Michael Lebowitz - 'Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class'
Nov 27 2007 13:48
"Was Marx's Capital intended as a study of capitalism as a whole or was it meant as an analysis of capital? In Beyond Capital, Michael A. Lebowitz explores the implications of the book on wage-labour that Marx originally intended to write. Focusing upon critical assumptions in Capital that were to be removed in Wage-Labour and upon Marx's methodology, Lebowitz stresses the one-sidedness of Marx's Capital and argues that the side of the workers, their goals and their struggles in capitalism have been ignored by a monolithic Marxism characterized by determinism, reductionism and a silence on human experience."
read this last year, would be interested to hear others' criticism of it. I thought it was good - not perfect, but it did cover a lot of ground so there are bound to be problems somewhere. If those who've read it have objections to any of his formulations or have picked out inadequacies in his analysis, I'd be into heaing/discussing them.
cheers
on another note, recently read his new book and thought some bits were a bit dodge and the rest was totally generic.
Nov 27 2007 19:43
#2
I really liked it when I read it, but like you it was about a year ago, so my impression of it might be different today. But I didn't really have any specific criticisms of it. (Or maybe I did and I forgot them.) I thought it was fairly general so it couldn't get too much into specifics, about which I'd probably disagree with him on quite a few things.
I actually liked his book quite a bit better than Shortall's, which I'm not a big fan of. They had a debate in Historical Materialism that was fairly interesting, in which I think Lebowitz showed convincingly that one of Shortall's central claims (in particular about how Marx couldn't finish Capital because he wasn't alive to see the new developments of the worker's movement of the 20th century, particularly the worker's councils) was false.
Shortall has become little more than a mouthpiece for the Chavez administration, however. If the new book you're referring to is the Build It Now one, then I figured it would be like you said and did not bother to read it. Apparently Chavez was on his radio station ranting about what a great book it was and how everyone should read it.
Nov 27 2007 21:22
#3
mikus wrote:
Shortall has become little more than a mouthpiece for the Chavez administration, however.
Lebowitz perchance? 
mikus wrote:
They had a debate in Historical Materialism that was fairly interesting, in which I think Lebowitz showed convincingly that one of Shortall's central claims (in particular about how Marx couldn't finish Capital because he wasn't alive to see the new developments of the worker's movement of the 20th century, particularly the worker's councils) was false.
is that a central claim? surely the central claim is the incompleteness of capital (in terms of the provisional exclusion of class struggle from the 'objective' critique of political economy), whether marx could have completed it is an interesting question but doesn't strike me as central.
Nov 27 2007 21:33
#4
Joseph K. wrote:
mikus wrote:
Shortall has become little more than a mouthpiece for the Chavez administration, however.Lebowitz perchance?
Oops! Sorry. I was thinking of Lebowitz.
Joseph K. wrote:
mikus wrote:
They had a debate in Historical Materialism that was fairly interesting, in which I think Lebowitz showed convincingly that one of Shortall's central claims (in particular about how Marx couldn't finish Capital because he wasn't alive to see the new developments of the worker's movement of the 20th century, particularly the worker's councils) was false.is that a central claim? surely the central claim is the incompleteness of capital (in terms of the provisional exclusion of class struggle from the 'objective' critique of political economy), whether marx could have completed it is an interesting question but doesn't strike me as central.
I thought it was at the time, although I'm not entirely sure since I read Shortall even longer ago than I read Lebowitz. That is at least what their debate in HM was mostly about.
Nov 27 2007 21:37
#5
yeah i can't remember, just wasn't what i took away from it (i don't think i finished shorthall's book either though, i get easily distracted 
)
Nov 27 2007 21:54
#6
Thinking about it more, it's probably not the most prominent claim of the book, but I do think it's important. Shortall tries to both show that Marx didn't finish Capital, and explain why. His explanation of why is what I think is wrong. Lebowitz doesn't really try to explain why, and I think that's a good thing. I don't think there's any giant mystery and there's no need to bring in some explanation based on the lack of worker's councils and so forth. Marx's proposed project was overly ambitious and would have required far more work than could've been done in a single lifetime.
Nov 27 2007 23:48
#7
Joseph K. wrote:
similar general argument to shorthall's 'the incomplete marx', although that deals more with the internal logic of Capital in relation to marx's other works as opposed to the book on wage labour specifically.
I will try and read this sometime, thanks.
mikus wrote:
I really liked it when I read it, but like you it was about a year ago, so my impression of it might be different today. But I didn't really have any specific criticisms of it. (Or maybe I did and I forgot them.) I thought it was fairly general so it couldn't get too much into specifics, about which I'd probably disagree with him on quite a few things.I actually liked his book quite a bit better than Shortall's, which I'm not a big fan of. They had a debate in Historical Materialism that was fairly interesting, in which I think Lebowitz showed convincingly that one of Shortall's central claims (in particular about how Marx couldn't finish Capital because he wasn't alive to see the new developments of the worker's movement of the 20th century, particularly the worker's councils) was false.
[Lebowitz] has become little more than a mouthpiece for the Chavez administration, however. If the new book you're referring to is the Build It Now one, then I figured it would be like you said and did not bother to read it. Apparently Chavez was on his radio station ranting about what a great book it was and how everyone should read it.
I really liked it when I read it as well (not in the least because it was actually readable as opposed to a lot of other things in the same vein) but I do remember not being entirely satisfied with a couple of points, though like you I can't remember what these were exactly.
Yeah I'm talking about the Build It Now / let's big-up Chavez one, and being so disappointed with it made me want to hear criticism of BC, which I had enjoyed. (Build it Now had some ok criticism of 'collectivism' in Yugoslavia etc, but nothing that hasn't been said a hundred times before all through the 20th century. What made the book worse though was that its format - a compilation of essays and speeches - meant that each chapter was only about 2/3 original material, decent editing would have improved the book and cut it down to about pamphlet length).
mikus wrote:
Thinking about it more, it's probably not the most prominent claim of the book, but I do think it's important. Shortall tries to both show that Marx didn't finish Capital, and explain why. His explanation of why is what I think is wrong. Lebowitz doesn't really try to explain why, and I think that's a good thing. I don't think there's any giant mystery and there's no need to bring in some explanation based on the lack of worker's councils and so forth. Marx's proposed project was overly ambitious and would have required far more work than could've been done in a single lifetime.
Lebowitz's explanation was basically that Marx started out with (and retained) his plan for a 6 book series (1.Capital, 2.Landed Property, 3.Wage Labour, 4.State, 5.International Trade, 6.World Market) but didn't even finish the first one (Capital), for one because he snuffed it, but also because the project of analysing capital expanded immensely and revealed many unforeseen complications/ramifications as he went on, so that he just got so caught up in it that it got really long. As you said, no giant mystery.
Nov 28 2007 00:42
#8
Anna wrote:
I really liked it when I read it as well (not in the least because it was actually readable as opposed to a lot of other things in the same vein) but I do remember not being entirely satisfied with a couple of points, though like you I can't remember what these were exactly.
Yeah I'm talking about the Build It Now / let's big-up Chavez one, and being so disappointed with it made me want to hear criticism of BC, which I had enjoyed. (Build it Now had some ok criticism of 'collectivism' in Yugoslavia etc, but nothing that hasn't been said a hundred times before all through the 20th century. What made the book worse though was that its format - a compilation of essays and speeches - meant that each chapter was only about 2/3 original material, decent editing would have improved the book and cut it down to about pamphlet length).
Yes, the fact that it was readable was a big plus. Like most other Marxists, he has an obligatory chapter or two on "Marx's method" but it's relatively straight-forward and easy to read.
I don't know that one can make a case for a direct development from Beyond Capital to his recent Chavism. The basic point of Beyond Capital is that Marxists need to analyze ways that working class power is built and how working class self-development occurs which can create revolutionary conditions. I think this can be agreed upon by most Marxists except for the most extreme spontaneists. It is his specific analysis of how the working class develops itself that is flawed (and this is where he becomes a Chavista), but that specific analysis is for the most part absent from Beyond Capital. There are a few lines that show that he was already some form of social democrat but those things just don't factor into the bulk of the book, in my opinion.
Anna wrote:
]Lebowitz's explanation was basically that Marx started out with (and retained) his plan for a 6 book series (1.Capital, 2.Landed Property, 3.Wage Labour, 4.State, 5.International Trade, 6.World Market) but didn't even finish the first one (Capital), for one because he snuffed it, but also because the project of analysing capital expanded immensely and revealed many unforeseen complications/ramifications as he went on, so that he just got so caught up in it that it got really long. As you said, no giant mystery.
Actually, you're right, this is an explanation. But I like how simple it is, compared to Shortall's more ambitious (and incorrect) argument.
Mike
Nov 28 2007 02:47
#9
If I remember correctly, Shortall's position on how Marx was limited (with regard to Capital) by historical conditions comes out more clearly in the debate with Lebowitz that took place after the publication of Shortall's book. Nonetheless, this is closely related to his critique of Marx's "objectivism": we only need to look to Debord (Shortall quotes Debord's remarks approvingly), who links the weakness of the proletariat of Marx's time to a "scientific-determinist" aspect of his thought. In his critique of political economy, says Debord (E.P. Thompson says something similar), Marx is on enemy terrain, and his thought becomes not just focused, but "mutilated." In Shortall, this takes the form of a covering-up of "subjectivity": Marx is closing off the points of rupture in capitalism. Influenced by Negri, Shortall finds "subjectivity" more abundant in the Grundrisse. (One wonders why Hegelian language is identified with an absence of determinism.) In politics as well, Shortall detects evidence of a closing off of subjectivity, and speaks of Marx's "authoritarian statism." I think that these are the weakest points of Shortall's book, and Lebowitz avoids them, while also writing of Marx's "incompleteness." For Shortall, "the truth is the whole" (Hegel).
i read about half of it a year or so ago and it seemed ok. similar general argument to shorthall's 'the incomplete marx', although that deals more with the internal logic of Capital in relation to marx's other works as opposed to the book on wage labour specifically.