, and their limits too. If
you are interested, we may discuss of these things in the future.