File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-16.044, message 35


Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 20:59:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Paul Zarembka <zarembka-AT-acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Althusser and the epistemological break



On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, Gerald Levy wrote:

> Where does this epistemological break occur in Marx?...
> 
> What about _Capital_? (at last, we get to Paul Z's reference). We are told
> that "passages from Marx (are) contaminated by Hegelian terminology
> and the Hegelian order of exposition in _Capital_" (Ibid, p. 144) and that
> this work "has fallen prey to the influence of Hegel's thought" (Ibid, 
> p. 93).
> 
> The worst part of _Capital_, we are told, is "concentrated _at the very
> beginning_ of Volume One, to be precise, in its first Part, which deals
> with 'Commodities and Money'" (Ibid, p. 81). In particular, the theory
> of fetishism is a "flagrant and extremely harmful one" (Ibid, p. 95).
> 
> Althusser said: "I therefore give the following advice: PUT THE WHOLE OF
> PART ONE ASIDE FOR THE TIME BEING AND BEGIN YOUR READING WITH PART TWO 
> ... (Ibid, p. 81). This is clearly *not* only a question of how to best
> read or teach _Capital_ as is clear from Althusser's later statement that
> "we ought to rewrite Part 1 of _Capital_" (Ibid, p. 144).
> 
> So, if _Capital_ doesn't represent the "mature Marx", what does? There are
> only two works which "are _totally and definatively exempt_ from any
> trace of Hegelian influence" -- the _Critique of a Gotha Program_ and the
> _Marginal Notes on Wagner_ (Ibid, p. 94).  About 75 pages total!
...

You miss the point, Jerry.  To write that 75 pages are 100% exempt from
Hegelian influence, says nothing about a claim that CAPITAL, three or four
volumes (however you want to count "Theories of Surplus Value"), is 98%
exempt from Hegelian influence.  In other words, CAPITAL is overwhelming
free of Hegelianism, but not 100% free, and one has to read CAPITAL 
carefully.

Of course, for some, any critique at all of CAPITAL is the strategy of a
wrecker?  For others, any critique of Hegel's importance to Marx is
criticism of the great unfolding of history from primitive communism,
slavery, feudalism, simple commodity production, generalized commodity
production (capitalism), socialism, and advanced communism.  Often the two
sets of people overlap.

Paul Z.



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