Read the capital

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Reading Capital is a joint work by Louis Althusser , Étienne Balibar , Roger Establet, Pierre Macherey and Jacques Rancière , which appeared in two volumes in November 1965 in the Éditions François Maspero , where it, together with Louis Althusser's Pour Marx collection, founded the new collection “Théorie”.

The origin: a seminar of the École normal supérieure

Lire le Capital is a collection of studies that emerged from a seminar by Louis Althusser - at that time “agrégé-répétiteur” (caïman) since 1948 and secretary of the literature department from 1950 - which he held in a dozen sessions in the ballroom of the École normal supérieure de la rue d'Ulm between late January and early April 1965. This seminar is part of the organized research program at the École normal supérieure. Louis Althusser's seminars held in previous years had dealt with the young Marx (1961–1962), with the origins of structuralism (1962–1963) and with Lacan and psychoanalysis (1963–1964).

Dedicated to the re-reading of Marx's capital and the exposition of its philosophical relevance, the seminar from 1964–1965 represents a kind of sifting through and testing of what has been acquired. The seminar is being prepared jointly by Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar, Yves Duroux and Jacques Rancière, all three students in their fifth year at the École normal supérieure. Robert Linhart, after returning from a study trip to Algeria, where he examined the state-owned companies there in the summer of 1964, takes part in the preparatory consultations. Pierre Macherey takes part in the sessions, while Roger Establet, also a former student, later writes the final contribution to the work.

The audience was larger than usual, but there were no more than thirty people. The seminar began with a speech by Louis Althusser. The first contribution came from Maurice Godelier, who introduces the themes of the three articles he has published in the journal Économie et politique . Presentations by Rancière and Macherey follow, then finally Althusser and Balibar. The presentations are followed by discussions in which the audience can participate.

contents

Louis Althusser , From 'Capital' to Marx's Philosophy

Jacques Rancière , The Concept of Critique and the Critique of Political Economy from the Manuscripts of 1844 to Capital

I. La critique de l'économie politique dans les "Manuscrits de" 1844
  1. Le level de l'économie politique
  2. l'élaboration critique
  3. L'amphibologie et son fondement
  4. Développement de la contradiction
  5. Discours critique et discours scientifique
II. Critique et science in "Le Capital"
  1. The problem of the point of the department and the question critique
  2. Structure du procès et perception du procès
  3. La "externalization" et la constitution du fétichisme
  4. Le monde enchanté

Pierre Macherey , On the process of representation in capital

I. Point of Department and Analysis of the Richesse
II. Analysis de la marchandise et apparition de la contradiction
III. Analysis de la valeur

Louis Althusser, The Object of Capital

I. Avertissement
II. Marx et ses découvertes
III. Les merites de l'économie classique
IV. Les défauts de l'économie classique. Esquisse du concept de temps historique
V. Le marxisme n'est pas un historicisme
VI. Propositions épistémologiques du "Capital" (Marx, Engels)
VII. L'objet de l '"Economie politique"
VIII. La critique de Marx
IX. L'immense révolution théorique de Marx
Appendice: on the "moyenne idéale" et les forms de transition

Étienne Balibar , basic concepts of historical materialism

I. De la périodisation aux modes de production
II. Elements of structure and history
III. De la reproduction
IV. Elements for a theory of passage

Roger Establet, presentation of the (construction) plan of capital

I. Presentation of «Capital» par Marx lui-même
II. Les articulations du "Capital"
III. Le champ théorique non élaboré mais exactement mesuré des livres I et II et son nom: «la concurrence»
IV. Définition de l'objet de la 2 e partie de l'articulation II. Report de cet objet avec ses anticipations
V. Étude des sous-articulations de la 2 e partie de l'articulation II
VI. Définition de l'articulation II
VII. Conclusion

In the newly revised edition from 1971 (volumes 30 and 31 of the "Petite Collecion" Maspero), the contributions by Rancière, Macherey and Establet are omitted.

German translations

Klaus-Dieter Thieme's partial translation, which contained both texts by Althusser and Balibar's essay, was published in 1972 by Rowohlt-Verlag. The Merve Verlag published in 1972 the chapter Jacques Rancière "On the concept of criticism and the criticism of political economy".

A complete German translation was published for the first time in 2015: Complete and supplemented edition with retractations to capital, edited by Frieder Otto Wolf with the assistance of Alexis Petrioli, translated by Frieder Otto Wolf and Eva Pfaffenberger. Alex Demirović emphasizes in his review in PROKLA 180 that the editor and translator took into account the text changes in the two French editions of 1965 and 1968 and 1973, respectively. He also used the German and French versions of Marx's texts for comparison, which helps to understand Althusser's reference to them more precisely.

reception

Kiyoaki Hirata described Reading Capital as "a philosophical interference in the whole of France's capitalist culture". According to Alain Lipietz, reading Capital helped detach French Marxism from the simplifications, determinisms and mechanisms of the Stalinist phase, but at the same time it omitted and thus censored the first part of Das Kapital, in which Marx describes the relationship between goods and money .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See: wikidata: Q3078901 (Roger Establet).
  2. ^ "Presentation" de Lire le Capital. Presses universitaires de France, "Quadrige" collection, 1996, pp. VIII, IX.
  3. ^ "Presentation" de Lire le Capital. Presses universitaires de France, "Quadrige" collection, 1996, p. VIII.
  4. ^ Hervé Hamon, Patrick Rotman : Génération. 1.
  5. ^ "Presentation" de Lire le Capital. Presses universitaires de France, "Quadrige" collection, 1996, p. VII.
  6. ^ Les structures de la méthode du Capital de Karl Marx, Nos. 70 and 71, May and June 1960; "Quelques aspects de la méthode du Capital", (No. 80, March 1961). The three articles are taken up again in Rationalité et irrationalité en économie. Librairie François Maspero, 1966.
  7. ↑ Read the chapter translated into German for the first time. dampfboot-verlag.de, accessed on November 5, 2016 .
  8. ^ Ainslie Johnson / Original design by Andreas Viklund: PROKLA »Blog Archive» Editorial PROKLA 180. Archived from the original on November 5, 2016 ; Retrieved November 5, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Why read Althusser (again)? * . In: Theory Criticism . ( [1] [accessed November 5, 2016]).
  10. ↑ a b Daniel Kremers, Shunsuke Izuta: Change in the meaning of civil society or the misery of the history of ideas: An annotated translation of Hirata Kiyoaki's essay on the term shimin shakai by Antonio Gramsci (part 1) . In: Asian Studies - Études Asiatiques . tape 71 , no. 2 . De Gruyter, Boston / Berlin 2017, p. 724 , doi : 10.1515 / asia-2017 to 0044 ( degruyter.com ).
  11. ^ Alain Lipietz: Form Althusserianism to "Regulation Theory" . 1993. Retrieved November 19, 2019.