Comments on: HSS2008 Paper

By: N Pepperell

N Pepperell — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:22:24 +0000

Hi Bis – The passage on Aristotle, in the third section of the chapter, where Marx discusses why Aristotle could not deduce the existence of value – and says that Aristotle couldn’t make this “logical” deduction, because Aristotle’s society lacked a practical experience of equal human labour: this is an argument that rejects the notion that you could deduce the existence of value through the sort of abstract reasoning process that is given voice when the category of value is initially introduced. Here it matters that Marx is talking about Aristotle: the implication is, if it would be possible to deduce the existence of this category through sheer force of intellect, surely Aristotle would have done it; that he didn’t deduce this category indicates the limitations, not of his mind, but of the experiences made readily available in his social environment.

This passage relativises and locates, historically, the form of argument being voiced in the earlier sections of this chapter, by showing that there are unrecognised historical and social preconditions that help to render certain “logical” deductions more intuitive and thinkable for people living in particular times. The passage also – although this remains more tacit until the later introduction of the category of capital – suggests a difference between the kind of “market exchange” we have now, and the sorts of exchange of goods on markets that have taken place in other historical contexts. It seems intuitive – to us – to think that just the practice of exchanging goods suggests a relation of equality; it wasn’t so intuitive to Aristotle (according to Marx): the suggestion is that more must be involved than the exchange of goods, to provide a practical experience of a relation of equality underlying the process of exchange.

This particular passage, by the way, is one of the ones where a number of other commentators pick up on the same implication – some of the ways I read the text are… idiosyncratic… ;-) But this particular point is picked up on not infrequently (although not universally).

There are further suggestions in this direction in the section on commodity fetishism, which speaks about the “post festum” character of our concepts – the way in which we first do, and then think – a qualitative characteristic Marx links to the ontological ambiguity of the category of value (he describes it as a “social hieroglyphic” whose existence needs to be deduced – but this is a very contextual form of deduction of a socially real entity, rather than a decontextualised reflection on the conditions of possibility for any sort of exchange…).

Hope this helps… Take care…

By: Bis

Bis — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:08:29 +0000

“He is very explicit – even in the first chapter – that he does not believe that exchange requires commodities to share some common supersensible property.”

Hi N we are reading Chapter 1 in our reading group at the moment :-)

Would you be kind enough to give an example from Chapter 1 of Marx’s explicit rejection of the “transcendental” reduction of exchange value to value and abstract labour?

Thanks :-)

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