I think this is right – Marx is basically treating himself here just as he treats other historical sources from which he draws. Since this post, I’ve explored some of the theoretical implications of this practice in a few places, including here, suggesting that Marx’s determination to treat himself symmetrically, applying to himself the same sorts of analytical practices he applies to others, is also a key theoretical move, particularly given his repeated criticisms of the political economists for not treating themselves as they do other forms of theory – for acting as though their own position is somehow “natural”, while other positions are “artificial”. Marx is basically saying here that his position is just as “situated” historically as the other positions he analyses – signalling that he doesn’t intend his analysis to “float” outside the context being analysed, but instead intends to locate even his own critique as a moment within the historical unfolding of the society he is criticising.

I think the answer is quite simple. As Engels explains somewhere, in “Capital” Marx is trying to carefully note just who, where and when any idea (correct or not) was initally put forth. Citations, therefore, are not commendations or recommendations, but more like historical notes in the history of ideas.

In the case of the self-quotation in this first sentence of “Capital”, what Marx is doing is simply this: Pointing out that it was he himself (as far as he knows) who first put foward the idea that the capitalist mode of production presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities”. That Marx starts with this comment shows that he thinks it is indeed the best place to start in explaining the capitalist mode of production. That he quotes himself here is simply his statement that he thinks he was first (in the “Critique of Political Economy”) to state this particular idea.

It is not in any way meant as bragging or self-promotion. It is simply a fact of intellectual history.

–Scott

and volume three comment here.

Karatani Link here

and Beller here and here

best, j

OK, your question here would require more thought than I can deliver I expect… I am not sure there are all that many of ‘us’ that see this as a feint, but for me its always been Gayatri Spivak that leads my reading, her ’scattered speculations’ essay in Diacritics is the start for my lecture course on Capital – eek, first lecture for this year on thursday, (last year’s draft syllabus is here). We have a reading group just stumbling through vol 3, which will provoke revisions aplenty to my early efforts to set out the diff between analysis and mode of presentation (first version from ten years ago here).

The stuff in that lecture about the insertion of all the extra pages in the 1873 edition – the secret of the fetish bits – really does get my nerdy hermeneutic-theologcal juices flowing. Though I have to go back to the MEGA to sort it out properly – as the exact pages are marked in my crumbling penguin edition, and the importance of 1871 on Marx is not yet fully thought through. I’m guessing RMIT library doesn’t have the MEGA, but there is a set in the Ballieu, or was.

Other folks I like a lot on reading Capital are Felton Shorthall, Karantani, adn Jonathan Beller who I’ve only read a bit of, but certainly seems interesting, he’s visiting us at Goldies CCS soon. I’ve only just ordered his book on Spectacle.

Red Salute. John

I have high hopes of eventually making it past the first chapter, and actually writing about some of the other aspects of this and other volumes (likely at a somewhat more rapid pace than I’ve moved through these sections…) – but I still seem to find myself settling scores with these first sections.

To ask an inexcusably naive question: what would you regard as the major secondary interpretations that “get” what in your post you’ve called the “feint” of the first chapter? I know of a few works that make this point, but it seems very common to overlook the strategic intent of the first chapter – certainly in authors who are critical of Marx, but also in many who take themselves to be sympathetic. I’m obviously trying to wrestle with the text for my own purposes, but I’m also trying to understand how “outlying” the sort of reading I’m presenting here might be – recommendations are therefore much appreciated.

I’ve been enjoying your postings on volume one, and wish there were more time to spend more time on the other chapters of this book (I do in my Capitalism and Cultural Studies lecture course) but your mention of the first sentence reminds me that I’ve wanted to point out the problems with various translations from the German.

The Penguin edition offers ‘appears’ for ‘ersheint’ while the better Lawrence and Wishart offers ‘presents itself’. Ersheint also has this double theatrical aspect – presenting on stage ‘as if’. I had a go at writing on this in review of the Zizek Parallaxative book here: ZZZZ (and in other places too) – thought you might like to take a look.

Now I suspect my students find this whole problem a kind of torture at first, especially since I spend the whole of the first lecture on that first sentence, but by week five they seem to stop complaining at how much there is to read each week and then brag about having read the whole text by the end of the course. Now I’ll have them reading your blog too. They deserve the punishment, it ‘appears’ to do them good, or something.

Red Salute.