"I took up certain problems posed by Althusser, but not necessarily the answers that he provided" - Michael Heinrich right now in the 30th Anniversary Science of Value talk

"I don't think you need to read Hegel before Capital, but after finishing Capital, it can definitely yield something to read Hegel after Capital"

"one shouldn't exaggerate the differences between 'Traditional Marxism' and the 'Neue Marx-Lektüre', even if the terms have a certain validity"

now brief outline of the importance of GDR-era research around the MEGA, for example Rolf Hecker

"so if you ask me about my origins and my sources, it's not just the West German reconstruction debates and Althusser; the GDR research plays a very central role", the dismissal of GDR research after the Wende a catastrophe

moderator: "an accusation sometimes made is that this form analysis remains abstract/sterile, a bit unpolitical"

Heinrich: "the accusation that it's all apolitical has a long tradition; when Marx brought out the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, WIlhelm Liebknecht said he had never been so disappointed by a book, it couldn't be used for politics; but for Marx

it was central for the analysis of capitalism and the struggle"

now discussion of the 70s West German discussions, attempts to apply Marx quantitatively, measure the West German "rate of profit", problems involved in trying to translate official statistics into Marxist categories, etc.

inappropriateness of value theory for analysis of real empirical capitalist development

"if one speaks of a scientific revolution, you have to specify, revolution against what? it doesn't mean old theories are criticized and a new one is formulated; a break is made with preconditions that are common to widely varying theories"

when Marxists deal with Smith and Ricardo, they only do so from Marx's perspective; they don't look in Smith, they just quote the Theories of Surplus Value"

now his connection is broken, he doesn't hear or see anything

ask by moderator to explain monetary theory of value: "the point is that it's an illusion to speak of value without reference to money, as if the reference to labor suffices, and money is just additive"

discussing everybody's favorite passages from the Ergänzungen manuscripts and the French edition

"money direct (unmittelbar) form of existence of abstract labor"

for Marx, money is more central than for both Smith and Ricardo and the neoclassical school

the entire first three chapters are essential for understanding value, and these chapters deal with money

"the term comes from Backhaus, but we don't agree on it!"

Moderator: "a difference between you and Backhaus seems to be concerning the use of the term 'critique'; he insists that Capital is purely a negative critique, whereas you emphasis the scientific break that Marx makes"

moderator: critique vs. science question

Heinrich: "reading Capital as critique was formulated in a more extreme form by the late Joachim Bruhn, rejecting any scientific element, but if I think of Friedrich Pollock, he also conducted analytical science (Wissenschaft); not just

critique

"Marx's claim to discover the scientific laws of motion, Marx's stated aims (in letter to Lassalle, for example) as scientific, but presentation of the system is _at the same time_ critique; science is not contrasted to critique by Marx, and I think that's Marx's enterprise"

"unity of science and critique, not playing them against each other, again emphasizing the need not to exaggerate differences between traditional Marxism and NML/critical theory, here I have more in common (!) with traditional Marxists"

Objects to the accusation he neglects history and class struggle; of course there are historical passages in Capital, however, the question is, what position do these passages have in Marx's presentation

"talking about classes is frowned upon here in Germany; you're already a leftist if you even do that; in other countries, even Margaret Thatcher spoke of the working class"

what does one understand by classes and class struggle? Marx's in Capital is diff. from the Manifesto

"if one wants to deal with classes in a more systematic way, you can only first do that after the analysis of the trinity formula and an analysis of the state, but all that is beyond Capital"

"but that doesn't mean that class and class struggle aren't important! the point is: where and how do you discuss them"

moderator now discussing the success of the reception of SoV, the German debates around it, with the Krisis group, with Haug, etc.; the Marx biography as the "next phase"

moderator: "in this biography, are you just going to present us with a Marx who never finished anything?"

the Introduction to Capital MH's most successful book (number of editions, translations, etc.) it came about by coincidence

the biography emerged from work on the MEGA, the need to present Marx's texts in terms of their context

It's exciting to place Marx in his political and historical context, ask _why_ Marx never finished anything

Marx changing his state of knowledge over the course of struggles and disputes