Date: 22 Nov 95 12:36:25 EST
From: "C.Burford" <100423.2040-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Diana denounces capitalist exploitation


Her Royal Highness Monday 20th December:
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"you see yourself as a good product that sits on a shelf and sells well
and people make a lot of money out of you."


Karl Marx, 1867, Capital Volume I, sentence 3 and 4
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"Die Ware ist zunaechst ein aeusser Gegenstand, ein Ding, das durch
seine Eigenshaften menschliche Beduerfnisse irgendeiner Art befriedigt.
Die Natur dieser Beduerfnisse, ob sie zum Beispiel dem Magen oder 
der ***Phantasie***  [my emphasis] entspringen, aendert nichts an der Sache."

Hans Ehrbar's translation 1995
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A commodity is at first an exterior object, a thing, which by its properties 
satisfies human wants of one sort or another. The nature of such
wants, whether, for instance, they arise from the stomach or from 
***imagination***, makes no difference."


This illustrates concretely that many of the woolly preoccupations of the 
postmodernists, would be properly seen as an understandable feature
of advanced capitalist commodity exchange, if only we could abandon 
the rigid understanding of Marx's economics as limited *only* to
yards of linen, and bushels of potatoes.

I am saying this is the bridge between narrow pseudo-orthodox
marxism, and irresponsible, intangible, post marxism.

I shall be very disappointed if I am not now attacked vigorously from 
both sides of the bridge. Silence is consent!



Chris, London.




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