[OPE-L:7805] Re: Re: "Hic Rhodus, hic salta!"

From: Fred B. Moseley (fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu)
Date: Sat Oct 12 2002 - 09:00:58 EDT


On Thu, 10 Oct 2002, gerald_a_levy wrote:

> Re Fred's [7779]:
> 
> > If there is no difficulty in the sale of commodities, then the actual
> > total surplus-value determined after sale is equal to the total
> > surplus-value determined in production, right?  In other words, in this
> > case, the total surplus-value determined in production is the actual total
> > surplus-value, and not a hypothetical total surplus-value proportional to
> > the labor-time embodied in surplus goods, as in Riccardo's interpretation.
> > I argue that Marx assumed throughout Volume 1 (and indeed generally
> > throughout the three volumes) that there is no difficulty in the sale of
> > commodities, so that the actual total surplus-value determined after sale
> > is equal to the total surplus-value determined in production.
> 
> Well, yes, one can make the *assumption* that the entire commodity
> product is sold in which case the magnitude of surplus-value determined in
> production will equal the magnitude of the surplus-value that is
> actualized.  Yet, so long as this is an assumption rather than a result, the
> magnitude of *actual*  surplus-value can not be taken to be the same as
> the magnitude that emerges from production.   But, I thought it was your
> claim that the given surplus-value was the actual (vs. 'hypothetical')
> magnitude  of s.  Both claims to me do not appear to be logically consistent
> _unless_ this assumption is shown to be a result.  Yet, nowhere in _Capital_
> that I know of has this emerged as a result rather than a presupposition.
> 
> I guess that returns us to the question (that I asked you a number of years
> ago): what is the meaning of "givens" in Marx's theory?   If we take the
> magnitude of s to be given by assumption we must show later in our analysis
> (at a more concrete level of abstraction -- possibly as part of a
> "post-Capital" analysis) that either what was presupposed has not been
> demonstrated or that what was presupposed must be modified.


Jerry, the magnitude of s that is taken as given in Volume 3 has already
been determined in Volume 1.  It does not have to be determined later; it
has already been determined, by the quantity of surplus labor.  Do you see
what I mean?

Comradely,
Fred


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