Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 23:19:14 -0800
Subject: Re: Rookie question...


>Keith Alan Sprouse wrote:

>>  But what I would
>> like to know is, in what order should I tackle this huge body
>> of texts and are there some that are more essential (ie. read
>> these at all costs) than others.  I've been cruising the used
>> book stores and have found alot of stuff, but am truly at a
>> loss as to where to begin.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to grapple first with the question of why
Marx began his magnum opus *Capital* where he did--with the analysis of the
commodity. The most sustained, up-to-date reflection on this question I
have come across is Martha Campbell "The Commodity as 'Characteristic'
Form" in *Economics as World Philosophy*, ed Ron Blackwell. New York: St.
Martin's Press. While such a work will not clarify  for you immediately to
what extent the credit supplied by the Fed is 'endogeneous' and other
important current debates, Campbell does attempt to demonstrate in a
philosophical style how it is that capital is a historically determinate
mode of production and what its fundamental structures are. While Campbell
does not develop Marx's theory of economic dynamics in this well-focused,
tightly argued essay, she does lay the foundations for the development of
Marx's critique. In my humble opinion, it is a brilliant essay.

Rakesh

ps Tony Smith's Logic of Marx's *Capital* is also quite illuminating on
this question of beginnings, and Moishe Postone's *Time, Labor and Social
Domination* includes several methodological reflections on the commodity
form. One of my favorite treatments of Marx's decision to commence
*Capital* with an analysis of the commodity form is William J Blake's 1939
*Marxian Economic Theory and Its Criticism*. As a student of literature, I
think you may find fascinating Robert Paul Wolff's *Moneybags Must be So
Lucky: On the Literary Structure of *Capital*; Wolff concentrates as well
on Marx's begininng.

pps if you are immediately interested in the "results" of Marx's rather
painstaking and tedious analysis of the commodity and value, you may want
to glance at Guglielmo Carchedi's attempt to theorize the new features of
capitalism on the strict basis of Marx's basic concepts--see his *Frontiers
of Political Economy*.  Even here though you will have to go through a few
rather tedious chapters to reach....As they say, there is no royal road...






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