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>Chai-on:
>======
>
>Yes. The slave production system of commodities is not the capitalist but
>a form of primitive accumulation.
>The slave-owners are not the capitalists strictly speaking, but an
>independent commodity producer.
>Slaves do not produce surplus value but surplus products.
Why are the commodities that slaves produce only surplus products that do
not represent value and surplus value as well? A cursory reading of
Blackburn's history of plantation slavery will reveal that means of
production and wage goods were monetized and that slavers (therefore) had
to operate in a calculating and calculated way, as Marx himself described
their behavior. If one argues (as Blackburn does if I remember correctly)
that the internal market on which the generalization of commodity
production depends could not be enlarged as slaves are not paid wages, this
obscures the fact that much of the wage goods that did enter their
reproduction did indeed come via the market--and Blackburn himself provides
evidence of this. And how is a slaver lording it over hundreds of slaves
an independent commodity producer? On the face of it, this is an absurd
claim.
Yours, Rakesh
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