Hrrm!

So if every human has a metaphysic, then should philosophy address itself to every human?




That quote gave me the good feels. :hearts:

Does a person really have to separate themselves of ego and thinking they themselves are important in order to successfully be philosophical? — TiredThinker

Nope!

One of the reasons I love philosophy is its open-ended nature. There are rules as you start to think philosophically, but you are also free. Ala existentialism, at least a certain interpretation of that in a general sense, the only philosophical question is to know yourself. If you know yourself, then you have succeeded, philosophically.

Alas, meaning is use, I understood it -- grammar is post hoc. (thereby confirming the meaningless mess of the cosmos)

That's even worse. Now I have to choose! :D

Cheers!

(trying to adopt the phrase. this is the right time I believe)

I woke up a little early, and realized I had a copy of the book. I'm glad the forum's collective resources did something! See, we're not just goofing off. (we're helping others goof off too)

:D

What can I say, I'm a big softie, and I'm just glad that anyone is following along.

Or, well -- "time to do so" -- sounds annoyed. I don't care if you do chime in. Only noting I won't have all the clever banter I've been putting up :D -- maybe I'll focus more on interpretation, as I ought to.

Hrmm... they did say "next week" in the stream. I'm going to be straight and say, I'm catching up. That's a good opportunity. For thems following along and who have the companion and who want to chime in, that'd be the time to do so.

:D Got a good belly laugh out of me.

Well, after we solve the foundations of analytic Marxism, maybe we can start a reading group ;)

I'm really interested that "species-being" came up. I thought that would drop dead.

My buddy would always made the joke that he's left of Marx because he didn't believe in a species-being, and only believed in freedom.

I've yet to do V3, but my understanding is that's where he tackles that very question and concludes that transit is a part of SNLT. (not read your posts there yet, definitely going to)

I think, in the most abstract sense, it does. If you think about a firm there are people who really just move things to where they need to be, when you think about it abstractly.

I think it gets really confusing because of the obvious conflict between "I drive things over here and back and don't make things, so what?", but then if they didn't do so the market wouldn't be expanded, and capital must expand.

ooo... nice question. "alienated labor -- alienated capital -- what is it they are alienated from?"

I'll admit that alienation is one of the harder concepts of Marx. "that capacity is alienated from the worker by going under the control of capital" -- perfect answer. The worker is there, and while they have capacity to do things, that capacity is owned by someone else. It was bought. And they don't control the process or product, either.

"Now, capital is alienated" -- interesting!

2 reasons -- the coercive laws of competition force capitalists to do things whether they like it or not. If child laborers are acceptable in a market, the other businesses which employ child labor will out-compete you. "in a market system, abstractions rule"

Heyyy... question for you @fdrake -- question about "workers retain past value" -- that wasn't what I was thinking in the question. But yup, I like this too. In a sense I've looked at the Labor Theory of Value, since it uses an SI unit, as being a possible conservation law.

Heh. posted my notes to respond, because I lost them last time when trying to respond.

But, yup! All that responsibility placed on you making so much sense.

Heh. While the reading material became more interesting, I have to say halfway through that makes the conversation less about the text. But that's not bad. I'm glad to hear the class talking and asking questions they're thinking about. If the book doesn't connect to our lives then it's purely academic. And, honestly, the text became more interesting so I don't need Harvey to connect as much in explaining why something is relevant. I'm just noting feelings.

"If you look at the statistics in Marx's times the largest category of labor was domestic service" -- that's interesting. And I like how Harvey is connecting that to how in Marx's time domestic labor was not organized by a firm, so it didn't seem relevant. But Harvey even mentioned the actor quote I posted, and noted how at the moment it didn't make sense where today it does. (hah! though he doesn't want to spend too much time on productive/unproductive... fair enough. It's kind of an "ad hoc" theory, looked at from a certain view, though I always like to note that it didn't take us long to figure out, in practice, what was productive/unproductive during COVID-19, so maybe that's why it's wise to not spend time on it -- it doesn't matter except as a political decision, rather than as theory)

Harvey has a wonderful mastery of Marx in his reading. He's so comfortable with all the texts and concepts he's fielding questions about difficult concepts with ease. And he's not fudging it: there are times I can tell the students in class (as an aside, the students questions have been great, and I admire the work they're putting in) have questions with some kind of hope, but Harvey is straightforward and doesn't mind dampening hopes in the name of a consistent and honest reading.

Very side note, but "labor is purposive activity" reminds me of Kant's aesthetics. I try to de-emphasize the Kant-Marx connection, now, because I've come around to saying their similarities make sense through the common influence of Rousseau. And I think that the angle of Rousseau has gone underemphasized -- no one wants to admit to Romantic influences, it's all about the Enlightenment! :D

That's awesome.

Now, how to intregrate this into a formalization of Hegelian dialectic, and the beginnings of analytic Marxism will be complete! :D

:D

I agree. There's been a lot of bits like that throughout, for me -- where there's been a slog, but then there's something that finally clicks, and it really does change the way I look at things. Like money.

Though for me, I'd actually not want to de-emphasize the numbers as Harvey did. One of the things that would excite me is if I could utilize these to begin to understand a way of setting up formulas, make measurements, etc. -- that is, I'm interested in Marx, in addition to the many ways he's used, but in his original purpose: as a scientific project of economics. It's one of those questions that's always interested me.

But it's worth noting that Marx is a philosopher first, and has been read in many ways. And I like that Harvey says that too :D.

By the way, for 14MAR23, marxists dot org link and final paragraph:

Finally, the result of the process of production and realization is, above all, the reproduction and new production of the relation of capital and labour itself, of capitalist and worker. This social relation, production relation, appears in fact as an even more important result of the process than its material results. And more particularly, within this process the worker produces himself as labour capacity, as well as the capital confronting him, while at the same time the capitalist produces himself as capital as well as the living labour capacity confronting him. Each reproduces itself, by reproducing its other, its negation. The capitalist produces labour as alien; labour produces the product as alien. The capitalist produces the worker, and the worker the capitalist etc.

Yup! that's what I was thinking. (though it being consistent with V2 is pure luck, since I've yet to get that far!)

Page 350 before class started today. Glad to hear some of the comments up front about how this section is when we hit a turning point, because that's what I was thinking -- that it started get interesting at this point.

I'm looking forward to being caught up next week, since it's a skip week.

That's interesting. M-C-C-M is given a directional connotation though right. A big deal's been made about money going the opposite way around the cycle than commodities. I agree with you that both make sense. Though maybe they should not. — fdrake

I agree there's definitely a direction to M-C-C-M -- I interpret it as the second moment in the process of circulation. The C-M-M-C moment is from the one side of the laborer, and the M-C-C-M moment is from the other side as the capitalist.

And maybe they should not -- I'm definitely still playing around, and only sharing thoughts here. I'm not firm on anything yet.

Are the raw materials interpreted as commodities in your view? Are they there "before" this step of circulation? — fdrake

Nope! I agree that the raw materials are a commodity. The means of production (the factory, the spinner) are a commodity, the raw materials (wool) are, and so is the living labor purchased. In order for raw materials, like gold or iron or what have you, to enter into the economic relation, even though they are there beforehand, they must be worked, so they have labor time invested in them.

Another good Grundrisse quote, p 328/329 -- for thems who believe that workers are strictly factory workers making things:

Actors are productive workers, not in so far as they produce a play, but in so far as they increase their employer's wealth

What counts as a commodity can be, say, a Starbucks coffee. Service.

This breakdown is really good. Especially with the interweaving of the quotes.

I have one but: I thought the first "C" in "M-C-C-M" was the purchase of the labor commodity. Fortunately, I think this doesn't really do much against your breakdown. Flip 'em around and it works. The commodity labor is purchased and then does work on raw materials with the instruments(means) to create a commodity to be sold on the market which then yields money, having been sold.

Page 322 -- there are these quotes and times in Marx which crack me up because the arguments he's responding to are old even then, and I hear them today. One such quote in today's reading:

Thus the economists take refuge in this simple process in order to construct a legitimation, an apology for capital by explaining it with the aid of the very process which makes its existence impossible. In order to demonstrate it, they demonstrate it away. You pay me for my labour, you exchange it for its product and deduct from my pay the value of the raw material and instrument which you have furnished. That means we are partners who bring different elements into the process of production and exchange according to their value

"That means we are partners" is what made me smile. Might as well say we're all a family while we're at it :D

I don't think so. At least, the identification of self with activity, or at least a strict relationship between the two, is a strong part of existential philosophy as I understand it -- and it's not a personality that one is looking for in asking nor a personality that one gives in answering.

Think of the archetypes which Camus gives as examples of existential heroes. Many personalities could fill those archetypes.

And, for myself -- though I am inspired by Camus -- I don't even think the heroic stance towards the absurd is really the best. I prefer a softer approach.

What answers the absurd? I'd say that's pretty close to an existential identity of some kind, and this being existentialism, activity is what I'd put forward as central.

Deliberation occurs before activity, and one can always return to the existential question and deliberate again. (one can choose otherwise again, become someone else)

But we can also just answer the question with the simple declaration: Here I am! Even the fact of choice need not weigh us down. We can choose to refuse the weight of choice, if that fits us.

And what could the existential thinker say to such a person?

So anyways, the point is, this is all recognized and understood by yours truly. I get it. We don't have to parse this understanding out and belabor this point. Rather, I want to re-adjust back to what the OP is really getting at and that is that we are existential animals. So, what I mean is more the self-reflective element. We KNOW we could do otherwise (even if comfort of habit makes us decide one way mostly). This is an exhaustive extra layer. It is a continual judgement that rides on top of things. I don't just survive by learning mechanisms and instincts combining. I DECIDE to do something, sometimes against what I would really like to do (I don't want to tend to the plants, but I don't want to see them die) and JUDGE things (I don't like seeing the plants die). I don't have to do any of that though (I can watch the plants die and live without a garden).This is more what I mean for it to be existential. I am not denying that we can do things by routine, but it is the fact that we know that we can fall into a routine, that it is quite iterative above and beyond simply routine. — schopenhauer1

I can stop working and not work, but then the anxiety of leaving people without saying a word, the anxiety of looking for another thing, of not getting money, etc. You see, I just decided that these things were important, though I could decide otherwise. Perhaps freedom from work is most important to me at all costs to the point I'd rather live under an underpass than work for the Man. You see, we have a large degree of deliberative freedom, and this causes the burden of knowing we can do things which we didn't necessarily "have" to do, but do "anyways" because we decide things continually to do or not do. This, whilst praised in the main, is I see a burden of the human. This is the error loop where nothing is justified. — schopenhauer1

The self-reflective is the evolutionary error (to the individual) even though it was a (emergent over time) solution (for the species). — schopenhauer1

Cool.

At some point, though, one finds themself.

The deliberative moment is prior to finding oneself. The choices are endless, because one doesn't know who one is.

But if you know who you are, the choices slowly dwindle down.

And there isn't a reason, as you note.

There's simply yourself, and the world, and what you need to do.

True!

But as soon as I put words to it I can think of a rebuttal in terms of thinking of which is best :D

Even directly -- I was thinking how phenomenological-existential philosophy is "accessible" because we're all subjects, as opposed to scientific or political leaders (which traditional, even Modern, philosophy addresses itself to). But then the terminology is far from accessible without work put in, and then you get some of the same themes from what at first blush may appear "at odds" with the phenomenological-existential approach with, say, linguistic or empiricist philosophy.

I suppose that while I can pick one in the bunch, as soon as I justify it I can think of a reason to pick another one.

Phenomenological-existential.

Buuut... I think that for my own case, at least, is correct about why I chose it: I like these philosophers.

I wonder, though, if there is a philosophical reason I like them, rather than just a personal reason -- which I'd be more apt to believe the personal reason, it'd be interesting if there was some underlying philosophical aesthetic that makes these choices the choices we're thinking about, too.

I'm not sure if plush forums pings you if I edited your tag, so I'm replying directly here to ping you. (mods feel free to delete this post)

I own this one in English.

I think I found the paragraph you're talking about. Is it from the last paragraph of Chapter X?

Two points can profitably be noted at once. First, if we propose to start with the infinite divine substance, and if the affirmation of the existence of this substance is not to be regarded as an hypothesis, it has to be shown that the definition of the divine essence or substance involves its existence. In other words, Spinoza is committed to using the ontological argument in some form or other. Otherwise God would not be prior in the order of ideas. Secondly, if we propose to start with God and to proceed to finite things, assimilating causal dependence to logical dependence, we must rule out contingency in the universe. It does not follow, of course, that the finite mind is capable of deducing the existence of particular finite things. Nor did Spinoza think that it was. But if the causal dependence of all things on God is akin to logical dependence, there is no place for free creation, nor for contingency in the world of material things, nor for human freedom. Any contingency which there may seem to be is only apparent. And if we think that some of our actions are free, this is only because we are ignorant of their determining causes

If so, maybe that's enough context for your @180 Proof - I don't know Spinoza worth squat. I'd be only guessing based on the meanings of the words there.

Mine just don't fit the cookie cutter alternatives presented when one is taken to exclude the others, that's all — javra

This would account for the difference, too, then. Perhaps many of our fellows here on TPF feel the same? The thought being that each thought should be treated individually, and feeling that our beliefs cannot fit the cookie cutters?

Surely the professional group also engaged in critical thought, though. I'd say, sure, everyone who answered was engaged in critical thought. It's the differences between the communities I was looking for an explanation for.

Or are you making the stronger contention that those who did choose should engage in more critical thought?

Previously I put this down to contrariness. I now wonder if it might be vacillation or trepidation. Or simple failure to commit? — Banno

I'd put another spin on the difference.

Our community is less homogenous than the professional community, and so it's harder to say the three views put on offer are of the sort where one can actually go ahead and make a choice, even knowing all the difficulties.

Or perhaps this is just a way of coming down firm on "trepidation" as an explanation for the difference.

It makes sense to feel trepidation on an online poll, I think.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention -- that your theory between the Grundrisse/Capital forms works! (ala M-C-C-M/M-C-M, etc.)That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking a stab at it.

I'm not holding back "buts" in this conversation either -- I'm just really open-ended on a first reading, even if I'm familiar with a writer. And this being notebook selections, rather than a worked out whole, ups the difficulty in making strong assertions even more.

I came across a good passage today that relates pretty directly. Honestly, this section is proving to be a lot easier than the previous ones. And his splitting up into a alpha and beta "result" when taking the production process as content of capital gets along with your guess along the lines of concrete/formal characters of capital. (And, in this, I'm beginning to glimpse a distinction between material and both of those -- because Marx refers to the exchange value in capital circulation which does not exist circulation as a kind of rarified, formal value that still exists, and in a way is more material because of its alien character than, say, the concrete description of the labor process, which intentionally points out how the worker is a part of that)

I've never seen a passage in Marx that puts together the labor theory of value and how it relates to supply/demand until this one. It's so clear that there certainly must be another passage in Marx that disproves it somehow ;) :

The use value of a thing does not concern its seller as such, but only its buyer. The property of saltpetre, that it can be used to make gunpowder, does not determine the price of saltpetre; rather, this price is determined by the cost of production of saltpetre, by the amount of labour objectified in it. The value of use values which enter circulation as prices is not the product of circulation, although it realizes itself only in circulation; rather, it is presupposed to it, and is realized only through exchange for money. Similarly, the labour which the worker sells as a use value to capital is, for the worker, his exchange value, which he wants to realize, but which is already determined prior to this act of exchange and presupposed to it as a condition, and is determined like the value of every other commodity by supply and demand; or, in general, which is our only concern here, by the cost of production, the amount of objectified labour, by means of which the labouring capacity of the worker has been produced and which he therefore obtains for it, as its equivalent.

So, supply-demand as a more particular force on commodity price, or in the more general form, the cost of production, or the amount of objectified labor, but in this much wider sense where the laboouring capacity is what's being produced along with -- so not an individual firm, the economics of the firm, supply/demand, but rather the total, and therefore political, economy.

At least, it's a quote from the Grundrisse I can now flip out to support my general interpretation of Marx.

Well... to be fair he's more cheerful in the sexy murder poet way. (Liam Kofi Bright's Two Tendencies linked: it answers the question why "we" do philosophy)

There were two "buts" I had while reading (I'm sticking to my no working on weekends commitment.;) )

Thus the total amount of money required to circulate M1, — fdrake

I can't tell if we're supposed to be able to derive how much money should be in circulation at a given time, or if it'd be better to somehow substitute, for M1, some function of the quantity of goods in a market, something like a supply-demand function. At times it seems like he's focused on a single commodity market, almost as literally as the market metaphor would have us think, and then he quickly expands to say "of course the banker pays the grocer pays the clerk pays the gas man and that would influence how much money is needed too".

Also, and this may be nothing I'll say up front -- I'm wondering about the differences between M-C-C-M/C-M-M-C and the latter, as you've broken it out. (EDIT: Just to be clear, "the latter" I mean M-C-M/C-M-C, "latter" as in coming from Capital)

But, with that being said, I think that the mathematization is a nice clean picture, and while I'm still trying to tease out this possible difference in meaning ala the M-C-M-C... formulations, I do tend to think of each one of those parts of exchange as forming a chain as you've laid it out, and you can look at each dayd as a moment, and depending upon which side you start with tells you which moment you're dealing with.

:heart:

Hrmmm...

I think the one thing in your thoughts that makes it difficult for me to connect to is your emphasis on the individual.

Mostly because, this being a lingual way of connecting, who are you talking to? Are you talking to us? Or is it just an expression you feel the need to express, regardless of who is reading?