File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9709, message 53


From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-I: Blair's w...Now: Tasks (now) of the Left
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 14:49:03 -0500 (CDT)


	I pretty much agree with all of Doug's post, but would like
to pick out specifically two of his points:

> 
> I'm afraid too much traditional left discourse has relied excessively on
> misery and imminent disaster, and too little on the possibility of doing a
> lot better with the social and technical resources capitalism has given us.
<SNIP>
>                           ... We're
> not making the link explicit between the atomization and abrasiveness of
> public life and the destructive powers of capitalist competition: the
> "economic," that is, seems too narrowly defined

	The first point bears directly on the passing tiff I had
with Louis Godena a week or so ago, and which neither he nor I
have particularly followed up on. The key passage in Marx (Capital
1) which I have not time to look up now is that in which he points
out that a "moral or historical" element enters into the determi-
nation of the value of labor power. Lou's speaking of "absolute
poverty" is of course an absolute denial of Marx's own perspective.

	On the "economic" as too narrowly defined: Potentially, I
would say, avoiding this could, even ought to, be the primary
difference in practice between marxian and bourgeois economics.
I followed a thread lately on femecon-l concerning the teaching
of the History of the American Economy, which then turned into
a discussion of the scope and limits of the Neoclassical 
paradigm or whatever. It became increasingly clear that there
really is no such thing as "The American Economy," an entity
which seems to be regarded as delineating a whole universe
of discourse with no messy strings attaching it to the rest
of human life.

Carrol


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