if possible, need help summaurazing the bold\'d section. MARX RECONSTRUCTED In t
ID: 352731 • Letter: I
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if possible, need help summaurazing the bold'd section.
MARX RECONSTRUCTED In the late 1970s, having completed the first major statements of his philosophy of liberation, Dussel set about a detailed rereading of Marx. This he describes as the radical reconstruction of Marx's thought and to do this, rather than studying the European commentators, the task was framed in terms of a rereading of Marx's workasawhole. from the standpoint of Latin American “dependency". This meant a close study of the preparatory work for Capital covering the period 1857 to 1882, including Marx's unpublished notebooks in Berlin and Moscow. This rereading led to the insight that it was necessary to invert the hypothesis of the traditional readings": "The most anthropological, ethical and anti- materialist Marx wasn't that of his youth (1835-1848) but the definitive Marx, that of the 'four drafts of Capital' (1857-1882). A great philosopher-economist was appearing before our eyes." (Dussel, 1998a: 25). Dussel and his students found affinity between the philosophy of liberation and Marx's thought, both of which emphasise the exteriority of the poor as the point of departure for the philosophical discourse. The result of this work was three books (Dussel, 1988b, 1990, 1991), only one of which has so far appeared in English (Dussel, 2001b; see also Moseley, 2001; and Dussel, 2001a). He emphasises two insights from this work, both of which are pertinent to his evolving philosophy of liberation. Living laboras point of departure Dussel focuses on what might seem an arcane technical distinction within Marxist theory. "The fundamental distinction in all of Marx's thought is not between abstract labor and concrete labor, nor is it the difference between use value and exchange value. It is, rather-and without Marx himself realizing it-the difference between living labor' and 'objectified labor" (Dussel, 2001a: 21). Dussel demonstrates that it is on this distinction between living labour and objectified (or dead) labour that the rest of Marx's analytic categories and hence his political economy are built. In emphasizing the transformation of living labour into the rationalized elements of a system of exploitation, Dussel retrieves the ethical core of Marx's work. He sees the same process by which the English peasantry was evicted from the land and subjected via factory discipline to alienated wage slavery, in the processes of dispossession and incorporation in the global South today. Furthermore, the vitality of living labour comes from "beyond" the rationalised world of capital, its origin is in capital's "Nothing".Explanation / Answer
Marx Reconstructed:
As per Dussel, in Marx's theory of liberation, liberal rights and justice are premised on the idea that each of us needs protection from others, and depend on others. These legal rights are rights of separation, liberation, and freedom from interference.
Dussel has found a correlation between the theory of liberation and Marx's thoughts on capitalism, which lay its emphasis on the unequal distribution of the wealth in terms of exploiting the poor.
Living labor as point of departure:
Marx thought is not to find the discrete difference between abstract labor and concrete labor or the value associated with it, but he says there is a discrete difference between living labor and objectified labor.
The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and size. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity. And this at the same rate at which it produces commodities in general. There is exploitation associated with it, since the devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of things.
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