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From: JulioHuato <JulioHuato@aol.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 09:31:03 EST
To: andy@mira.net
Subject: Re: Essence and Notion cont'd
Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com)

<< Volume II, Chapter 1, is about the circuit M - C - M?>>

Yes, exactly.  I like that part because Marx gets quite explicit about how a
"high" level of commodity production and exchange is a pre-condition for
capital.  The forms of capital (and the transition from one form to the next)
in is circuit forces Marx to address this.

Insofar as the gradual or forceful separation between MP and L is the
historical form in which the commodification of labor power takes place, then
the primitive accumulation is an aspect of this "generalization of commodity
production" and hence, that formula ("generalized commodity production")
summarizes the social conditions for capital to exist.

Of course, once capital takes over, commodification expands further and
faster.  So capitalism is generalized commodity production taken to its peaks.

<<But this is what I would call the Object of capitalism, or the "developed
Notion".>>  [That is, the concrete aspects of capitalism.]

<<there is a need to focus back on to the simple moments: simple essence and
the abstract Notion, or germ, as opposed to the developed moments (Ground and
Object).>>

What can I say about this?

It seemed to me that the "Concrete" was an epistemological category (and
that's why in the Logic it is mostly used as an adjective) whereas the Notion
was an ontological one (a noun).  But that they were equivalent.  The Notion
is the ontological concrete.  The Concrete is the epistemological notion.

As to the "power of substance self-realised," I thought Hegel referred to the
Idea in the last stage of its self-realization.  In Hegel the Idea is
substantive and the world that results from its realization is phenomenic.
Now, since the Substance has been already elucidated in the Essence section,
then the Notion appears as "a form, but infinite and creative, that releases
from itself the fullness of all content" (ie, the fullness of the Substance).
The references to "totality," "the true concrete," "the systematic whole,"
etc. made me think he was referring to a fully displayed Notion, the developed
Notion.  But now, I'm not sure.  I admit mine is a forced interpretation -- a
kind of wishful thinking.  I also ignore subtle differences in terminology
that may be important.

Anyway.  I rush to read Marx IN Hegel ... and then I do it the wrong way.  By
the way, a similar problem arises when one reads Ricardo trying to interpret
him as a direct germinal exposition of Marx's political-economic view.  When
you read "value" in Ricardo, you have to read "relative price" and then
everything falls into place.  (I must give credit to Anwar Shaikh for sharing
this "trick" with me.)  But that's another problem ... I guess I regret
sometimes that Hegel (and Ricardo) didn't read Marx!  :)

Thanks!

J.