[OPE-L:1561] Re: Lapides and Marx's wage theory


Gerald Levy (glevy@pratt.edu)
Sat, 23 Oct 1999 17:43:14 -0400 (EDT)


Jurriaan asked that I consider the passage that he reproduced by Mandel.
OK, I did.

But, I want to clarify a point I made. To expand upon the following:

> Thus, as I said before, the analysis of
> the state-form is required precisely because it wasn't examined in
> _Capital_ yet is a form that arises necessarily out of a further
> development of the commodity-form (thus the category of money implies
> the state. But where is the analysis of the state?).

The commodity-form requires that a commodity have a use-value, an
exchange-value, and value. The value-form then requires the introduction
of the category of money. Yet the category of money necessarily implies
the state-form since money is issued by nation-states. Yet, the state-form
is abstracted from in _Capital_ even though it represents a necessary form
of existence for capitalism. This means, from a systematic dialectical
perspective, that this form must be analyzed and incorporated into the
reconstruction of capitalism in thought. As for the issues that Mandel
raised in the passage, I think they could be treated by considering the
dichotomy between the state and civil society. Am I making your head
spin with too many Hegelianisms, Paul Z?

btw, Mandel (following Grossmann and Rosdolsky) held to a "4-book-plan"
interpretation. Thus, he writes in the "Introduction" to the Penguin
edition of Volume 1:
     
         "it seems clear from many remarks interspersed through-out the
          manuscript of Volume 3 that Marx maintained his intentions of
          completing _Capital_ with volumes on the state, foreign trade,
          the world market and crises, although he placed these problems
          clearly outside of the final plan of _Capital_ itself" (pp.
          30-31)

In solidarity, Jerry



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