File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-07-10.220, message 144


Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 17:55:46 +0300 (EET DST)
From: J Laari <jlaari-AT-cc.jyu.fi>
Subject: social - Hans


Hans,

about 'social'. I don't have English translation of Capital
so I can't get help from there in order to grasp you choice
of words.

I'm just wondering what do you mean by 'social' in relation
to Marx. He used terms 'sozial' and 'gesellschaftlich' to
distinguish between human interaction in general ('social'
to my understanding) and developing capitalist relations.
Latter had their birth in the process of 'capitalization' of
work into 'gesellschaftliche Arbeit' (labour?), and in this
sense seem to be basically economic relations. However, as
general, society-wide relations (seeing from the point of
view of nation states), including both production and other
'commercial' relations, they are distinct form of human
relations.

I know - I've been told - that 'societal' isn't good choice
for translating 'gesellschaftlich' but it's one way of
saving terminological and conceptual differences in Marx.

It seems we agree that there's in Capital more than 'only'
economic theory, but I've understood that Marx neither
made any real social theory in modern sense, nor total
theory of society. Yes, there are lots in Capital - related
especially with 'value law' and 'societal' - to these
theories I mentioned, but can't take them as theories.

By the way, I think that question concerning social and
societal was thought to be quite important, especially in
seventies.

Jukka

> Dialectics as employed in the Hegelian, Marxian and Critical Realist
> traditions are both natural and social.  Although for Hegel and
> espeically for Marx himself, dialectical logic is usually a social logic,
> namely a reconstruction of social relationships and social structure in
> thought.



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