So 21.07.2008 19:08

Dave Zachariah

to Peter Fleissner

Hi Peter,

I'd just like to make a clarification for now.

You wrote:

> And the institutional level is very important in Marx' theory. It is

> crucial if a special firm will make profit. Exploitation is also

> closely related to it. If you do not split society into classes and

> into specific firms with certain ownership, how could you establish

> the dynamics of capitalist competition? or identify any difference

> between capitalist and socialist society?

>

Of course, you are absolutely right to say that "institutions matter"

for an understanding of the actual dynamics. But in our view the concept of "un/productive labour" is much more general and historically invariant. Compare this to the concept of "surplus labour" or "economic classes". Also note that our concept of un/productive labour explicitly rests on the division of the population into direct producers and non-producers.

In my view it is precisely because historical materialism applies historically *invariant* concepts that makes it an indispensable tool for analyzing and comparing historically *specific* societies.

………

There is a great archive available at:

http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/

The quality of the posts varies in cycles but the archive embodies a tremendous wealth of knowledge. I learned most of my Marxist political economy from the discussions and references on OPE-L, but only recently became a member.

………

In any case, there was quite an extensive discussion on OPE-L back in January-February 2008:

http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0801/author.html

http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0802/author.html

In particular, the thread "Levels of abstraction".

atb,

//Dave Z