In a recent post, Steve Shaviro suggests that Hardt and Negri are economistic. I agree. In a recent piece, “The Common in Communism,” Hardt approvingly cites Marx from the 1844 manuscripts, about the growth of one form of property opening up new political possibilities.
Of course, changes in forms of property and so forth *do* change existing possibilities. (more…)
I used to know this but it escapes me… so, the first edition of Capital v1 had a different opening section (some comments on this here). Marx revised and expanded the opening later, incorporating an appendix into those opening chapters. I know at some point I ran across a citation for an english translation of the first version of the opening section of volume 1, but now I can’t find. I’m once again intensely curious about this and interested in reading the first edition intro. Does this ring any bells for anyone? Any help finding this text?
I ran across this article, “Toward a Breakdown of the Capitalist Subject?” via a post at Jodi’s. I think the piece is inadequate and evidences a widespread and mistaken understanding of capitalism which overemphasizes the sphere of circulation; this is common in conversations that conflate (anti-)capitalism with (anti-)neoliberalism. (more…)
I’m still in prefatory mode with regard to the reading group on chapter 25 of v1 of Capital. Duncan and NP have kicked things off good and proper with posts on chapter 25. There’s been some particularly substantial discussion at Duncan’s, I need to re-read it soon when I’ve had more sleep than I did during my first read through. Check it out.
Like I said, I’m in prefatory mode still. This post is my notes on chapter 24. Chapter 25 next, soon-ish. (more…)
So several folk around this corner of the bloggiverse are going to use some fancy web technology to coordinate us reading some Marx together, to up our interaction density. I’m pretty sure we’re going to read ch25 of v1 of Capital. Other folk are of course welcome to join in. The idea is simple - read the chapter, post on it, read others’ posts, make comments and conversation. Should be fun. (more…)
I mentioned some thoughts on intra-organizational difficulties the other day, and how I’d like to think more about using Mao to understand them or at least describe them in a philosophical sounding vocabulary. (more…)
A question on my mind lately as I plan to soon rejoin the world of stuff to read, in which people read stuff. Well, there’s this stuff that I mentioned a bit ago, and then there’s Big Flame, and of course I need to wade through material on the common (and really, the commons, for good measure), and there’s all these theses that Angelus posted, with more to come, and stuff from Wildcat and this other German group, and NP’s back to blogging, not to mention a great deal of material on anarchist organizations of which that link is just one example…
I can’t be bothered to look them up right now but I’ve commented before (though I think not in these words) on my views on the category “use value” in Marx as being a philosophically minimalist category and having little normative quality to it, at least when used analytically. That is, use values aren’t good or bad, for one thing. Anyhow, this bit of William Cronon’s Changes In The Land might be useful if I ever want to actually make the case for this. (more…)