The Magic Bookstore

Fast. No publisher!

That Boudin find is something. I spent much of life and almost all my savings in bookstores like this. Then most it got put on the internet, and it turns out that I did not have to pay for the extra square footage to put all these books in my home.

One of my favorite books that turns up in collections from old CP bookstores and collections is William J Blake’s Elements of Marxian Economic Theory and Its Criticism, also published as An American Looks at Karl Marx. Blake was quite a character, and eventually married Christina Stead who for some remains of the greatest though still unappreciated novelists of the 20th century.

At any rate, Boudin’s critique of Bohm-Bawerk has held up remarkably well. Plus there is this:

“It is the peculiar nature of such means of production that their usefulness or uselessness cannot be definitely ascertained until fully completed and operated for some time. The result is that immense masses of such ‘means of production’ are constantly produced without any actual necessity therefor, and often for purely speculative purposes. While these ‘means of production’ are being produced, and it takes years to complete them, the wheels of capitalistic production revolve merrily, without hitch or stop, notwithstanding the fact that the work may be absolutely useless in whole or part, and that the value supposed to be created in their production, or at least a large part thereof, will never be realized. The wiseacres of capitalism, like Tugan Baranowsky, listen to the siren song of these merrily revolving wheels, and draw in their imagination alluring pictures of the endlessness of capitalism wound around an endless chain of ‘means of production.’ Of course there is bound to come a rude awakening. The production of these particular ‘means of production’ turns out to be the merest waste.” (p.245)
And so Boudin argues:
“But the undertaking has to be finished some day, and the harvest must at last be gathered in. Then it is discovered that the undertaking was a failure. The railroads, it turns out, were not necessary where they were built, for they have nothing to carry when they are ready for business. The undertaking goes into liquidation. The vast amounts of capital, the glorious piles or stretches of means of production, now represent so much waste, for capital which does not pay dividends is not capital according to capitalistic laws. Then the crisis is on–things go to smash all around. The crisis is not limited ot those interested in the particular undertaking. First, because the ramifications of modern capitalistic undertakings are so extensive and complicated, particularly by reason of our credit system, that no serious break can occur anywhere but the whole system will crumble to its foundations.
“Secondly, because the large number of men employed in the producing of the now defunct ‘means of production’ are now thrown out of employment, thereby weighing heavily on the labor market and emanding charity from their masters. And thirdly, because the apparent prosperity incident to the continued production of the large ‘means of production’ has caused a general rush of production to an unwarranted extent, even in spheres which are not in any way directly connected with the particular undertaking which brought about the prosperity…………and the crisis.” (p.248)
Also: “…after a crisis there is a superabundance of capital which is seeking employment. As the ordinary fields of occupation, particularly at home, are well filled, the capitalists look for some new fields wherein their capital could be profitably employed. Knowing that it would be useless to manfacture some new consumption goods, or some machine for the purpose of manufacturing such goods, for the reason that the capacity of our society for consumption is limited, they start out to create new demands by creating new civilization. Civilization has proved a good customer, and capitalists turn to it instinctively whenever hard pressed. So the iron threads of civilization begin spinning at home and abroad, but mostly abroad, the missionary spirit of capitalism being well known. This creates a demand for vast amounts of capital and labor. Things begin to hum,–the prospects are bright. The markets are relieved of surplus product, and trade has revived. An era of prosperity has set in. The more crazy the ‘civilizing’ undertaking, particularly the longer it takes to finish it, and obtain results, the greater the prosperity and the longer it lasts.” (p.248)

Also grab anything written by the British Marxist scientists–Haldane, Bernal, Levy, Hodgben (more a fellow traveler), Needham. Their work in the 30s and 40s was daring and interesting. Maurice Dobb’s work in the 30’s and 40s remains valuable. John Stratchey had some interesting formulations as did Louis Fraina/Corey in the US. Some of Emile Burns’ pamphlets are interesting as are some of Eaton’s ideas about Keynes. It’s great to see that Korsch will soon be republished. A strange, sprawling book is TA Jackson on dialectics. Politzer’s work is dogmatic but I loved the intro he wrote to a collection on the French Revolution; he was later killed by the Nazis. There is the International Council Correspondence that became Living Marxism, edited by Paul Mattick too.

Was sure that you had all the Hook. Just thought you would get a kick to find another first edition of Towards an Understanding. It’s been 30 years since I read that Hook book. I remember thinking that he made unnecessary concessions to marginal utility theory. Hook had studied with Korsch, right? And then also interpreted Marx in light of American pragmatism and this book has both influences. I know that I should reread it. I have the original, so I haven’t read your intro.

I think everything I have to say about Hook has been said in all I’ve published on him and I eventually tired of hearing my own voice on the subject, so I’ll hold back from going on about him, but I’m glad you know the book. It definitely repays the reading. Somewhere in Historical Materialism a long while back I had an essay that fits with your comment entitled something like “Why Wouldn’t Sidney Hook Let His Best Book be Republished?”

I am so deep in the history of sexuality nowadays that I’d get lost trying to do much with that, but the Michigan edition of Young Sidney Hook (which discusses Korsch and Hook a tiny bit) has an appendix on pragmatism that is probably my clearest statement on that subject. I’d just make a hash of it here.

Yes, I was coy about that. But to readers of CT calibre it will not be that hard to infer, with Google and the neighborhood in mind.

Trés bien, Phillipe.

@12 on sexuality I remember knowing a splendid guy Peter Drucker many years ago and he wrote some very interesting and important pieces on the public health aspects of the AIDS crisis that I think appeared in a journal with which you have been associated Against the Current. I think Drucker has a new book out in Brill Historical Materialism thesis. Is your research related?

Drucker’s book is excellent. His is a synthesis of grand sweep and well worth people reading if they want a political economy of sexuality. My research is much more archival and typified by an article I published in 2013 in the journal Labor edited by Leon Fink. I should say I haven’t been with Against the Current in many years, but mad props for the obscure factoid.

This, RNB, is exactly what my book to come will try to address.

Good chatting. I’m now puttering off to bed to read, as per my normal routine, without which I’d get nothing done in the way of reading. Dubofsky and Tine’s biography of John L. Lewis for tonight. Oh, yeah. (Only a labor historian would find this the right thing to be doing in bed. And I say that as a historian of sexuality.)

Beautiful short piece. Love these kinds of bookstores (usually the 2nd hand ones tend to be better, why is that? No need for facades or any pretensions at finding the next new and hot book?) and the more labyrinthine the better.

Wow what a wealth of knowledge on old labour history! I can’t contribute anything on that theme, but just wanted to comment – across the two latest threads so to speak – re RNB’s comment on Christina Stead @4.

Christina Stead was Australian, as you probably know, and ‘The Man who Loved Children’ was based on her Australian childhood, though ostensibly set in America. She was little recognised here (oz) for many years, and I’d never heard of her when I came across that book in my early twenties. It didn’t quite ‘take the top of my head off and rearrange my brain’ to paraphrase Jo Walton, but it made me see the world differently – or perhaps, realise that there were people who saw worlds that were like mine, yet somehow completely different – “all changed” to quote Ursula Le Guin (the one who did take the top off my head off etc).

Anyway this is getting a bit too OT here, but Stead is so interesting – I haven’t really wanted to read that book again – it has a slightly nightmarish quality, as it seems her life did according to the biography by Hazel Rowley – but fascinating.

Philippe 05.11.16 at 5:16 pm @ 15 —
I thought St Marx Books moved to East 3d Street. Sort of.

Yes, it did move to E 3rd where it held out for a while but now its permanently closed. It happened quickly. I received an email in March informing me of the closing and instructing me to pick up my books within 3 days.

Of the two 19 year olds in my living room, one immediately said “Miners union and CIO leader”. The other didn’t know. Regrettably, the one who didn’t know is the one who is related to me. Phelps — I’ve failed as a parent!

Philippe 05.11.16 at 10:10 pm @ 28 — That’s very sad. There seems to be nothing to which the gentrification blitzkrieg is not laying waste. It will leave a desert when it finally collapses.

Well, they’re friends through me. Still, she could rattle off the names of numerous Marxist theorists, and knows more than any 19 year old should about Edwin Witte and the origins of social security. And they’ve both read your latest book.

And so I take it, harry b, that it does not follow from your philosophy of parenting that you should have protected your children from such dangerous books.

No — my and Swift’s theory is surprisingly forgiving about shaping children’s values (surprising to us, that is). My own kid read Cohen’s book on Marx’s theory of history when she was 16. But not under my influence!