Saturday 16 May 2015

Translations

In Iron Council (London, 2004), China Mieville disguises Marxist terminology:

"'You can kiss good-bye to philosophizing. We ain't interested in the toil concept of worth, or graphs of the swag-slump tendency and whatnot. With Double-R it's just more and more notions.'" (p. 80)

- translates as:

"You can kiss good-bye to theorizing. We ain't interested in the labor theory of value, or graphs of the boom-slump cycle and whatnot. With [an agitational newspaper] it's just more and more ideas."

Mieville also quotes: "'...don't mourn organise...'" (p. 93), although the reader might not recognize this phrase as a quotation.

Later, he evokes whether deliberately or not, a comic book character: "...Remade to swamp things, amphibian." (p. 140)

Lastly, for now, one of Mieville's many bizarre creations, the Weavers (p. 194), reminds me of similar creatures in Mike Carey's Lucifer.

1 comment:

  1. Kaor, Paul!

    In my opinion, one of the greatest weaknesses of Marxist economcis is the labour theory of value. Rather, I believe the Austrian school is correct: the value of labor, or anything else, is how much anyone is willing to pay for hiring or buying that labor or object. And that value will rise or fall according to many factors over time. Far too brief, I know!

    Sean

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