From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Thu Nov 30 2006 - 08:53:21 EST
--- Ian Wright <wrighti@ACM.ORG> wrote: > Hi Ajit > > I'm looking forward to your book. _____________ AS: > > Now, follow Marx's logic to the > > extreme. Allow technical change to continuously > > displace labor to the extent that the live labor's > > role in the production process becomes negligible. Ian: > OK. AS: > > At this limiting case, if you apply Marx's > exercise then > > either you have to argue that the value of all the > > commodities must tend to zero and the rate of > surplus > > value must tend to infinity; Ian: > As the direct labour coefficients approach the zero > vector the value > vector of all commodities will also tend to the zero > vector. Hence > both the value of the surplus (S) tends to zero, and > the value of > variable capital (V) tends to zero. The rate of > surplus-value is S/V. > But you cannot immediately conclude, as both > numerator and denominator > tend to zero, their ratio tends to infinity. Limits > don't work like > this. So I echo Paul's warning. > > From the point of view of economic definition, it > seems to me that, > without labour, the rate of surplus-value must be > undefined. __________________ Ian, the point I'm making has very little to do with differential calculus. Again the point is simple. Imagine a large capitalist economy which produces a huge amount of surplus however employs just a few thousand workers (since you guys are not ready to accept zero worker situation). Now, if you apply Marx's calculation here, then the labor-values of commodities would be close to zero and if wages are what is necessary to reproduce the labor-power, then the rate of profits would be quite high, and this high rate of profits (within Marx's calculations) could only be explained by a very high rate of surplus value. That's why I said in the limiting case the rate of surplus value will tend to infiniti. I know that 0/0 is mathematically undefined, and if you put value = 0, then surplus value will also be 0. ______________________ Ian: > I like your thought experiment. But Introducing the > concept of taking > limits I think confuses the issue. You state your > point more clearly > when you say: AS: > > That is why for Marx when surplus labor in the > whole economy tends > > to zero, the rate of profits must also tend to > zero. > > But, my argument is that, it is simply not true. > The > > physical surplus in the whole economy may not tend > to > > zero, and thus you can have an healthy positive > rate > > of profits even when the values and surplus value > tend > > to zero. In other words, the secret of surplus > does > > not reside in surplus labor. Ian: > You ask us to imagine the logical possibility of an > economy without > labour that produces a surplus. It also has prices. > And a capitalist > class enjoying profits. Hence, profits cannot be a > value form of > surplus labour. This is the argument in a nutshell, > no? > > I think your thought experiment takes us too far > from economic reality > to tell us anything crucial. First, there's no > necessity for the > value-form unless there is a necessity to allocate > social labour in > response to changes in technique and changes in > consumption in a > distributed and unplanned manner. Without human > labour (or something > like it with its causal powers) then no prices and > hence no profits. ___________________________ This is where you go wrong. An economy can be divided into various sectors simply for technical reasons and also private property is not contingent upon wage-labor or labor of any kind. You can have private property with sectoral division of the economy, where market would exist with supply and demand for commodities and competition among the producers. Nothing of the market mechanics is contingent on the existence of wage-labor. That's why the paradigmatic explanation of the market in the general equilibrium framework, assumes no wage labor or even production. You just begin with given endowments (that is the law of private property). _______________________________ > Second, I don't think your example is a state that > can conceivably be > attained under capitalism. Capitalists compete with > each other. To do > that they need to employ the creative power of > labour. Any capital > that reduced labour to zero will eventually have its > constant capital > rendered obsolete. So the "end state" of fully > realised > labour-displacing technical change cannot be on any > feasible > trajectory of capitalist dynamics. ________________________ This makes no sense to me. Capitalists are in business to make profits (M-M'), if a capitalist finds that s/he can increase her/his profit by introducing a technique that displaces labor, then why wouln't s/he do it? As a matter of fact Marx's argument is that actually the dynamics of capitalism is such that this will keep happening--that's why my limiting case of this dynamics is something Marxists cannot close their eyes to. Again, I do not understand why constant capita (by which I understand you mean machines and raw materials) will be rendered obsolete if there is no wage-labor in the system? __________________________ > > But putting the unreality aside for the sake of > logical possibilities > I think your example does highlight an issue: In > static models, of the > Sraffian/Leontief kind, it's simply not possible to > theorise the > production of new surplus-value, i.e. labour-power > as the cause of > surplus-value. At your "end state" we have > capitalists enjoying a > physical surplus, who continue to use money despite > the unchanging > nature of production, having quite forgotten who it > was that built up > all that constant capital that outputs a physical > surplus. I'd say > there's a physical surplus with a vestigial > value-form. But no > production of surplus-value. _________________ The point is: can there be surplus production without surplus labor? You seem to say, yes. And that's what is my point. It becomes important because in the history of political economy Marx is the first major political economists who explicitly argues for a causal relationship of surplus with (surplus)labor. This is nothing but metaphysical. A lot of Marxist intellectual energy has been stuck in the mud for a long time simply because it confuses a metaphysical notion with a scientific one. And Sraffa shows you a way out of the mud. Cheers, ajit sinha ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
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