Re Rakesh's [5135], [5140], [5147]: What exactly was your point? In two of your posts [5135; 5140] you reproduce articles from the popular press on the crisis in Japan. What connection do you think this has to the subject of "the capital-form and the state"? In [5140] you reproduce an article about stun and related technologies. You suggest a connection to arms production and export (which was discussed in the context of a thread on wether arms production is productive of surplus value). Again -- what exactly are you asking us to discuss? (btw, I think that the value of the stun technologies that are described in that article represent a *very, very* small proportion of the value produced by arms-producing capitalists). Are you suggesting, perhaps, that instead of disicussing relatively abstract questions such as "the capital-form and the state", we should be discussing the current world economic situation? Or are you perhaps suggesting that *in addition to* discussing relatively abstract questions, we also need to discuss more concrete and immediate and politically important issues of concern for the working class? If the latter is your position, then I have a lot of sympathy with it. Yet, it seems to me that a necessary prelude to a meaningful discussion of more concrete questions is for someone (perhaps yourself) to pose those questions in a form that is suitable for discussion (i.e. where everybody on the list knows *precisely* what it is that we are discussing). I would hate to think that when the revolution comes we will be on the Internet discussing the transformation of values into prices of production (and the "inverse" problem). It would be a kind of Marxist equivalent to Nero's playing the fiddle while Rome was burning (or at least that's the way the story goes). So, do you or others have any more concrete subjects that you think that we *should be* discussing now? In solidarity, Jerry
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