Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 19:06:14 +0000
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: M-TH: Capital, old sport


In message <Pine.GSO.3.96.971120130532.24901A-100000-AT-acnet>, Gerald Levy
<glevy-AT-pratt.edu> writes
>Hugh made the same point, I believe. I agree with both of you. Whether
>this is done in an academic setting or otherwise, small study groups
>have been shown to be the best way, imho, to understand _Capital_. I would
>say that *at least* 1 year is required for a systematic reading of the 3
>volumes by a study group. This is a pretty large commitment for most
>workers since they would not only have to attend and participate in the
>study group but also spend much time reading and re-reading _Capital_.
>Clearly, reading _Capital_ is a more time- and energy-demanding task
>than, for instance, reading  Stephen King novels or Harlequin romances.
>
>Jerry 
>
>PS to Doug: comic books aren't a substitute for the real thing.

For a few years now I've run a capital reading group on VolI, and as
well as having participated one on VolII, and, while nothing in what the
comrades say is wrong, I can't help but think that there is a tendency
here to fetishise the text. For example, the proposition that you have
to read it in the German, or Lenin's that you have to have read Hegel
seem over the top to me. I don't read German so maybe there is some
secret passages in the German edition that don't appear in the English,
but I doubt it. Marx did, after all, approve the English translations of
Vol I and Engels, no slouch on Marx's theory for all his bad press, the
translations of Vol II and III. But most importantly the coherence of
the argument is persuasive that it is what it is said, not the language
that expresses it that is important. Marx's use of *categories* is
broader than mere linguistic terminology, and we would have to be a lot
more sceptical of its veracity if, like Heidegger's philosophy, it is to
be claimed that Marx 'does not translate'.

I have read Hegel's Science of Logic and Lenin's notebooks on Hegel, and
I tend to agree with Jairus Banaji's argument that Lenin did not
understand Hegel (in Diane Elson's collection of essays on Value
theory). Certainly reading Hegel does develop your thinking, but it just
is not true that you 'cannot understand Capital without reading Hegel'.
That is sheer snobbery. 

Most important of all, I think it would be a disaster to isolate Marx's
theoretical production, from his own injunction to deal with things in
their historical specificity. Marx's analysis retains it purchase on
capitalist society because it captures the essential determinants of the
captialist dynamic.

However, in important respects Marx's presentation of the theory of
capital as a critique of political economy is more periood-specific. The
political economy that he critiques is today a dead letter, like latin.
Since the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, nobody read Adam Smith anymore,
still less David Ricardo. Now, of course the point is right that Marx
was not simply writing a polemic against these writers, but developing a
critical analysis of capitalist society. But in doing so he treats the
categories of classical political economy as real forms of existence of
capital, as intellectual reflections of actual relations. But today
words like 'value' are more likely to be put in the plural, as part of a
discussion of morality or tradition. That means that in part the
scientific purchase of these categories is diminished or stripped out,
as they become more like theoretical constructs, understandable only by
the dwindling band of Marx scholars.

The task facing revolutionaries today is not to embalm Marx's work
alongside Lenin's corpse, but to honour its spirit of contemporary
critique. We ought to be looking at the modern equivalents of political
economy as the exemplary bourgeois theory and self-consciousness, so we
can critique that. Marx's work is certainly a guide in the work of
criticising contemporary forms of capitalism, but observance of the
scripture of Capital is not a substitute for developing our own
critique.


Fraternally
-- 
James Heartfield


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