Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 12:04:52 +0000
From: Hugh-AT-pseud.pseud
Subject: Re: M-INTRO: Capital why aren't there copies at the town libraries?


Hester writes:

>I know this is late to get credit but I wanted to submit it.  Earlier in
>the quarter I went to my town library to check out Capital by Marx.  The
>computers were down as usual so I went to the front desk and had them
>look at the status of the book.  I was quite shocked when she said they
>only had one copy.  When I went back to get the book It was not there.
>The worker offered to check other libraries and what she came up with was
>that out of the whole library system they only had one copy and you
>guessed it, it was the one I couldn't find.  Someone as important as Karl
>Marx and not to have any copies of it.  Do we still live in the dark
>ages?  I know from working as a libarian that it is up to the main
>libarian what books are on the shelf and which ones stay off the shelf.
>This doesn't say much for Salt Lake does it?
>


Perhaps not *dark ages*, that term's patented for the period between the
fall of the Roman Empire and the blossoming of early mediaeval culture in
the twelfth century. But certainly an age full of barbarism, and one that
will be viewed as *socially prehistoric* if socialism prevails over
barbarism as the issue of capitalism -- prehistoric in the sense that
social processes and change take place unconsciously, behind the backs of
the participants, basically due to the operations of the law of value.

Your example says a lot about Salt Lake of course, but it also says a lot
about Yanqui democracy. Public access to knowledge about society and the
way it works is central to any real democracy. You have just turned a
spotlight on a huge and presumably deliberate obstacle blocking public
access to such knowledge.

The internet has Capital -- but that's not for everybody, and electronic
reading is much less convenient for most people than reading paper and ink.

Have you tried the bookshops in town?

Cheers,

Hugh




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