Capital is neither a pure theory nor a national history but something else.
Evidence
This involves a “reading”—some would say another “reading”—of Capital , treating it neither as the theoretical analysis of a “pure” mode of production (whatever that is), nor as a history of British capitalism in the nineteenth century, which seem at this point in time to be the two prevailing alternatives on offer. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 516
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- QUESTION: If Capital is neither pure theory nor national history, what mode of reading does Hall intend? This is the methodological heart of his ‘new problematic’ for studying superstructures.
Related
- Treating Capital as a complete theory contradicts Marx’s own premise of continuous development. (similarity 0.85)
- Marx concluded capitalism was the only mode of production he could adequately theorize. (similarity 0.81)
- Comparing the German Ideology with Capital shows how Marx specified historicity further. (similarity 0.79)
- Capitalism depends on a noncapitalist world whose possession is imperialism’s core project (similarity 0.79)
- Reading Capital catalyzed the theoretical revolution in Marxist social science. (similarity 0.79)
- Capitalism has no necessary correspondence with any particular political or legal form (similarity 0.78)
- Social democracy’s contradictions, not capital alone, opened the terrain for Thatcherism (similarity 0.78)