Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 19:35:52 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


Angela,

I'm glad you brought up the issue of capitalist competition and Brenner's
NLR essay.  When I said that capitalist crises in the early modern
period seem to be mainly a function of working class
resistance/subjectivity, I
didn't mean to rule out entirely the 'overaccumulation' explanation for
later periods, which I have not studied carefully enough yet. While I
think such explanations have an "objectivist" ring that tends to elide the
proletarian subject, granting autonomous agency to
"capital" (which, after all, is dead labor, right?), I'm not very good at
explaining capitalist crises myself.  In truth I'm not sure how the system
works, though thanks to Rediker and Linebaugh I have some sense of how
it developed.  As for Brenner, well, he has clearly mastered "economics"
as well as "Marxist political economy," but his book _Merchants and
Revolution_ makes no room for the proletarian subject whatsoever.  I have
only read a little bit of the NLR piece, and so far I find it a total bore
(not to mention the pomposity of Blackburn's intro: "Marx's enterprise has
found a worthy successor") but that's because I am interested in class
composition/recomposition and proletarian subjectivity.  Brenner is not.
Ellen Wood has tried, over the past decade or so, to combine Brenner and
EP Thompson in order to explain capitalism and rejuvenate historical
materialism, but the two really don't mix.  I think EPT's challenge to
anti-capitalist thought is quite a bit more provocative than Brenner's,
but that's mere subjectivity on my part.

Regards,

Forrest


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