Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 16:27:55 +0000 (GMT)
From: Andrew Brown <a.brown-AT-mdx.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Marx's form-content paradigm and Critical Realism


Dear Hans E,

Delighted to read that you have taken the trouble to read my article 
(just this minute - I have been away). I hope that the issues 
involved can be the subject ongoing dialogue.

Will need to think about your post but worth mentioning one thing for 
now:

- the transition from commodity form to the money form takes place 
*after* the commodity form itself has been dialectically established 
as, precisely, the most simple and abstract form of value; value is 
the appearance form of socially necessary abstract labour. The 
developments in the first sections of Capital from the simple 
commodity form (a most 'inadequate' form of value) through to the 
'dazzling' money form (the 'adequate' form of value) are, then, 
understood precisely as the development towards an adequate form of 
value. An adequate form of value is one that best expresses the 
content (which is universal and abstract labour). 

- how does this relate to my 'thought experiment' employing 
structural tendencies re social agents? Well, in my view, each 
transition to a more adequate form can indeed be accomplished by such 
a thought experiment. It should be said that some systematic 
dialecticians (perhaps most) - Chris Arthur for example - reject my 
view (which I take from Tony Smith). For Arthur it is consideration 
of the inadequacies of each form as an expression of value that are 
precisely what impels each transition to a more adequate form; there 
is no recourse to the tendencies of social agents. 
For my part I tend to agree with Smith's view (at least his earlier 
view; he now appears to be moving towards Arthur's position) that the 
lack of reference to social agents is a structuralist denial of the 
efficacy of human agency.

(Arthur's ch. in the Moseley and Campbell (1997) collection 
referenced in my paper discusses this. The Banaji (1979) piece (also 
referenced) is the seminal contribution here). Patrick Murray is also 
excellent on form and content in value theory. 

Sorry if my paper is misleading; it was simply impossible to discuss 
all the intricacies of value and value form in the space available.

Look forward to reading your post(s) in more detail,
Best wishes,
andy.





> Date:          Mon, 31 May 1999 15:10:16 -0600 (MDT)
> From:          Hans Ehrbar <ehrbar-AT-keynes.econ.utah.edu>
> Subject:       BHA: Marx's form-content paradigm and Critical Realism
> To:            bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Reply-to:      bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

> 
> I think Hans Despain agrees with me that one can probably
> take the work of every scientist who has found out something
> and show that to some extent this scientist was a critical
> realist--because this is what you have to be in order to do
> scientific work.  But in the case of Marx it is different.
> He is not just a scientist who has found out something and
> must therefore, at least implicitly, be a critical realist.
> Marx is very explicitly groping towards critical realism.
> Unfortunately it did not exist at his time, therefore he had
> to use Hegel as the best available approximation to it.  But
> now it exists, and there is a synergy: knowing CR we can
> understand better where Marx wanted to go with his
> Hegelianisms, and on the other hand, for the development of
> CR and DCR, Marx's gropings are extremely fruitful material.
> 
> 
> Hans is asking how a Hegel-driven interpretation would be
> different than mine?  Let me take for instance an
> interpretation coming from the camp of New Dialectics, which
> Hans recommends, i.e., Andrew Brown's article which is on
> the WSCR Archive.  Brown explains the money form as follows:
> 
> > Consideration of the activities agents would necessarily
> > tend to undertake, given only the structure defined by the
> > commodity form, leads to the conclusion that the `money
> > form' would be introduced.  Agents would tend to introduce
> > money as the universal equivalent, i.e. a standard measure
> > of value, in order to ease the exchange of commodities.
> 
> Brown says that the money form should be deduced from
> 
> > a thought experiment based on the question what would
> > agents necessarily tend to do given only that they are in
> > the structure defined by the commodity form?
> 
> This is very different from, indeed it is almost the
> opposite of, my interpretation in my last email.  Brown says
> money is an institution which makes exchange easier for the
> agents.  According to the interpretation I am putting
> forward, the money form is that institution in circulation
> which induces the individual producers to act in such a way
> that they equalize their labor in *production*.
> 
> To say it again: According to Brown's interpretation, a good
> money is one which facilitates exchange best.  In my
> interpretation, a good money is one which induces the
> capitalists to try to make profits by exploiting their
> laborers, instead of by speculating or monopolizing etc.
> The ease of circulation would be far less important than for
> instance the constancy of the value of money etc.  I think
> Marx is here on my side.  In Section 3 of Chapter One of
> Capital, Marx discusses the various forms of value
> (accidental, expanded, general, and money form).  At every
> point he asks how well these forms are representations of
> the essence of value, while the ease of circulation is only
> of a minor concern to him.  Money nowadays is largely policy
> driven, and my hunch is that modern central bankers, without
> knowing it, try to regulate money exactly according to the
> principles Marx laid out in Section 3.  And in
> *Contribution*, Marx says that money is not "a cunningly
> devised instrument for the exchange" but "the representation
> of a social relation of production".  Marx continues: if it
> would be the former, then it should be treated as a part of
> technology, not of economics.
> 
> It does not look like the Hegelians have figured out, from
> reading Hegel, what Marx means by "representation of a
> social relation of production."  Here Bhaskar's
> stratification of reality comes to the rescue, his
> distinction between the social and the individual levels,
> and his observation that social structures and relations
> are invisible but real.  Therefore they need an interface
> with individual agency, and this is exactly what Marx's
> "forms" on the "surface" of the economy are.
> 
> 
> There are numerous examples in my Annotations how Marx
> uses the categories of CR.  There are also many examples
> where I point out that the usual translations introduce the
> epistemic fallacy into Marx's text, which is not there in
> the original, and make other dumb mistakes because the
> translator is not familiar with CR.  There are also places
> where Marx's own lack of awareness of CR shows.
> Occasionally, when Marx uses the standard
> thesis-antithesis-synthesis trilogy, I think Bhaskar's
> 4-step dialectic, starting with an absence, would have
> served him better.  I agree with Hans that CR also helps us
> to see Marx's shortcomings better.  Bhaskar's critiques of
> Marx in DPF are very much to the point.  I think, after CR,
> we are finally able to develop Marx further.  Earlier attempts
> of improving Marx always fell short of Marx, because
> we had not understood him well enough yet.
> 
> 
> There is indeed reason to celebrate.
> 
> 
> Hans Ehrbar.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 


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