| This question <563|598> overall <591-2|593> Desoto: <566|641>. graded A |
| Term Paper 832: Comments about Essay about Chapter Thirty-Two: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation |
| [592] Desoto: Historical Tendency. There have been several papers on Ch. 32. I'm not sure if I'm just supposed to respond to just one of them, but I will attempt to give some feedback on several in a fashion that is clear enough to be useful to the individual group. Akudiya's response [545], had some good points, but was overly critical. ChuckB and NHuggs in [544] started out by pointing out the question that Marx uses to begin the chapter, “What does the...historical genesis, resolve itself into?” and then took the next best logical step (as Marx did also) to look with a historical perspective. In other words, neither Marx nor ChuckB and NHuggs posed the question to be followed by an immediate response, as Akudiya seems to suggest they should have. I thought the way that they directly answered the question in their final paragraph was both accurate and with a logical flow. |
| Perhaps Geek and Kitty put it best in [542] when they begin with the two forms in their own words: “...one being...that one's own labor and means produce, the other peing capitalistic property that was extracted by controlling the means of production and exploiting others for their labor.” |
| Franky [563] also added some interesting points in his review of one of the papers on the chapter but he failed to indicate for which paper he was referring. His points referring to Marx's “full circle...prediction of the future of capitalism,” puts more emphasis on this point that Ch. 32 alludes to, but makes clear will need to be discussed in more depth later on. |
| That being said, I will say that Akudiya also gave some legitimate criticism as well, which should be helpful to ChuckB and NHuggs. Since I am writing this review near the deadline for discussion of such matters, I would best contribute by pointing out what was done right. Geek and Kitty wrote a mostly solid paper in [542]. They brought out some of the passionate tone present in Marx that was lacking more in some of the other papers on the same topic. The did this in their own words such as in their penultimate paragraph's “economy produces its own demise by creating a society full of capitalists. All of these capitalists are determined to increase their own private property by further exploiting others...focused on destroying each other to the point of the collapse of the whole society.” Their last paragraph gives a summary which describes the process as painful and violent and “the few exploiting the many.” Marx gave a very vivid description of the same point (p. 930 of the Vintage Edition of Capital, note 2) with “What the bourgeoise, therfore produces are its own gravediggers.” In their final sentence, they contrast this with “the distribution of individual property from the capitalist, into social property, is a natural occurrence willed on by the masses against the hoarding individual capitalists.” I believe they are correct in stating that Marx believed it would be natural. I'm not so sure, however, that Marx didn't believe there wouldn't be any violence or struggle involved. In any case, this seems to be one of the points where many Marxists disagree with Marx, or rather disagree among themselves and therefore, subsequently how much needs to be done and how (speaking of social activism). |
| Citizen and TedBell [550] wrote a somewhat similar paper to Geek and Kitty's. However, they do several things that haven't been done before, such as pointing out concepts that hadn't been prominent in the discussion of this chapter previously, yet have been discussed previously in the class. One of these is when they state, “In particular, the tendency of capital to centralize (that is, to move from many capitalists to few, or one).” I appreciated the way they put that last part because it made me visualize centralization as the process of moving from many to few, to perhaps one and then I would actually add none! I must admit that the first time I read their sentence I thought it said “none” as opposed to “one” which is precisely what they describe in more detail in the next paragraph. Also, they point out the “list (of) a number of concepts” so that the reader of their paper will know that much of what is being discussed in this chapter applies to various other concepts from earlier in the semester and book. I find their final sentence very intriguing: “When capitalism falls, it will do so quickly, as the workers will vastly outnumber the capitalists.” I'm not totally convinced of this personally, but Hans echoed this sentiment in last Thursday's class when he said in response to a students question about not seeing big changes happening that, “things can happen very quickly.” |
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