We began this month with 29 members, we now have 34. We have greater
international representation now and the percentage of US membership
has been dropping.
October ended with OPE-L #389. This will be OPE-L #606 [?]. We have been
consistently averaging, regardless of membership size, approximately 200
posts per month!
In what follows, I apologize in advance for any omissions.
I. Working through CAPITAL
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We have been examining issues related to Vol 1, Ch 1 _all_ month as part
of a "working through CAPITAL" approach that we agreed to try at the end
of October.
If there are two themes to what we have been discussing, they concern:
* METHOD; and,
* ABSTRACT LABOUR
In discussing these two issues, most members have participated. Some of
the longer posts were authored by Riccardo, Rakesh, Paul B., Mino, Paul
C., Andrew, Mike L., Chai-on, Paul M., and Alfredo.
We have also discussed a number of other topics including:
* value of constant capital (many posts mostly authored by Paul C.
and John).
* price/value theory (continued from last month).
* "Gil Skillman's unanswered question" (See #442, #444 [951107],
#449-450 [951108] all by Alan and #465 [951110] by Paul C.]
* Infinite interest rates (see #455 by Alan [951107] and #450 by Paul
C. [951110]).
* Money, money market and international value (see #448 by Makoto
and #452 by John [951108]).
* International value/skilled labor (see #454 by Steve K. [951108],
#513 by Iwao and #515 by Steve K. [951120], #533 by Paul C.
[951121], #537 by Steve K. [951122], #573 by Paul C., #576 by
Steve K. and #577-78 by Jerry [951127], #579 by Iwao [951128],
#594 by Paul C. [951129] and #603 by Chai-on [951130]).
* When exactly is a good priced? (See #461 by Alan [951109] and #470
by Jerry [951111].
* Simple commodity production or capitalism? (see #516 by Fred and
#524 by John [951120]).
* Order of enquiry and critique (see #509 by Jerry [951118], #529 by
Andrew [951121], #545 by Andrew [951122], #566 by Paul Z. [951126],
#569 by Fred [951127], #584 by Chai-on and #599 by Andrew
[951129].
* Science or manifesto for communism (see #574 by Paul C. [951127]).
* Categories in historical time (see #591 by Michael P., #600 by
Paul C., #602 by Jerry [951129], and #604 by Chai-on [951130]).
Other notable events included Riccardo's massive missives (see #410-412
[951104]) and a suggestion made by Riccardo concerning
biographies/bibliographies (see #420 [951104]).
II. Misc.
^^^^^
Outstanding issues include:
* developing a more workable procedure for responding to each others'
issues and *moving forward*. While the discussions that we have had
this month are necessary, IMO, we need to give greater consideration
for how we can make the current procedure work or, alternatively,
adopt a different procedure.
* developing a procedure, in practice, that allows us all to discuss
*both* fundamental issues and more advanced (so-called "extending
Marx" issues. We might want to again consider the idea of having
"seminars" on specific issues to focus our discussions on topics that
members feel are important.
* participation has been increasing, but there is still plenty of
room for improvement on this score.
Overall, I would say that November was an _experimental_ month for OPE-L.
We are still in the process of "becoming" and deciding concretely how we
can move forward. Considering the recent additions and the
extraordinarily high quality of posts, I would say that this _was_ a good
month for OPE-L. We need to build on what we have already accomplished
and work more in a collaborative manner as a group.
In OPE-L Solidarity,
Jerry