Ernest Untermann

[colinskelly]

Has anyone come across Ernest Untermann’s ‘Marxian Economics – a popular introduction to the three volumes of Marx’s Capital’ (first edition 1913)?

Is it any good?

[DJP]

Not read it myself but there’s a brief comment on it here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/books-and-pamphlets-marxian-economicsSo probably a miss.For me the best introduction is Ben Fine’s and Alfredo Sadd-Filho’s “Marx’s Capital”

[ALB]

It’s ok, one of the books that a studious Socialist in the past would have had on their bookshelf (it was published in 1908).One drawback is Untermann’s introduction of the concept of “secondary exploitation” in a footnote on p. 195-6:

Quote:

after the wage workers have been exploited by the industrial capitalists in the sphere of production, they may have to submit to a secondary exploitation on the hands of the merchant in the sphere of circulation, because the merchant may not only have to buy his commodities from some industrial capitalist, who sells his commodities above their price of production, but may himself make an extra profit under favorable market constellations by selling at a still higher price than he would ordinarily, quite aside from adulterations, etc., which permit him to sell a product of small value at the price of the genuine articles. This fact of secondary exploitation, which I maintain in harmony with Marx, has given to some misinterpreters of Marx, for instance to La Monte, an opportunity to claim, that the admission of this secondary exploitation would be equivalent to transforming the Socialist Party from a revolutionary organization into a reform organization. This is practically the same faulty logic, which cannot reconcile the program of immediate demands with the revolutionary platform of International Socialism.

Party writers and lecturers on Marxian economics agreed with R. R. La Monte’s criticism. After all, if the workers have already been fleeced at work by the employing capitalist, how could they be fleeced again? They could be swindled by shopkeepers of course, but if this became general it would exert an upward pressure on wages since the employer would not be getting the full value of the worker’s labour-power.Untermann’s riposte to La Monte could have been aimed at us.

[Anonymous]

The concept of double exploitation is a fallacy invented by the left wingers. Our exploitation takes place at the point of production, and classes are defined according to their relationship with the means of production

[colinskelly]

Thanks for the information and correct date of first publication.  Interesting dispute over ‘secondary exploitation’, an apparently small detail (tucked away in a footnote) with large implications.
I think it might be worth the £3.55 investment.

[colinskelly]

PS. anymore background on R.R. La Monte?  I have had a brief search and come up with some interesting-looking book titles but not much general information.

[Anonymous]

Frankly, I prefer to read original sources. If you want to understand Marx’s Capital it is much better the read all three volumes. I remember that several years ago a Comrade told me that I have read Feurerbach from second sources and he was right, and later on I decided to read Feuerbach directly from his own sources; I understood him much better. There are hundred of people who have made summaries, reviews and commentaries on Marx’s Capital and they all they their own weakness. For second sources I prefer to read all the articles written by the WSM

[ALB]

colinskelly wrote:

PS. anymore background on R.R. La Monte?  I have had a brief search and come up with some interesting-looking book titles but not much general information.

I remember reading a book of his on socialism and was going to check if it was in the Party library, but I see it can be read in full on the internet here along with some of his other writings.All I know is that he was a prominent leftwing member of the (reformist) Socialist Party of America and an editor of the International Socialist Review (we’ve got copies of this in our Library but not in the lending section).What I didn’t know till I read his article on War on the internet was that he adopted a pro-War position on WWI denouncing Marxism and international socialism and taking up an anti-German and American patriot position, as can be seen from this excerpt:

Quote:

It would hardly appear necessary to say that in my humble judgment the proper course for such American Socialists as are still affiliated with the Socialist party is to get out of it as quickly as may be and give their whole-hearted support to the Government of these United States in its splendid fight to “make the world safe for democracy.” For myself I am proud to say I have not paid one cent of dues to the Socialist Party since the German Socialists voted for the war budget on August 4th, 1914; I voted for Woodrow Wilson for President in the election of 1916; I resigned from the Union Against Militarism when it began to attempt to hamper our government by a peace agitation after we had broken off diplomatic relations with the Kaiser’s government; promptly on its organization I enlisted as a private soldier in the Connecticut Home Guard, the only military organization in which my age permitted me to enlist, and I am now serving as a sergeant in the Home Guard, doing my part to protect my neighbors from the violence of well-meaning if feeble-minded pacifists, and releasing the regular militia for service against the enemy that “our” Party has been so zealously aiding. I further confess that I have so far given way to what this magazine stigmatizes as “vulgar patriotism” as to buy a Liberty Bond; and should there be further loan issues I have every intention of being vulgar again.

No wonder that from this point on he disappears from working class history. Deservedly. 

[Author]

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