General GuidelinesPlease write a 6-8 page (c. 1500-2000 words) essay on topic below(choosing option A or B). As you compose your essay, keep in mind that theresources for successful paper writing are in the course readings and in yourown experience, judgment, and imagination—not in any number of sourcesyou might consult, or an over-reliance on seminar (a good paper will oftenbe inspired by what goes on in class, but it never regurgitates notes). Youressay must have a strong introduction and thesis statement, and mustdemonstrate this thesis through the use of relevant textual citation(including, but not necessarily limited to, directly quoted text) and consistentargumentation. When you quote passages from text as evidence, select themcarefully and do not quote more than is needed; also, be sure to interpret foryour reader what you quote—don’t just leave it hanging in your text.Although you must meet the assignment’s requirements on use of coursereadings, do not treat the topic you choose as a list of questions that youmust answer, but as a framework for thinking; your paper must be guided bycriteria internal to it—that is, by its own argument—and not by an off-stagetopic. One way to make your argument explicit is to pose it against anotherargument (whether real or hypothetical), and to sharpen the terms of youropposition by fairly and clearly presenting reasons for that (mistaken)argument. Before you begin to write you should assemble pieces of yourown argument and the evidence for them; when you begin to write youshould use your thesis to guide all your work. Try not to introduce yourpaper with clichés, and as you write, think about what is necessary toadvance your argument and what is peripheral to it—act accordingly! Youmust do your own work. Course readings must be cited by author name andpage number; if you consult any outside materials (including web pages)which, again, there is no need to consult, you must include a bibliography,even if those materials are not directly cited in your paper. Draw yourevidence and conclusions from a close reading of the texts—and remember,when you compare texts, any comparison has to find something in commonto compare!I will be available for consultation; please don’t hesitate to come tome with ideas, questions, problems, etc. Papers are due in the Departmentoffice by 4:00 p.m. on Friday, October 22 (and if you can email a draft to meby noon on Monday, October 11 I’ll do my best to give you quick feedback).Late papers will be accepted but penalized. Please give your essay anappropriate title and number and staple your pages.

The AssignmentWhat follows (A and B, next page) are two “entry point” Marx passages fora discussion of the first chapters of Capital. Both are about value, one moreabout a critique of value as form and the other more about a critique of valueas process.Please write a paper on one (and one only) of the followingpassages/quotations (A or B), and use your understanding of it, and of itsimplications, to evaluate the first chapters of Roberts’s Marx’s Inferno. (I’vefollowed the passages with questions—not for you to answer in your paper,but simply as stimulants to thinking about the passages and how to explicatethem). The idea here is for you to use your analysis to interpret Marx in away that either supports Roberts’s reading of Capital in terms of freedom—specifically, freedom as non-domination—or that takes issue with someaspect of his distinctly political orientation. Some questions you mightconsider (again, these are really just to get you thinking): On the basis ofyour understanding of your passage and what it opens up, is Roberts right tomake freedom central (rather than equality, justice, correct science, or otheralternatives)? Does Roberts’s argument about the socialist context and theneed to move on from “moral economy” fit your analysis? Is Roberts right toinsist that commodity fetishism is not primarily about how or what we knowor see, but more about domination? Is Roberts right to make so much of thearbitrariness or “anarchy” of the market? Is Roberts’s way of construingexploitation and force (much of this last goes beyond ch. 7 into Part II) trueto the perspective on the text that you glean from your entry point? Inapproaching Roberts, the idea is to think critically about his text through thelens of your analysis of the Marx, or to use Roberts’s text explicitly as a lensthrough which to read your Marx passage, or both. You can make Robertscentral or more peripheral to your analysis—it’s up to you—but he must getmore than passing treatment. And of course if you want to step back andquestion/challenge Marx’s work (and/or Roberts) from your own perspectivethat too is an option for approaching your passage/quotation.

A.“Political economy has indeed analyzed value and its magnitude, howeverincompletely, and has uncovered the content concealed within these forms.But it has never once asked the question why this content has assumed thatparticular form, that is to say, why labour is expressed in value…” Marx,Capital, vol. 1, pp. 173-174.What does is Marx saying here? Some questions to think about: What doesMarx mean by “political economy”? Is he not himself doing politicaleconomy when he, for example, posits his own labor theory of value in thissame chapter? When does a political-economic analysis lapse into whatMarx calls fetishism, or can it even avoid doing so? Does the distinctivenessof Marx’s analysis of the “dual character of the labour embodied incommodities” figure in here? Can Marx really tell us “why this content”(presumably labor) has assumed “that particular form” (presumably the formof value)? What would it mean for labor not to be expressed in value? DoesMarx offer some clues as to either what it might have meant in the past orwhat it might mean in the future? Can you relate this moment of the textback to the beginning analysis of the commodity form, and forward tomoments of chs. 2-7 (broadly exchange, money, capital, labor power and thelabor process)?

B. Chapter 3 is called “Money, or the Circulation of Commodities,” andchapter 4 begins as follows: “The circulation of commodities is the startingpoint of capital.” “Value,” it seems, “…becomes value in process, money inprocess, and, as such, capital” (Marx, Capital, vol. 1, pp. 188-244, 246, 256).These chapters are full of talk of “metamorphosis” and “transformation.”They take the relatively static picture of the first two chapters, andsupplement or replace it with a dynamic. How does Marx think this works,and how does this dynamic link together what you’ve read so far into acoherent whole? Think about the dynamic, and its relationship to money,(other) commodities, and, if you can, the brief introductions of crisis on pp.209 and 236. What is the difference between the money in C-M-C and themoney in M-C-M’, and what does it mean that “value…has acquired theoccult ability to add value to itself” (p. 255)? Can you relate this moment inthe text both backward, through moments in the discussion of money (e.g.metamorphosis of commodities pp. 198-209) and simple exchange andbeyond (chs. 1 and 2), and forward, to moments of chapters 5 through 7(contradictions, sale and purchase of labor-power, and the labor process)?