Capital - an abstract criticism of liberalism?

[Movementist]

I'm not sure that title really gets to the heart of what I wanted to ask, so I'll explain a bit more.

David Harvey thinks there is some debate as to whether Capital is supposed to be a critique of how capitalism actually is (or was when he wrote it), or an exploration of what capitalism would look like if it was unfettered by state intervention and other factors (perhaps working class self-organisation, strikes etc.) did not disrupt its movements. Maybe it's because, from what I remember in Volume 1, it starts out on a highly abstract and theoretical basis, then becomes much more empirical later on.

Anyway I'd really like to know if there have been any decent journal articles on this subject. I am *ahem-* writing an essay, you see. Nevertheless, I'm hoping this post provokes a good discussion.

In solidarity

Tom

[bill]

Hi Tom. I no longer have access to jstor, so I sadly can't recommend any journal articles. But I should have to agree with you now that I think about it. It seems Marx was trying to make a very pure theoretical critique of capital accumulation (without fudging it up with state intervention--which presumably he thought was too contingent a thing).

If I may hazard an analogy. It seems somewhat like how Newton and Euclid conceive of a universe constructed in a technically unrealistic grid pattern, its really complex contours being dismissed as irrelevant (i.e. inconvenient)--though modern physicists obviously reject this over-simplification without rejecting its practical value, say, for building dams and windmills.

He does talk a lot about state structures in the Grundrisse though, which is really insightful I find and not nearly as exacting as say Capital Vol I.. How a state interacts with capital is ultimately what defines what type of state it is.

I hope I've said something useful or meaningful here.