The following is from a feature article by Hiroshi Furuta and Yutaka Asaka in WiLL, a monthly magazine now on sale, titled "Slashing 'Das Kapital' of the Anthropocene!
The following is a unique feature of a conversation between Hiroshi Furuta and Yutaka Asaka in the monthly magazine WiLL.
It is a must-read not only for the Japanese people but for people all over the world.
Saito's Vicious "Fake
Asaka
They hate Capitalism, after all.
I was also a leftist, so I understand the conflict of whether capitalists who only pursue profit are correct or not.
However, it is not the case that capitalists in reality only seek profit.
Take Konosuke Matsushita, for example.
At the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake, he cut the uncollected accounts receivable of his business partners in Tokyo in half and kept the prices of goods delivered the same as before the disaster.
While other suppliers raised their prices due to shortages, he did not follow suit.
What he did was completely different from the behavior of capitalists, as Marx thought.
As we can see from the development of Matsushita Electric, companies can run without the profit-first policy.
The short-sighted view that "capitalists are evil people who exploit people" is a "big-headed" theory that ignores reality.
But the leftists don't realize this, and they think that their conscience as scholars cannot be satisfied unless they make Capitalism the bad guy.
Furuta
At least, Mr. Saito does not have a conscience as a scholar.
When I read "'Das Kapital' of the Anthropocene," I found a very vicious "fake."
On page 142, to realize de-growth communism, he uses Marx as an example.
[In addition, Marx envisioned a society in which people would manage the means of production and the earth as a "common," as communism.]
Next, a passage from the end of the first volume of Capital is quoted.
[This negation of negation does not reconstruct the private ownership of producers but creates private ownership based on the achievements of the capitalist age. In other words, it creates personal ownership based on cooperation and the common possession of the means of production produced by the earth and labor.
Then he concludes: "We will reclaim the earth and the means of production as 'common'!"
Asaka
What Marx was trying to reclaim was not only the means of production controlled by the capitalists.
He wanted to reclaim the means of production controlled by the capitalists and the earth itself.
Furuta
I was really curious about the words "common" and "earth," so I went to the university library to look up Capitalism's original.
I found it in the complete works of Marx and Engels, published in Hamburg in 1872 and reprinted in 1987.
I've never done German, but I read it from the beginning using the Chinese reading method and found the part quoted by Saito.
Asaka
You're right; I've never read the original.
How was it?
Furuta
First of all, the word "Erde," which Mr. Saito translates as "earth," should be read as "land.
It is true that "Erde" also means "earth.
But since "Capitalism" devotes a lot of space to land rent, it must be read as "land" to make sense.
Furthermore, "Gemeineigenthum," which means public goods, is replaced by "common" arbitrarily by Mr. Saito.
Asaka
What a surprise!
Marx did not say "occupy the earth as a common," did he?
Furuta
No, he did not!
It is a malicious reinterpretation that violates a scholar's conscience, and if he were in my laboratory, I would excommunicate him immediately.
If such a vicious method spreads, humanities studies will come to an end.
He is only 34 years old, but I'll tell you clearly that he is "vicious."
In the first place, the quoted part is a prominent part of the materialistic historical view that the socialist revolution will happen anyway, which is itself a fake.
Mr. Saito deliberately gave a different translation to the fake, thus covering up the fake.
And the source doesn't mention the year of publication of "Capitalism" that Mr. Saito quoted, which is also not suitable for a researcher.
Incidentally, the Otsuki Shoten edition of "Capitalism" (Vol. 1, No. 2, 1972 edition/the first edition in 1968), supervised and translated by Hyoue Ouchi, was faithful to the original.
"In other words, it creates personal ownership based on cooperation, sharing of land, and sharing of the means of production produced by labor itself." (p. 995)
This article continues.
