Judy,
I highlighted an "it" in your message. I'm unsure as to what it refers to.
Semiosis? The relationship presupposed in marx's analysis of the commodity
form or some other analysis? Is this equation possible?
I'd still really like to know if anyone is aware of any studies concerning
children's acquisition/internalization of property concepts, including the
money form. It's really something we "understand" and use way before we
have any concept of what it is (if we ever in fact get a concept of what it
is) -- at all levels: what it means, how it works, what its equivalences
are, etc -- -- my kids couldn't wait until they were old enough to get a
card that they could use at the money machine, for example. Thinking of
Dot's comments still, I don't think the money concept/ideal could in any
way said to be appropriated through increasing mastery (even most senior HS
students consider Economics a real bore) but it certainly is internalized
at an early age. Most people learn just what they need about money. And the
actions of those who do "master" the money form are the most subordinate to
the alienated processes of the production of value itself, or value IS the
subject, as Peter White might say. Which doesn't mean at all that such a
mastery would be uncomfortable for them. Their "mastery" would however,
reproduce the system itself which as a whole is not comfortable for most of
the people in the world or even the planet itself..
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Judith Diamondstone <diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: Leontiev
> I think there's a definitional problem here, in assertions about Marxism
> and social practices - semiosis is presupposed to be as Marx said, only
> ideality (word?) -- whereas in my understanding of semiotics, ***it****
is very
> definitely a material process -- not restricted to purposive behavior but
> affecting purposes, objects, as well as lives. To foreground the means is
> not to delete what remains in the background of immediate attention, as
> contextual data for understanding the processes.
>
> I haven't been following email closely this week, so if I'm out of the
ball
> park, that's my excuse.
>
> Judy
>
> mediated by artifacts," or as "mediated means" (which is a rein dant
phrase,
> >isn't it?), or even as "semiotically organized" does not capture the
> >concrete social organization of activities. IN Marx's and Leontiev's view
> >(at least as expressed in chap. 1) they are abstract since they are
divorced
> >from the concrete social context in which they exist.
>
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