[OPE-L:6512] Re: [OPE] What is prior?

Fred B. Moseley (fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu)
Sun, 26 Apr 1998 12:57:44 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Alan Freeman wrote:

> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 03:52:11 +0200
> From: Alan Freeman <a.freeman@greenwich.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> Subject: Re: [OPE] What is prior?
>
> Another quick rejoinder to Fred's post of 19 April and Chris's of 9 April.
>
> Chris had written:
>
> > Yes indeed and one could add ontological priority when marx keeps
> > insisting something must be created before it can be distributed even if
> > there is no temporal gap. This seems to be the main thing motivating his
> > treatment of transformation and the main thing Fred starts from.
>
> and Fred wrote
>
> > Yes, indeed !!
>
> On reflection I may not have properly understand what Chris and Fred
> understood, or meant, by the words 'even if there is no temporal gap' in
> Chris's original post.

> I think the fundamental issue is that of temporal succession, rather than
> temporal distance.
>
> Things can succeed each other temporally even if there is no temporal gap,
> or if the temporal gap reduces to zero.

...

> I think that the appropriate concept to discuss Marx's ontological
> principle is not temporal gap, but temporal succession; and we may be in
> agreement on this, in which case I think we can progress significantly.
>
> The way I would like to put the point is that one may not distribute
> something 'before' it has been created, exactly as Chris puts it in the
> first part of his sentence; that is, distribution must temporally succeed
> creation.
>
> Now, Chris's sentence might then have one of two meanings. It might be a
> simple re-statement of what I consider to be the fundamental temporal
> principle, which is the principle of temporal succession; in this case, one
> may not distribute something 'temporally before' it has been created. In
> this case, I agree that it is irrelevant whether there is a temporal gap,
> since one does not need a temporal gap in order to distinuish 'before' from
> 'after'.
>
> Or, Chris might be seeking to distinuish two meanings of the word 'before',
> one being temporal, and the other being non-temporal. Thus he might really
> have meant something like:
>
> > Yes indeed and one could add ontological priority when marx keeps
> > insisting something must be created before it can be distributed even if
> > there is no temporal succession.
>
> Or, he might not have meant that, but Fred might have understood that. In
> which case the agreement is less exclamatory than we first thought.
>
> This doesn't seem to me to be the sense of what Chris was saying but I
> thought I had better check. Also to check which meaning Fred took from the
> statement, when he added his exclamation marks.
>
> As a final clarification, why not just write the statement as follows?
>
> > Yes indeed and one could add ontological priority when marx keeps
> > insisting something must be created temporally before it can be distributed.
>
> Would either Fred or Chris disagree with that restatement of (Marx's)
> principle?
>
> Alan

Fred replies:

No, Alan, I would not accept your restatement of Chris' statement.
I have said all along: in my view, Marx's assumption that the total
amount of surplus-value is determined prior to the distribution of
surplus-value means a LOGICAL priority, but a TEMPORAL priority, which
is the way I interpreted Chris' statement.

I will let Chris speak for himself.

Comradely,
Fred