| This question <149|149> overall <148|150> Xerho: <1876|558>. graded B+ |
| Question 59: Comment about the following critique of Marx: When Marx asks what is the meaning of the exchange relation between two commodities, he commits the error of treating the economy like a literary text. The actions of the economic agents must be causally explained, but any reflection about their “meaning” is an interpretation which does not help us understand what is really going on. |
| [149] Xerho: Using Literary Text to describe causal agents. While it is true that by Marx using literary text to explain an economic function that is explained best through its causal agents, it does not necessarily help to understand what the underlying relationship is between the agents. Literary text, or words that define something or interpret something are necessary on both sides of the equation between causal agents in order to understand how these agents interact together. Marx is aware of this error in explanation, but sometimes backing up to a more rudimentary approach like literary defining in economic phenomenon is appropriate in order to build a better foundation with which to build later using the more appropriate causal agents to describe what is truly going on. |
| Hans: You seem to think the question asked why Marx is using a literary (or philosophical) text, Das Kapital, to understand the economy, instead of just explaining what the people in a capitalist economy are doing. |
| This is not what the question asked, and I am not even sure if this was indeed your interpretation of the question, but I would like to just make two points regarding your answer as I understand it: |
| 1. The behavior of the individuals cannot by itself explain capitalism, because this behavior does not explain the conditions under which people act. |
| The philosophical-sounding arguments at the beginning of Das Kapital are not preliminaries setting the stage for the real explanation, but they are Marx's attempts to infer the conditions of people's actions from these actions themselves. |
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