Re: Capital is wrong (fwd)

Carl,

Thank you for your explication of Marx's method. It was a good summary of
Marx's statements on Capital. To cut to the heart of the matter, Marx's
method in Capital is a procedure for rising from the abstract to the
concrete. The abstraction/s is/are produced by preliminary work which does
not appear in Capital. This is the first part of the journey, to
paraphrase Marx (Grundrisse), one where complex reality is reduced to
abstractions or central principles. Marx combines this procedure with
critique, requiring a dialectical reorganization of the literature (a
procedure he spares us in his exposition). Once the central proposition is
distilled and others' conceptions are milked of their analytical utility,
the journal begins from the abstractions (in the case of Capital, the
commodity) back towards the concrete. As you note, the journey of Capital
was meant to finish with a very complex picture of the historical system
that inspired Marx's scholarship. However, contrary to the impression you
leave, Marx did not have the matter worked out in advance such that the
order of Capital was merely for expositional tidyness (in fact, where
Capital was to be published as a serial he was concerned that people would
not grasp its meaning). Although that Marx's method of exposition or
presentation differs from his method of analysis is important, it does not
mean that Capital is not a work of method. Marx states at the outset of
the Capital project that he must not assume that which he has yet to
explain. As a mode of explanation, I find Capital to be an intriguing
work, especially the explanation of surplus-value. The best explanations
of Marx's method are always found in his substantive work (which is
obvious, I think, since he never spent much time explaining his method
elsewhere).

Addressing another of your points. It would have been nice had Marx
finished his project. While I agree that it would have been quickly
outdated (something that is true of all our work) it would have been very
useful in resolving or at least making more reasonable some of the
outstanding debates that have grown up around Marx's views, especially on
the character of the state. And then there is that unfinished chapter on
social classes . . . .

Thank you for your post.

Regards,
Andrew Austin