carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (10/06/85)
In article <28200136@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > Unfortunately, few Marxists read Marx; they don't suspect, for >instance, that the main propositions of the 1st volume of Das Ka- >pital (on which their whole case is built) are retracted in the >3d volume. Not really. One must recall that Vol. III was written first, so if there were any retractions, it was the other way round. But most apparent discrepancies are explained by the fact that Marx is using different *models* of the capitalist economy in the two volumes. For example, in Vol. I he assumes that prices are directly proportional to labor values, stating that this is only a temporary simplification that will later be dropped, as it is in Vol. III. Admittedly Marx does not make all this clear as a bell. I strongly recommend a reading of Vol. I to net.politics.theoreticians, not merely because it is good for your soul but also because you will enjoy it. If you start with Chapter 4 and save Chapter 1 for last, you may find that it is much more readable than you think. Chapters 2, 3, 13-22, and 26 of Vol. I are all skippable. I agree with Jan that Marxist insights can be very useful for the critique of "actually existing socialism." Besides Djilas, one might mention some books by Roy Medvedev, Charles Bettelheim, Leszek Kolakowski, Rudolf Bahro, Svetozar Stojanovic, and others. -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes