Part 3: Chapter 11

This chapter, "The Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value," is mostly of interest to us for this passage:

A certain stage of capitalist production necessitates that the capitalist be able to devote the whole of the time during which he functions as a capitalist, i.e. as capital personified, to the appropriation and therefore the control of that labour. The guild system of the Middle Ages therefore tried forcibly to prevent the transformation of the master of a craft into a capitalist, by limiting the number of workers a single master could employ to a very low maximum. Hence the possessor of money or commodities actually turns into a capitalist only where the minimum sum advanced for production greatly exceeds the known medieval maximum. Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel, in his Logic, that at a certain point merely quantitative differences pass over by a dialectical inversion into qualitative distinction. (423)

Gramsci's favorite example from Capital of quantity-becoming-quality is the chapter on cooperation in industry: masses accomplish "more than the sum of their parts." One can think of several others: the amount of time demanded from workers (quantity) altering the conditions of their existence (quality). In any case, the idea that quantity becomes quality is one of the best instances in which Marx gives concrete economic form to a "theoretical" Hegelian idea.

We see here:
- "Capital developed within the production process" [my emphasis, B.P.] It is not spontaneous nor a complete break from the previous (feudal/medieval) mode of production, but (as communism is contained within the "womb" of capitalism) arises *from* it.
- how the capitalist does not require "primitive accumulation" to come into existence, but arises from existent processes
- the "personification" of capital's historical (i.e. proceeding by stages) tendencies in the "spontaneous" actions of individuals
- that capitalism's genesis is not merely a product of "technical" advancements: "At first capital subordinates labour on the basis of the technical conditions within which labour has been carried on up to that point in history. It does not therefore directly change the mode of production."

Marx stresses the simple but difficult-to-keep-in-mind point that the means of production be thought of *as* capital themselves. That is, machines/tools are not just involved in producing commodities, but represent capital and are means of reproducing capital: "It is different as soon as we view the production process as a process of valorization. The means of production are at once changed into means for the absorption of labour of others. It is no longer the worker who employs the means of production, but the means of production which employ the labour" (425).

That is, the production process becomes organized around keeping MACHINES busy, of preventing their being idle, of instituting multiple shifts, of extending hours, etc.

"There is no text in which 'the technical instrument' is turned into the unique and supreme cause of economic development. [Marx] never reduces [stages of technical development] to the mere 'metamorphoses of the technical instrument."--Gramsci

"Philosophy of Praxis"

This is not Capital-related, strictly speaking, although one could certainly say a great deal about why *that* is.

In Gramsci's prison notebooks, most of the proper names of Bolsheviks as well as terms like "Marxism" and "proletariat" are suppressed, so that it is written in a kind of code. "Marxism" therefore becomes "the philosophy of praxis." Now, this is reasonable enough, and after a while you don't really notice, and just read (or translate in) the intended concept for the euphemism. 

My point is, of course it's *not* a euphemism, and it is almost the key concept of Gramsci that Marxism IS the philosophy of praxis.

This can be thought about in two ways. One is the Leninist sense: why in the Russian Revolution did the Bolsheviks, the most extreme and doctrinaire party, triumph over the more palatable and compromising Mensheviks and social democratic parties? The Bolshevik answer would be that the question is tautological. That is, "correct" doctrine BY DEFINITION aligns itself with the "winning" team of history, the proletariat. To be doctrinaire in a revolutionary situation is irreducibly tactical. 

The second sense is expressed by Rosa Luxembourg: academic debates about socialism are anything *but* academic; socialism is a weapon or tool of the proletariat. To water socialism down "in theory" is a real attack on the working class: "It is their skin which is being brought to market." 

In other words, Marxism does not have a set of aims distinct from the plan for accomplishing them; it does not say "We believe this, but we should settle for this." (i.e. we believe that capitalism is bad, but really we can work within it for improvement and leave it standing).

We should read the cliched criticism of leftist intellectuals backwards then: instead of "that's all well and good in theory, but what about practice," Marxism insists that we ask, "that's all well and good in practice, but what about in theory??

Cf. The German Ideology, Critique of the Gotha Programme, and the final section of the Communist Manifesto for Marx's vicious attacks on compromised versions of socialism.

Which brings us back to Capital, which is not at all a "tactical manual" for revolution. There is a great deal to say about this, and I will say it, in the posts covering the final 2/3 of the book.