| This question <10|59> overall <36|38> Chance: <36|38>. |
| Question 16: Sum up once more the arguments why Marx's Capital starts with the commodity. |
| [37] Chance: Marx's argument for starting with the explanation of the commodity is as follows. |
| Hans: Marx himself does not say much about it at this point. Most of the arguments which you are trying to reproduce here are mine, in the Annotations. |
| [37] Chance: First of all, to know where one should start, one must have results. In other words, there must be some facts and circumstances to incline one to start where one is starting. However, Marx has no results, and therefore chooses a starting point. |
| Hans: No, Marx does have the results, therefore he knows where to start. But the reader cannot yet know at this point whether this is the right starting point, and Marx cannot convince the reader yet that this is the right starting point because he has not yet developed his results to the reader. |
| [37] Chance: Secondly, Marx explains that a good place to start is with the basics. Concepts build upon one another, and a solid understanding of the foundation is necessary to understand the building blocks which go upon the foundation. It is not easy nor useful to explain to an apprentice how to do the finishing work on the stairway oak before he or she has been taught how to build the stairway. |
| Hans: Yes, this is pretty much what I say in my Annotations. But look at Question 15 and the answers to it, especially [30] and [5] This is an unfinished discussion right now, and I invite everyone to jump in. |
| [37] Chance: Finally, I believe Marx is arguing that the concepts of commodity, money, value and capital are intertwined. He therefore chooses the concept that would be most easily separated from the others. His discussion of commodity is as independent from the other concepts as possible allowing for readers to gain some simple understanding before attempting to understand the relatedness of the concepts. |
| Hans: Yes. I like the spirit of this. There are some invisible threads between these concepts (as well as between the realities which these concepts represent), and some places are better than others if one wants to start disentangling it all. |
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