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Hello !
I would like to receive the debate on Marx/Keynes/Ricardo on money. Thanks for help !
All the best. Catherine Samary
Outline on Political Economy a écrit:
> OPE-L Digest 86
>
> Topics covered in this issue include:
>
> 1) Re: Re: Marx and Keynes and Riccardo on money
> by "Fred B. Moseley" <fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu>
> 2) Re: Re: Re: Marx and Keynes and Riccardo on money
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 3) Re: Re: Re: Marx and Hegel
> by Paul Zarembka <zarembka@acsu.buffalo.edu>
> 4) Re: Re: Re: (5 end) Partial Reply toFreds on Althusser, concluding with CLASS STRUGGLE
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 5) Re: distribution of income
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 6) globalization
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 7) Re: Re: Re: Rx Economics/Keynes
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 8) Re: re:starting points
> by "Fred B. Moseley" <fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu>
> 9) starting point and capital
> by Asfilho@aol.com
> 10) Re: starting point and capital
> by Gil Skillman <gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu>
> 11) Re: Re: Re: Re: (5 end) Partial Reply toFred's on Althusser, concluding with CLASS STRUGGLE
> by "Claus Germer" <cmgermer@sociais.ufpr.br>
> 12) Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (5 end) Partial Reply toFreds on Althusser, concluding with CLASS STRUGGLE
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 13) Re: Re: starting point and capital
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 14) Re: money fetishism
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 15) Re: Re: re:starting points
> by nicola taylor <nmtaylor@carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
> 16) starting point and capital
> by Asfilho@aol.com
> 17) Re: Re: Re: re:starting points
> by "Andrew Brown" <A.N.Brown@uel.ac.uk>
> 18) Re: Re: Re: re:starting points
> by "Andrew Brown" <A.N.Brown@uel.ac.uk>
> 19) Re: starting point and capital
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 20) Re: starting point and capital
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 21) Re: starting point and capital
> by Gil Skillman <gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu>
> 22) Re: Re: Re: starting point and capital
> by Gil Skillman <gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu>
> 23) Re: starting point and capital
> by "C. J. Arthur" <cjarthur@pavilion.co.uk>
> 24) Re: starting point and capital
> by "Fred B. Moseley" <fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu>
> 25) Re: Re: Re: Re: re:starting points
> by "Fred B. Moseley" <fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu>
> 26) starting point and capital
> by Asfilho@aol.com
> 27) starting point and capital
> by Asfilho@aol.com
> 28) Re: Re: starting point and capital
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 29) Re: Re: Re: Re: starting point and capital
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 30) Zimbabwe Petition
> by nicola taylor <nmtaylor@carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
> 31) RE: Zimbabwe Petition
> by P.J.Wells@open.ac.uk
> 32) Re: RE: Zimbabwe Petition
> by "clyder" <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
> 33) Re: re:starting points
> by "Andrew Brown" <A.N.Brown@uel.ac.uk>
> 34) Re: Re: Marx and Hegel
> by jlevy@sescva.esc.edu (JERRY LEVY)
> 35) Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: starting point and capital
> by jlevy@sescva.esc.edu (JERRY LEVY)
> 36) Determination of Value Transferred
> by "Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com>
> 37) Need 1
> by "Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com>
> 38) Need 2
> by "Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com>
> 39) Need 3
> by "Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com>
> 40) Re: RE: Zimbabwe Petition
> by nicola taylor <nmtaylor@carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
> 41) Re: Re: RE: Zimbabwe Petition
> by nicola taylor <nmtaylor@carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
> 42) Need 1 and Luxemburg's *Accumulation of Capital*
> by Paul Zarembka <zarembka@acsu.buffalo.edu>
> 43) Re: Re: Re: Rx Economics/Keynes
> by jlevy@sescva.esc.edu (JERRY LEVY)
> 44) Re: Need 1 and Luxemburg's *Accumulation of Capital*
> by riccardo bellofiore <bellofio@cisi.unito.it>
> 45) Re: Re: Need 1 and Luxemburg's *Accumulation of Capital*
> by Paul Zarembka <zarembka@acsu.buffalo.edu>
> 46) Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: starting point and capital
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 47) Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: starting point and capital
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 48) Re: Re: Re: Need 1 and Luxemburg's *Accumulation of Capital*
> by jlevy@sescva.esc.edu (JERRY LEVY)
> 49) Re: Need 1 and Luxemburg's *Accumulation of Capital*
> by "Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com>
> 50) Re: Re: Need 1 and Luxemburg's *Accumulation of Capital*
> by "Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com>
> 51) Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: starting point and capital
> by jlevy@sescva.esc.edu (JERRY LEVY)
> 52) Re: working class
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 53) Dialectical Contradictions, Positivism?
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> 54) Re: Dialectical Contradictions, Positivism?
> by bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> On Tue, 18 Apr 2000, riccardo bellofiore wrote:
>
> > I wish to thank Fred for his very interesting posts, and his patience in
> > the dialogue with me.
> >
> > Fred, a general point. Probably it's my fault, but your main argument seem
> > to me of this kind:
> >
> > (i) Marx had a *theory* of money
> >
> > (ii) Keynes had not *Marx's* theory of money
> >
> > (iii) hence Keynes had no theory of money
> >
> > I agree with (i) and (ii), but I do not see how (iii) follows from them,
> > and I disagree with (iii).
> >
> > BTW, of course if you go and read Keynes you find, more or less explicitly,
> > a discourse relate d to the nature of money. Briefly, I would say that in
> > the General Theory Keynes links money to uncertainty, and in the Treatise
> > on Money (much more implicitly) he has it as a kind of social accountancy
> > (what, indeed, Schumpeter said in his Das Wesen des Geldes, and Stiglitz &
> > Weiss took up again in some of their papers). These two notions are, IMHO,
> > very helpful.
>
> I am not saying that Keynes had NO theory of money, but rather that Marx
> had a BETTER theory of money - because Marx's theory explains the
> connection between the nature of money and the value of commodities,
> and Keynes' theory does not make this crucial connection.
>
> > BTW2, French authors coming *from* Marxism went a long way in trying to
> > ground a theory of money. Aglietta & Orlean went so far as to enroll the
> > anthropologist René Girard, and Benetti & Cartelier the sociologist Georg
> > Simmel. And they all made a serious confrontation with Marx's deduction of
> > money from the commodity (serious does not mean I agree with them).
>
> I would like to know more about this French debate. Is there anyting in
> English? If so, could you please send me references?
>
> > In arguing your general position you raise many relevant points, which
> > however widen the area of debate. I can be very quick, but I try to put
> > forward the general line of a possible answer, point by point
> >
> > >Marx's circulation of capital does indeed begin with money, and the
> > >purchase of labor-power and means of production is prior to the production
> > >of value and surplus-value. But Marx had already explained in Chapter 1,
> > >what money is, the nature of money, i.e. the social representation of
> > >abstract labor. If money is taken as given prior to value, then what is
> > >money and what is its relation to value? If money is not understood as
> > >objectified labor, then how can surplus-value (or delta M) be explained as
> > >objectified surplus labor?
> >
> > Three answers (two are inconsistent, but let's put them forward nevertheless!)
> >
> > (a) why Keynes should explain surplus value as objectified
> > labour? That's Marx!
>
> I was talking about Riccardo here (two c's!), not Keynes. It seems to me
> that you also want to take money as given, or at least not derive it from
> the value of commodities, as Marx did. If I am wrong about that, please
> explain further. But if I am right, then I would repeat the question
> quoted above to you: If money is not understood as objectified labor,
> then how can surplus-value (or delta M) be explained as objectified
> surplus labor? More on this below.
>
> > (c) now let us take a Marxist, e.g. me: he may argue, well, let us assume
> > that there is bank finance to production, which allows capital a command
> > over labour power in the labour market and in the production process; *if*
> > it is possible to argue that abstract labour is the labour commanded by
> > capital (hence, that living labour before exchange is *already* posited as
> > equal, in as much as it is labour subjected to capital), then (potential)
> > surplus value is *already* surplus labour, *before* exchange, though of
> > course it has to be validated in exchange.
>
> What is the basis of your *IF* assumption of abstract labor?
> How is this assumption grounded or justified?
>
> > What's important in (iii)? The fact that here the abstraction of labour is
> > not based, as in Marx, on the fact that the abstract labour of a commodity
> > is actually represented in the concrete labour of the money commodity.
> > *here* I am not stressing the issue of money commodity yes, money commodity
> > no. I am stressing the idea which is the first pages of Capital that the
> > abstraction of labour is definitely grounded in commodity exchange.
>
> What don't you like about Marx's derivation of abstract labor from
> exchange? What is (are) specific the problem(s) with this derivation
>
> > >I do not understand why "a good theory of finance to production
> > >necessitates that money must NOT be a commodity."
> >
> > I already gave an argument, which is Graziani's argument: if money is a
> > commodity, it must be produced; if production must be financed, how is
> > financed the production of the money commodity?
>
> I am afraid that I still do not understand this argument. Are you saying
> that: money as a commodity cannot exist prior to production because the
> money-commodity itself has to be produced? Therefore, bank money is
> necessary in order begin (or finance) production.
>
> As I understand it, the object of Marx's theory is an existing capitalist
> economy. Money is being invested and more money is being recovered
> through the production and sale of commodities. In this existing
> capitalist economy, there are existing stocks of means of production and
> existing stocks of the money-commodity, that have been produced in
> previous periods. Surely one has to assume a given stock of means of
> production. Otherwise means of production would also be impossible,
> i.e. means of production cannot exist prior to production because these
> means of production themselves have to be produced. Why not also assume
> in similar fashion an existing stock of of the money-commodity that has
> been produced in prior periods and that functions now as the measure of
> value? Your argument seems to deny or ignore prior periods of production.
>
> I also think that we need to more clearly distinguish between the
> different functions of money, especially between money as means of
> circulation and money as measure of value. You seem to be talking about
> money as MEANS OF CIRCULATION, and seem to argue that a commodity-money
> has seldom if ever actually functioned as a means of circulation. But I
> am talking about (and I think Claus also) money as a MEASURE OF VALUE. I
> do not disagree that commodity-money has seldom actually functioned as a
> means of circulation. As Marx himself emphasized, commodity-money is
> usually replaced in circulation by tokens of itself, including the M at
> the beginning of the circulation of capital. However, until recent
> decades, these tokens were convertible into the money-commodity in fixed
> proportions. Through this convertibility, the money-commodity still
> functioned as the measure of value. The key question at the present time
> is whether or not, in the absence of this convertibility, gold (or perhaps
> some group of commodities?) still functions in some way as the ultimate
> measure of value.
>
> > > For a long time
> > >(at least), money was a commodity, no? So if a theory requires that money
> > >NOT be a commodity, isn't there a problem with this theory? If money is
> > >indeed no longer a commodity, but once was, then what we need is a theory
> > >of money which can explain both money as a commodity and money not as a
> > >commodity.
> >
> > No. Here I agree with Schumpeter (and Marx's!) that the anatomy of man is
> > the key of the anatomy of the monkey, and hence that present non-commodity
> > money is the key of what you call the money commodity. If you wish, in
> > another post I may quote a phrase from History of Economic Analysis where
> > Schumpeter says that one thing is the *logical essence* of a social
> > phenomenon, another one is the *historical origin*. Hence the origin of
> > money may have been as a commodity, but its essence may well be being not a
> > commodity. After all, are you sure money commodity ever existed as such.
> > Was not coin etc. (the statual element of the control of money as socially
> > recognized purchasing power) the determining factor? And was Keynes wrong
> > when he said that the rupee was a banknote printed on metal? This, of
> > course, may be a completely different stream of debate.
>
> I am also talking about the *LOGICAL ESSENCE* of money, not the historical
> origins. Before one can explain how money is transformed into more money,
> one must first explain what money is, the nature or essence of money.
> Marx of course did this in Part 1 of Vol. 1. Marx derived the nature of
> money as the social representation of abstract labor. This then is the
> basis for his later explanation of "more money" as the result of surplus
> labor in Chapter 7 and beyond.
>
> Riccardo, if you were writing your book, what would be your Part 1?
> Would it be different from Marx's? If so, how?
> Would it explain the "logical essence" of money? If so, how?
>
> Thanks again for this stimulating discussion and I look forward to its
> continuation.
>
> Comradely,
> Fred
>
> P.S. Riccardo, please send me the references to the Schumpeter passages
> that you mentioned. Thanks.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Riccardo and Fred,
> Just a very quick note on the category mistake. Marx does not say that
> money is a representation or objectification of labor per se but rather
> that the money commodity/non commodity is the incarnation of universal
> human labor. We wouldn't want to erase the nature of Marx's critique of
> classical economics which was simply blind to the nonsense and absurdity
> of everyday life.
>
> If someone asks to see the university and then after being shown the
> biology, history, physics, etc departments still asks to be shown the the
> university, we understand the obvious category mistake. But everday
> capitalist practice is (was) based on just such a category mistake. It's
> like the mining department is actually the university; it is itself the
> incarnation of the university. Money itself represents abstract labor which
> seems to simply be a predicate of various forms of concrete labor. Money
> however is a real hypostatization.
>
> OK I am away from home, and my time is up through this connection.
>
> YOurs, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Nicky, Thanks for the note. I appreciate it! Paul
>
> *************************************************************************
> Paul Zarembka, on OS/2 and supporting RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY at
> ********************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
>
> On Sat, 22 Apr 2000, nicola taylor wrote:
>
> > A response to Paul Z [OPE-L:2880]:
> >
> > >It is academics like you, Paul, who seem
> > most reluctant to delve into philosophical background materials! I find
> > this odd.
> >
> > >>Strange formulation, almost ad hominem: On the one hand, most on this
> > list are academics with varying opinions on Hegel. On the other hand, if
> > I am to be a certain type of "academic", what type would it be, given that
> > we haven't met and are unlikely to know each other's political practice?
> >
> > I'm sorry Paul. My response to you was completely uncalled for. I was
> > annoyed with you for what I took to be your 'dismissive' attitude.
> > comradely,
> > Nicky
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Claus wrote:
> I would add that capitalism had an explicit commodity money until 1971, and
> I think no one can deny that the banking system and finance production
> already existed up to that time, so how can you say that the need to
> finance production requires money not to be a commodity, since money was a
> commodity and finance production was there? In Marx's theory there is no
> inconsistency between the commodity nature of money and the credit system.
> On the contrary, Marx derives the latter from the former in a consistent
> way.
> __________________________
>
> Claus, I think Duncan mentioned this long ago: couldn't it be argued
> that the US Fed for example has adopted a modern version of the gold
> standard, in that it attempts to define the currency's value in
> the form of a tradeable basket of goods and services? That is, isn't
> Greenspan following sensitive commodity prices, such as gold and oil,
> in the determination of US monetary policy. So that even when the Fed
> deviated from this policy in 1998, by letting the price of the 'basket'
> of senstive commodity prices fall, inlcuding gold in dollar terms, it was
> forced to play catch up.
>
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> I thought that more of the rise inequality was accounted for by greater
> international, rather than intra-national, inequality. Shouldn't that be
> our focus as well? I don't the Gottshalk (sp?) even recognizes the
> problem.
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> I would be interested in any comments on this piece, especially
> from Hugo and Paul Z (who was in Washington for the recent protests
> I believe).
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> >From the New Statesman, London, 17 April 2000:
>
> The left is wrong about free trade
>
> Meghnad Desai Monday 17th April 2000
>
> As the opponents of globalisation regroup, this time in Washington,
> Meghnad Desai argues that the World Trade Organisation is good for the poor
>
> The commonplace view on the left is that the World Trade Organisation
> allows multinational capital to dominate the hapless south. To stop free
> trade, according to this view, is to halt, or even reverse, the onward
> march of globalisation. The collapse of the Seattle conference last
> December was therefore a triumph for the forces opposed to capitalism, to
> multinational corporations, to ecological devastation and to greed.
>
> But the truth is that, although the poor outside the Seattle conference
> thought they had won, the rich inside really did win. Seattle will cost the
> developing world many years of lost growth. Highly paid jobs will be
> sheltered for a few more years at the expense of lower-paid workers in the
> developing world. The trade union forces outside the conference were
> defending their well-paid jobs and, as paymasters of the Democratic Party,
> they got their returns. President Clinton sabotaged the talks from the
> inside.
>
> To understand this, we need a dose of history. There was a globalised
> economy between 1870 and 1914 - organised by empires rather than
> independent nation states. There was then a growing and vigorous
> anti-capitalist movement in the north (as it was not then called) including
> the Socialist (Second) International and many nationalist movements on the
> periphery, including the Serbs, whose assassination of Archduke Franz
> Ferdinand started the First World War. This war ended that episode of
> globalisation, not because of revolt from below, but because the powerful
> nations could not agree on the division of benefits from globalisation.
>
> The next 30 years were a nightmare of protectionism, depression, fascism
> and the Gulag. That is why the post-1945 order was built on a commitment to
> promote and expand freer trade. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
> was to be its instrument. In the 1990s, GATT grew into the WTO at the
> behest of the south.
>
> The golden age of Keynesianism was not so golden for the south. There was a
> shortage of capital flows from north to south and foreign aid came attached
> with cold-war strings. Only when Keynesianism broke down, and the oil price
> rise led to stagflation in the north, did developing countries begin to
> find a place in the world economy. Capital began to flow to some - only a
> few - newly industrialising countries.
>
> The Asian tigers were successful in exporting to the rich north. Asia's
> share in world GDP (excluding Japan) was about 10 per cent from 1960-75,
> but rose to 20 per cent by 1999. The US share came down from 35 per cent to
> less than 25 per cent.
>
> In the establishment of the WTO, the developing countries had secured the
> first and only post-1945 global institution in which countries were treated
> equally. Neither the UN (with its veto powers for five permanent Security
> Council members) nor the IMF/World Bank (with votes weighted by shares in
> favour of the rich countries) has that equality. This is why both of the
> giant trading blocs, the US and the EU, have lost cases before the WTO and
> had to comply. The UN, by contrast, has never reprimanded the US. Nor did
> the IMF ever criticise the US for irresponsible fiscal policy during the
> 1980s. The WTO is the only weapon the weak south has ever had against the
> powerful north.
>
> Globalisation has been seen as much more of a threat in the north than it
> has in the south. Complaints about the "end of work", about American jobs
> being stolen by Mexican "wetbacks" as a result of the North American Free
> Trade Agreement (Nafta), or about American wages being decided in Beijing,
> are heard all the time. There are more books on my shelves about
> first-world fears about globalisation than there are about third-world
> development.
>
> But the truth is that the flow of capital (foreign direct investment not
> just short-term portfolio capital) to the south has been greater since the
> late 1980s than at any time since 1914. It is certainly true that not all
> countries benefited from these flows, but then, nor did they receive
> foreign aid in anything like fair or equitable amounts. Capitalism does not
> work as a charity; it is a mode of production. It seeks profits where it
> can, and it happens that, in a number of mature product industries, it is
> more profitable to produce in the south: textiles, shoes, steel and,
> increasingly, cars. This is the fastest way the south can industrialise.
>
> Countries that have not yet received foreign investment, especially those
> in sub-Saharan Africa, will have to integrate into the global order if they
> are not to be left even farther behind. The third world needs capitalism
> because capitalism alone will lead to growth. No other feasible alternative
> has yet been found.
>
> In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a strongly held view on the left that the
> third world would never develop under capitalism because of monopoly
> capital; the only answer was socialism of the Leninist variety. Ever since,
> there has been an anti- capitalist streak in development studies. Now it is
> clear that, far from monopoly capital stifling growth, capital goes
> wherever it will make profits. As Marx said 150 years ago, capital has no
> country.
>
> The world as it is now is unequal. In 1975, the OECD countries had around
> 80 per cent of world GDP. By 2000, that proportion has come down to 70 per
> cent. And this is what the first world fears. For the first time in the
> history of capitalism, the metropolis is worried. This is because capital
> is finding more profitable niches abroad and is prepared to desert the
> industrialised north. These rich countries must now find jobs for their
> unskilled male manual workforce. They have to invest in training and to
> restructure their welfare states. The rich have problems and so they want
> to slow down the pace of trade liberalisation. They want to impose social
> and green clauses to stop poor countries exporting.
>
> The WTO meeting in Seattle was the south's opportunity to register its
> demands. But the exigencies of the US presidential elections and the
> financial needs of Al Gore's campaign were more important for Clinton than
> the needs of the third world. So he sabotaged it. The rich will use any
> excuse to hang on to their privileges - even anti-capitalism.
>
> Lord Desai is a professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
>
> His article is extracted from After Seattle: globalisation and its
> discontents published by Catalyst on 18 April, £5.99. Full details on www.
> catalyst-trust. co.uk
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> There is a really fine essay on Keynes' theory of money in Victoria
> Chick's Macroeconomics after Keynes (The MIT Press, 1983). Chick quite
> honestly and acutely explores the problems in Keynes' theory of money
> while trying to defend and nuance it.
> It seems to me just the kind of essay that Marx would have called attention
> to in order to demonstrate the limits of even the best attempts within
> bourgeois economics to understand money. I don't remember if Martha deals
> with this essay in her essay on Marxian and Keynesian theories of money.
> Has anyone read it? Any thoughts?
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> I also (like Nicky) thank Andy for reminding us of the very interesting
> and important article by Banaji (in the volume edited by Diane Elson
> entitled *Value: The Representation of Labor in Capitalism* (1979)). I
> don't understand a lot about Hegel, but from what I know about Marx,
> Banaji's article seems on the right track as an interpretation of Marx's
> logical method and the influence of Hegel. Especially with regard to the
> STARTING POINT of Marx's theory in Capital.
>
> However, I think that Andy's memory of Banaji's article is not quite
> accurate. Banaji talks about TWO starting points of Marx's theory in
> Capital, not three.
>
> 1. The first starting-point is the COMMODITY, understood as the most
> abstract form of appearance of CAPITAL. Banaji argues very persuasively
> that Marx's commodity in Chapter 1 is definitely NOT a general commodity
> that could also apply to non-capitalist modes of production. Please see
> the subsection "Capital as Presupposition of the Commodity",
> pp. 28-30. (Nicky, please take note). Chris Arthur has also argued a
> similar point in several papers.
>
> It is true, as Andy says, that this abstract commodity has not yet been
> POSITED (i.e. explained) as a product of capital. But capital is
> PRESUPPOSED from the very first sentence of Capital. Marx's theory begins
> with the commodity as the MOST ABSTRACT MOMENT OF THE TOTALITY OF CAPITAL,
> not with a general ahistorical commodity.
>
> 2. Banaji calls the commodity-as-product-of-capital the ANALYTICAL point
> of departure. From this abstract commodity, Marx derived the VALUE of
> commodities (in Section 1 of Chapter 1), which then forms the second
> starting-point, which Banaji calls the SYNTHETIC point of departure of
> Capital (see the section "The Double Structure of the Beginning" on
> pp. 36-40). From value, Marx derived the concepts of money, capital,
> surplus-value, and all the other forms of appearance of capital.
>
> Banaji writes: "the beginning is a movement between two points of
> departure... As the immediate appearance of the total process of
> capital, ... the individual commodity forms the ANALYTIC point of
> departure. From this, however, we do not pass over directly to the
> concept of capital. By analyzing the commodity, drawing out its
> determinations, we arrive at the concept of VALUE as the abstract-reified
> form of social labor. This as the ground of all further conceptual
> determinations (money, capital) forms the SYNTHETIC point of departure of
> Capital... The passage from one point to the other forms the structure
> of the beginning as such." (pp. 39-40; emphasis in the original). Banaji
> argues further that Marx's passage from the commodity to value is similar
> to Hegel's passage from Immediacy to Mediation, or from Being to Essence.
>
> However, contrary to Andy, there is not a third starting-point in
> Banaji. Banaji does not argue that the concept of capital, introduced in
> Chapter 4 of Volume 1, is a third starting-point. Instead, the concept of
> capital is derived as part of the "synthetic development" from the
> starting-point of value (through the concept of money).
>
> Banaji again: "Through our analysis of the simple commodity we arrive at
> the concept of value and thus at a basis for defining,
> dialectico-logically, the concept of capital." (p. 38) This is the
> "return to the ground" of capital. But the logic returns to the ground,
> it does not start with the ground.
>
> On the other hand, I agree with Nicky (in 2859) that, in Marx's theory,
> "labor confronts capital as a subject" which is "outside the reach of
> capital" and that this may indeed be a "brilliant inversion of Hegel's
> ontology." As Nicky puts it: "The logic of capital does NOT in
> actuality reflect a SELF-DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT towards
> unity." (emphasis added) In other words (as I understand this), capital
> is not sufficient unto itself. The essence of capital - dM - cannot be
> explained solely on the basis of capital itself (even though it appears
> that way to bourgeois economists). The explanation of dM requires
> something outside of capital, the opposite of capital: wage-labor. A
> necessary condition of the existence of capital is the external existence
> of labor.
>
> However, this does not mean that "the real starting point" of Marx's
> theory is the fully developed capital-form in Chapter 4. What does
> STARTING-POINT mean in this context? In Capital, capital and the
> confrontation between capital and labor are introduced in Part 2. But
> there is a very important prior logical (not historical) development in
> Part 1, in which the concept of capital is itself derived. In what sense
> is Part 1 not the logical starting point of Marx's theory?
>
> Nicky, Enrique Dussel (an Argentinian living in Mexico, who I think is one
> of the most interesting Marxian philosophers in the world today) makes an
> argument similar to yours - both that labor confronts capital as a subject
> outside of capital (and also that this is an inversion of Hegel, based on
> Schelling according to Dussel) and that this confrontation between capital
> and labor is the real starting-point of Capital. Dussel presented a paper
> on this subject at the 1997 IWGVT mini-conference, which I think is still
> on the IWGVT website. I agree with the first point - labor as subject
> outside of capital as the source of dM - but disagree with the second
> point - that the confrontation between capital and labor is the real
> starting-point of Capital. Again, what does "starting-point" mean
> here? Does it mean that Part 1 is in some sense unnecessary? Or a false
> starting-point?
>
> I look forward very much to the continuation of this very interesting
> discussion.
>
> Comradely,
> Fred
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Two comments on the very interesting exchange:
>
> (1) I do not understand Banaji's argument that there is a double
> starting-point in Capital. Chris Arthur, Tony Smith, Reuten & Williams and
> others have argued forcefully that systematic dialectics can reconstruct the
> main categories of Marx's analysis from a *single* starting point which, as I
> understand it, is the commodity *as the product of capital*.
>
> If this is true, I simply *do not see how* it would make sense to argue that
> Capital somehow needs, or has, a *double* starting point. (By starting point
> I mean the category with which one starts a systematic reconstruction of the
> capitalist mode of production.) What exactly does one gain by positing a
> double starting point? And what is the difference between Banaji's view of
> the beginning and the systematic dialectic analyses I have mentioned above?
>
> (2) Fred says that 'The essence of capital - dM - cannot be explained solely
> on the basis of capital itself … The explanation of dM requires something
> outside of capital, the opposite of capital: wage-labor. A necessary
> condition of the existence of capital is the external existence of labor.'
>
> I do not agree with this because - as I understand it - capital is a social
> relation which is defined by (and includes) the separation of the workers
> from the means of production, wage labour, and generalised commodity
> production for profit *simultaneously*. If I am right, wage labour is not
> *outside* of capital, or *external* to capital - it *is* capital, and capital
> cannot be conceived, posited or defined without wage labour.
>
> Fred also tells us that Dussel argues that 'labor confronts capital as a
> subject outside of capital' - I am, again, unclear about this: how can wage
> labour be thought of as something that exists outside of capital, when wage
> labour as the *social form of labour* arises, in theory and in history, out
> of the primitive accumulation of *capital*?
>
> My argument obviously implies that capital, wage labour, surplus value and
> class struggle are grounded simultaneously and belong to the *same* level of
> abstraction.
>
> Of course, this does *not* mean that Marx 'should' have started Capital with
> any of them. However, these are the main subjects of his analysis.
>
> Alfredo.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Contributing to an interesting exchange, Alfredo writes in part:
>
> >I do not agree with this because - as I understand it - capital is a social
> >relation which is defined by (and includes) the separation of the workers
> >from the means of production, wage labour, and generalised commodity
> >production for profit *simultaneously*. If I am right, wage labour is not
> >*outside* of capital, or *external* to capital - it *is* capital, and capital
> >cannot be conceived, posited or defined without wage labour.
>
> This characterization of "capital" raises a couple of issues:
>
> 1) In Volume I of Capital, Marx does not mention separation of workers
> from the means of production as an aspect of the *definition* of capital.
> When he introduces the circuit of capital in Ch. 4, his only stipulation is
> a system of commodity exchange in which the circuit M-C-M' systematically
> arises. He *derives* the existence of a propertyless laboring class as
> the basis for surplus value in Chs. 5 and 6, based on the additional (and
> invalid) stipulation that the explanation of surplus value must proceed on
> the basis of the "pure case" that all commodities exchange at their
> respective values, and the unexplained premise that the existence of labor
> power as a commodity *logically* implies a propertyless class (which it
> doesn't). He does insist elsewhere (see, for example, the last paragraph
> of V.I, Ch. 33) that expropriation of the working class is a *necessary*
> condition for the capitalist *mode of production*--but that's a different
> statement than Alfredo's.
>
> 2) As a counter-example to Alfredo's statement, in Vol. III. Marx
> identifies usury capital extended to value producers (who own some of their
> own means of production) as an instance of "capitalist exploitation without
> its mode of production." (p. 732, Penguin ed.) He gives a parallel
> characterization of merchant's capital extended to producers (as in the
> putting-out system); see, e.g. V. III, pp. 452-453. These
> characterizations are repeated consistently, starting with the Grundrisse,
> then the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63, and the Resultate, in addition to
> the material in Vol III.
>
> So, in my reading of Marx, capital can indeed be "conceived, posited, or
> defined" without wage labor. The latter, rather than an aspect of the
> *definition* of capital, is a *consequence* of particular developments in
> the social relations corresponding to the circuit of capital (developments
> unspecified in Vol. I, but suggested in Vol. III and elsewhere) that
> capitalists predominantly hire and subsume labor power *as a commodity*
> rather than either a) lending value producers the wherewithal to finance
> means of production, as in the circuit of usury capital, or b) purchasing
> labor *services* as a commodity within labor processes run by producers
> (i.e., no formal subsumption), as in the putting-out system.
>
> Gil
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> In [OPE-L:2872] Riccardo wrote:
> >
> > I have a paper with Realfonzo where we say that Marx's theory of bank
> > lending is compatible with the good non-commodity theory of money. So, I
> > agree with part of your statement. But Marx seems to say that in the last
> > instance money still remains a commodity. I deny that, if production has
> to
> > be financed, it can be financed by a commodity money (it is a logical
> > argument, not an historical one! let's start from t=0; how is financed
> the
> > production of the money commodity?).
>
> Thank you Riccardo for your reply to my post. Although I don't agree with
> your interpretation of money, you present strong arguments in this post and
> in the one you directed to Fred, and I'll try to better clarify the way I
> understand the logic of Marx's theory of money, and if possible to locate
> the points of disagreement with your view.
>
> Your are correct in saying that for Marx money remains a commodity all the
> way. This is so because of the chain of his reasoning, where money is the
> outcome of the process of exchange which doesn't change in nature when
> capital dominates the process of production. Capital is so to speak a
> second stage of value as an independent category, money being the first
> stage. More generally the commodity as such would be the first stage (as
> particular form of value), money the second and capital the third.
>
> This may help to suggest that there is a flaw in your following argument,
> which is: you assume that capitalism as a whole exists, including the
> banking system, and then you ask how can the production of the money
> commodity be financed if it has to be financed with previously existing
> money commodity, which would be a circular reasoning. You are right to the
> extent that the phenomenon to be explained cannot be a part of the
> explanation. In this sense however your reasoning includes another
> difficulty of the same sort: since finance is money capital, the financing
> of capitalist production implies that you explain capital with previously
> existing capital. Perhaps there is where the introduction of state money
> seems to act as the element external to capital that explains the latter,
> but it would do it as a result of a mistaken reasoning. In Marx's system
> too capital is explained as the outcome of previously existing elements
> external to capital itself. The key in this case is that capital is
> self-expanding value, which means that it is first necessary to explain
> value, and Marx explains value as the expression of human labor in the
> commodity producing economy, which can be demonstrated with abstraction of
> capital. But labor in itself doesn't explain the *expansion* of value. In
> order to explain the latter one needs to introduce an additional element in
> the commodity producing economy, which is the conversion of labor force
> itself into a commodity.
>
> Our debate however is restricted to the way value manages to exist as an
> object independent of the commodities in which it is contained side by side
> with their use values when both are produced by labor. Marx's method
> requires to explain the actual categories and the concepts that express
> them as an outcome of the process itself, without the introduction of
> elements external to the latter. In this sense the problem of the
> expression of value has to be solved by the sole consideration of the
> commodities being exchanged, where the producers are merely the supports of
> the relations among commodities, in the sense that the ideas they produce
> reflect aspects of the process of exchange in which they are envolved. Thus
> the concept of money can only arise as the conceptual expression of a real
> object produced in the evolution of the exchanges of commodities. If this
> is not taken account of, external factors may be used as a way of rescuing
> the argument, which IMO is the case of the introduction of the state and of
> state money into the argument.
>
> However, in my paper in the Bergamo
> > proceedings I show that most of Marx's statements may be accepted in the
> > good non-commodity theory of money.
>
> Unfortunately I haven't read your paper, but it seems to me that what you
> say does not contradict the relevance of Marx's theory of money, as long as
> we are talking about the phenomena arising out of the credit system, where
> you can say, f.i., like the post-Keynesians do, that 'money' is created
> when a bank grants a loan and is destructed when the latter is payed. If
> one replaces 'credit money' for 'money', as in Marx, it is clear that we
> are speaking of a sphere of events more concrete that the one where money
> appears and is relevant, which is the simple exchange of commodities,
> irrespective of the character of the producing unit. Thus, it is possible
> to analyse the more concrete sphere without reference to money itself, but
> this barely means that the more abstract sphere is abstracted for
> analyticial reasons, and not that it doesn't exist. However, as frequently
> occurs, it is possible to argue that the latter doesn't exist at all, which
> is what, IMO, the state money theory does.
>
> I hope to have been able to better clarify my understanding, and look
> forward for a continuation of this debate.
>
> Claus Germer
> cmgermer@sociais.ufpr.br
> Departamento de Economia
> Universidade Federal do Paraná
> Rua Dr. Faivre, 405 - 3º andar
> 80060-140 Curitiba - Paraná
> Brasil
>
> Tel: (041) 360-5214 - Ufpr
> (041) 254-3415 Res.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Claus,
> It seems to me that you are reading Marx's theory of money too seriously.
>
> OK, Marx begins with a fully developed capitalism--that is, social
> relations specified in terms of commodities, money and wage labor or,
> simply put, privately organized production by means of wage labor.
>
> Then Marx notes that in such a society the distribution of social labor
> can only be organized by means of exchange value.
>
> But this is only possible if there is a money commodity that is believed to
> itself incarnate the metaphysical substance of universal
> human labor in terms of which the practically hypostatized substance of
> abstract labor embodied in all those diverse and apparently incommensurate
> commodites can be measured.
>
> So Marx's theory of value is not metaphysical. It is meant as a critique,
> anthropological in nature, of the metaphysical beliefs and
> theological niceties or simply category mistakes assumed in everyday
> capitalist practice. From my readings only Robert Paul Wolff and Paul
> Mattick Jr have truly appreciated this.
>
> In other words, bourgeois agents must subscribe to a pantheistic logical
> mysticism in their everyday lives. And one probably has to have
> mastered the Hegelian dialectic to get the joke.
>
> It seems to me that economists have simply been deaf to the irony by which
> Marx deconstructed bourgeois practice and those apologists who thought they
> had demonstrated the rationality of money driven behavior.
>
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> in my reading of Marx, capital can indeed be "conceived, posited, or
> defined" without wage labor. The latter, rather than an aspect of the
> *definition* of capital, is a *consequence* of particular developments in
> the social relations corresponding to the circuit of capital (developments
> unspecified in Vol. I, but suggested in Vol. III and elsewhere) that
> capitalists predominantly hire and subsume labor power *as a commodity*
> rather than either a) lending value producers the wherewithal to finance
> means of production, as in the circuit of usury capital, or b) purchasing
> labor *services* as a commodity within labor processes run by producers
> (i.e., no formal subsumption), as in the putting-out system.
> __________________________
> Gil, this is an elegant and helpful formulation of your thesis.
> Unfortunately I am away from home, and don't have your paper which lays out
> in historical and microeconomic detail those "particular developments in
> the social relations corresponding to the circuit of capital." As I
> remember Marx's argument, the capitalist mode of production depends for the
> expansion of value on the production of relative surplus value through
> continuous technical change. This would mean workers are free to move to
> the most advanced techique, and out of declining industries. Without such
> labor mobility, the arteries of the capitalist system would have to be
> hardening--as they were in Nazi Germany in which there was a regression to
> formally unfree labor. Here I disagree with Patrick in that I don't think
> such slavery at a late stage in capitalism is a more perfected form of
> exploitation but rather a sign of decay and weakness. However, I do agree
> with him on the capitalist character of plantation slavery. By the way,
> this argument is supported by Kenneth Pomeranz's chapter on a new kind of
> periphery in his new book The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the
> Making of the Modern World (Princeton, 2000).
>
> At any rate, I have trouble understanding how a developed and dynamic
> capitalist mode of production could do without anything but mobile free
> wage labor. That a fully developed capitalism depends on mobile free wage
> labor of course does not invalidate your argument about the problem in chs
> 4 and 5.
>
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Claus and others,
> Just to clarify: I am trying to understand myself what exactly were
> the "metaphysical subtleties" and "theological niceties" to which Marx is
> referring in his analysis of the commodity fetishism, which is most
> dazzling in the money form.
>
> That in order for the organization and distribution of social labor upon
> which society relies to be achieved, the production of commodities by
> private enterprises by means of wage labor must be regulated by an imagined
> inherent property of value which moreover can only be expressed in terms of
> an exchange ratio with a single rather ordinary use value that is believed
> to itself incarnate universal human labor: this practice Marx took to be
> fetishistic, nonsensical and absurd. Yet money driven behavior, though
> dependent on such metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties, was
> understood by the political economists to be the height of rationality.
>
> It seems to me that Marx is approaching money driven behavior in the same
> way that structural anthropologists investigate religious ritual--for
> example, Edmund Leach in Culture and Communication. Unfortunately I don't
> have my books with me, including Capital itself.
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Thank you very much, Fred, for your interesting intervention on Banaji
> [OPE-L:2890]. What follows is a partial reply:
>
> >
> >1. The first starting-point is the COMMODITY, understood as the most
> >abstract form of appearance of CAPITAL. Banaji argues very persuasively
> >that Marx's commodity in Chapter 1 is definitely NOT a general commodity
> >that could also apply to non-capitalist modes of production. Please see
> >the subsection "Capital as Presupposition of the Commodity",
> >pp. 28-30. (Nicky, please take note). Chris Arthur has also argued a
> >similar point in several papers.
>
> Just in case I've been unclear in previous posts, I fully agree that Marx's
> commodity can not be usefully applied to non-capitalist modes of
> production. Other people on this list disagree:- does that mean that
> Marx's exposition (his analysis of the commodity) in the first chapter of
> Capital is open to different interpretations? If so, is it true that
> Marx's analysis of the commodity is not adequate to his subject matter -
> which I take to be a theory of capitalist value? I'm not sure. But,
> reading Banaji drew my attention to the possibility that Marx may have had
> a Hegelian use of the 'substance' concept - which I have previously assumed
> to be a Ricardian/Neutonian lapse.
>
> >2. Banaji calls the commodity-as-product-of-capital the ANALYTICAL point
> >of departure. From this abstract commodity, Marx derived the VALUE of
> >commodities (in Section 1 of Chapter 1), which then forms the second
> >starting-point, which Banaji calls the SYNTHETIC point of departure of
> >Capital (see the section "The Double Structure of the Beginning" on
> >pp. 36-40). From value, Marx derived the concepts of money, capital,
> >surplus-value, and all the other forms of appearance of capital.
> >
> >Banaji writes: "the beginning is a movement between two points of
> >departure... As the immediate appearance of the total process of
> >capital, ... the individual commodity forms the ANALYTIC point of
> >departure. From this, however, we do not pass over directly to the
> >concept of capital. By analyzing the commodity, drawing out its
> >determinations, we arrive at the concept of VALUE as the abstract-reified
> >form of social labor. This as the ground of all further conceptual
> >determinations (money, capital) forms the SYNTHETIC point of departure of
> >Capital... The passage from one point to the other forms the structure
> >of the beginning as such." (pp. 39-40; emphasis in the original). Banaji
> >argues further that Marx's passage from the commodity to value is similar
> >to Hegel's passage from Immediacy to Mediation, or from Being to Essence.
> >
>
> I think there is ONE starting point, not TWO (Fred) or THREE (Andy). "The
> beginning is a movement between two points of departure" - ONE beginning,
> but TWO points of departure. Or to put it the other way - analytic and
> synthetic points of departure, but a single STARTING POINT - the MOVEMENT
> itself. This is what I meant when I said that the starting point is like a
> Gestalt image - the whole business of investigating the image - and
> interpreting it - consists of a movement between two positions. That is
> why Gestalt images are psychologically complex. We can't say begin at A
> and we see C, or begin at B and we see D, because it is not possible to see
> either C or D, without seeing the relation between A and B (A and B are
> simultaneously concept and ground). But, perhaps, stretching the Gestalt
> analogy to Marx's starting point was going too far. Sorry if this has been
> confusing.
>
> >Nicky, Enrique Dussel (an Argentinian living in Mexico, who I think is one
> >of the most interesting Marxian philosophers in the world today) makes an
> >argument similar to yours - both that labor confronts capital as a subject
> >outside of capital (and also that this is an inversion of Hegel, based on
> >Schelling according to Dussel) and that this confrontation between capital
> >and labor is the real starting-point of Capital. Dussel presented a paper
> >on this subject at the 1997 IWGVT mini-conference, which I think is still
> >on the IWGVT website. I agree with the first point - labor as subject
> >outside of capital as the source of dM - but disagree with the second
> >point - that the confrontation between capital and labor is the real
> >starting-point of Capital. Again, what does "starting-point" mean
> >here? Does it mean that Part 1 is in some sense unnecessary? Or a false
> >starting-point?
>
> Thanks for the reference Fred, I will see if I can find Enrique Dussel's
> paper. But, I did not mean to say that Part 1 is unnecessary or a false
> start. Only that the starting point in Chapter 1 of Capital (the
> bi-directional movement between the commodity and its ground in capital) is
> ambiguous, in the sense that the capitalistic nature of the commodity (the
> capital-labour relation behind the production of the capitalistic
> commodity) is not adequately captured by Marx's derivation of the substance
> of value as homogenous human labour.
>
> Hope I've made a better job of it this time,
> comradely,
> Nicky
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Gil says:
> …in my reading of Marx, capital can indeed be "conceived, posited, or
> defined" without wage labor. The latter, rather than an aspect of the
> *definition* of capital, is a *consequence* of particular developments in
> the social relations corresponding to the circuit of capital (developments
> unspecified in Vol. I, but suggested in Vol. III and elsewhere) that
> capitalists predominantly hire and subsume labor power *as a commodity*
> rather than either a) lending value producers the wherewithal to finance
> means of production, as in the circuit of usury capital, or b) purchasing
> labor *services* as a commodity within labor processes run by producers
> (i.e., no formal subsumption), as in the putting-out system.
>
> My comment:
> I think that this is primarily a methodological difference. In my view, Marx
> derives capital in chapter 4 starting from circulation (M-C-M': the form of
> appearance of capital, value that begets value). Then he analyses how this
> can exist systematically, i.e., as the *social* form of production. His
> answer is that capital cannot arise out of circulation *on a systematic
> basis*. This argument does not deny that unequal exchange, 'profit upon
> alienation', 'fleecing' of the consumers by commercial capital, exploitative
> interest rates, etc are impossible: of course they are possible, and they
> have existed for thousands of years. But they cannot be *generalised*, i.e.,
> these forms of exploitation do not provide the basis for the existence of a
> stable and self-sufficient *system* of production. Even though some people
> can live out of this type of exploitation, it is a fallacy of aggregation to
> presume that everyone can become rich by exploiting everyone else.
>
> In sum, M-C-M' is the *form* of capital, which can potentially represent many
> different forms of exploitation, opportunistic behaviour and so on. However,
> the point about capital as the social mode of production (including the
> separation of the workers from the means of production, wage labour as the
> social form of labour and generalised commodity production) is this: Only in
> this case can M-C-M' become systematic and provide the principle of social
> organisation and of social production, rather than existing in the 'pores' of
> (any type of) society.
>
> alfredo.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> I read Banaji's article to death some years back. Great to see the
> interest in him now.
>
> Having looked at the article again, some suggestions:
>
> First, Fred is right that Banaji stresses two points of departure, not
> three (as I had orginally and mistakenly suggested). Nicky is right,
> also, to stress the beginning as a *movement* between the two. The
> two points of departure are (1) the 'commodity' (as 'Schein' or
> immediate so illusory being) and (2) 'value' (NOT 'value-form')
> whose concrete historical synonym is the 'commodity-form'.
>
> However, I don't think I was all that far off the mark in suggesting
> three starting points. This is because value is only the 'abstract
> essence' of Marx's investigation; in its 'concrete essence' value posits
> itself as capital (M-C-M'). This latter is the most abstract definition of
> capital, one which Marx goes on to develop more and more
> concretely. Thus the 'double structure' of the beginning is indeed a
> movement from Being to Essence; a movement between two points of
> departure; but it is vital to note that value [the second point of
> departure] is only the 'abstract essence' of Marx's investigation;
> capital being the 'concrete essence'. [I should add that Banaji himself
> does not say absolutely explicitly that capital is the 'concrete essence'].
>
> Alfredo, the notion of 'two points of departure' is fairly clear from the
> first few pages of Volume one, chapter one: Marx starts with the
> 'commodity' as the immediate appearance of bourgeois wealth; he
> then analyses it (the commodity as analytic point of departure) first
> into use value and exchange value, next (looking at the matter more
> closely) reaching the concept 'value', of which exchange value is the
> form. Marx returns to the commodity, but now he grasps the
> commodity as a form of value. Value, or the commodity*-form*, is
> then the synthetic point of departure from which Marx derives the
> money-form and then the capital-form.
>
> The sequence of categories entailed is: commodity, use-value,
> exchange value, value [here we get congealed abstract socially
> necessary labour], commodity-form, money-form, capital-form. In
> general, I don't think that the various presentations of systematic
> dialectics follow the above sequence (eg. I interpret Tony Smith,
> 1990, as starting from the 'synthetic' point of departure - value - so
> missing out the first three categories of the above sequence; Chris
> Arthur rejects the introduction of labour so early in the presentation.
> Apologies if I have mis-interpreted).
>
> For myself, looking back at Banaji, I am a little bit apprehensive that
> he cites Itoh's criticisms of Marx (regarding the illegitimate discussion
> of value prior to the discussion of money). This would then have,
> perhaps, some resonance with the 'value-form' criticisms of Marx
> (with which I disagree). I don't think that Banaji refers to 'congealed'
> abstract labour quite as I would. But he does refer to the abstract
> reified form of labour so, to the extent that I can grasp it at all (few,
> it's tough going!), I pretty much agree with Banaji's interpretation.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Nicky wrote:
>
> > Banaji relates the 'ground' of dialectical logic to essence logic: Capital
> > is 'essence' in so far as it is value in process, or the form of value;
> > i.e. 'value is the dominant subject' (p.39). But value is likewise the
> > 'essence' of the commodity in so far as the commodity is the posited form
> > of value, and in this sense grounds the whole movement [btw, I think the
> > basis for Banaji's distinction between commodity and commodity form, lies
> > in his distinction between the commodity as starting point and the
> > commodity as ground - but please correct me if you think I'm wrong].
> >
>
> Thank-you for your illuminating exposition Nicky. I'm not sure about
> the distinction to which you refer. Doesn't Banaji seem to imply that
> the commodity as (analytic) point of departure can, *for that reason*,
> be considered as the 'ground' for his investigation? I thought that it
> (the commodity) could be considered as 'ground' only because it was
> the (analytic) point of departure for comprehending capital.
>
> Or maybe you are referring to the fact that Banaji can only reveal the
> true nature of the beginning once he has gone through most of his
> exposition? For only then can the significance (the abstract and
> universal nature) of the commodity - the analytic point of departure -
> be grapsed.
>
> Now, I'm getting a headache!
>
> Andy.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Alfredo,
> Your reply to Gil seems convincing to me, so I look forward to his
> comments. You raise the question of capitalism as a system. Relation
> between exploiter and exploited is really mediated by a system wide average
> rate of profit. That is, capitalism really operates as a totality; this
> would not be true of feudalism where the demenses were not systematically
> related in the same way. Moreover, in capitalism the
> rate of exploitation is dependent on the success of the general production
> of relative surplus value by which unit values are reduced. The cooperation
> of the capitalist class is thus structural-- though even here, as Geoff Kay
> has pointed out, this (cooperation) is paradoxically achieved through the
> competition-driven production of relative surplus value. Another way to put
> this is to emphasize that the generalization of money gives rise to
> standardized calculating and calculated behavior that undergirds (and makes
> possible) the generalizations of economic theory. That is, the ancient
> Greeks could not have had economic theory because the generalizations upon
> which it
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Oops, I am losing my connection.
> I meant to say that the ancient Greeks could not have developed economic
> theory because the generalizations upon which it is based depend upon the
> standardization of (calculated and calculating) behavior that follows only
> upon the full monetization of social relations. Capitalism creates a kind
> of homogeneous totality in terms of which it would be anachronistic to
> understand other social systems. I think Wesley Clark Mitchell makes this
> point somewhere in his Types of Economic Theory (he also understands
> Richard Jones to be a crucial predecessor of Marx!)
> YOurs, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> In response to this comment by me,
>
> >>in my reading of Marx, capital can indeed be "conceived, posited, or
> >>defined" without wage labor. The latter, rather than an aspect of the
> >>*definition* of capital, is a *consequence* of particular developments in
> >>the social relations corresponding to the circuit of capital (developments
> >>unspecified in Vol. I, but suggested in Vol. III and elsewhere) that
> >>capitalists predominantly hire and subsume labor power *as a commodity*
> >>rather than either a) lending value producers the wherewithal to finance
> >>means of production, as in the circuit of usury capital, or b) purchasing
> >>labor *services* as a commodity within labor processes run by producers
> >>(i.e., no formal subsumption), as in the putting-out system.
>
> Alfredo responds:
>
> >I think that this is primarily a methodological difference.
>
> I'm not convinced of that, since at this point we're only discussing what
> Marx actually says or validly establishes in Part 2 of Vol. I and
> elsewhere. It's probably true that this discussion has been prompted by
> differences in methodological priorities (see my upcoming response to
> Rakesh for an illustration of this), but right now we're on (or should be
> on) the same page: what did Marx actually say, and what claims did he
> validly prove?
>
> > In my view, Marx
> >derives capital in chapter 4 starting from circulation (M-C-M': the form of
> >appearance of capital, value that begets value).
>
> Well, actually he doesn't "derive" it, in the sense of making an argument;
> he *observes* it: "But alongside this form we find another form, which is
> quite distinct from the first: M-C-M..." (p. 248, Penguin edition), and
> then modifies this to M-C-M' on the basis that the circuit doesn't make
> sense unless M'>M. And since no argument is given in introducing this
> circuit, no basis is established here for ruling out usury capital or
> merchant's capital extended to small producers (which circuits, to
> anticipate a bit, involve the creation and capitalist appropriation of
> *newly created* value, and so do not involve mere redistribution) as
> instances of M-C-M. In other words, no basis has been given in chapter 4
> for requiring wage labor as part of the *definition* of capital.
>
> > Then he analyses how this
> >can exist systematically, i.e., as the *social* form of production. His
> >answer is that capital cannot arise out of circulation *on a systematic
> >basis*.
>
> Several points here. First, it strikes me that this formulation grants, or
> at least avoids, my point: wage labor is not part of the *definition* of
> capital, but a *consequence* of particular (and as yet unstated)
> developments in class relations that make wage labor a necessary condition
> for the "systematic" reaping of surplus value.
>
> Second, so far as I can see Marx makes no stipulation whatsoever in Chapter
> 4 or 5 about particular "social" relations of production. Thus, again,
> wage labor is not invoked directly or indirectly as part of the
> *definition* of capital.
>
> And, critically, third: Marx's extended argument in Ch. 5 to the effect
> that surplus value cannot arise simply out of circulation, "systematically"
> or otherwise, is an utter red herring, for two reasons: on one hand, no
> argument is called for, since as it turns out this fact is true *by his
> definition* rather than by derivation--it's just that this aspect of his
> Ch. 4 definition is not revealed until Ch. 5; on the other hand,
> price-value disparities may be required for capitalist *appropriation* of
> surplus value, even if they are insufficient for its *creation*--and an
> argument on the former point is necessary, because both *value creation*
> (VC) and *value appropriation* by capitalists (VA) are aspects of Marx's
> *definition* of surplus value made explicit in Ch. 5.
>
> Since the above statements are both complex and absolutely central to the
> issue here, let's step back and look at them more closely. On the first
> point: Marx defines surplus value as the differential between M and M' in
> the circuit of capital such that "[t]he value originally advanced,
> therefore, not only remains intact while in circulation, but increases its
> magnitude, adds to itself a surplus-value, or is valorized [verwertet
> sich]. {N.B.: a footnote adduced here notes that this is a neologism by
> Marx, and that there is no extant word in English for this term, so the
> translators coin the word "valorization."} And this movement converts it
> into capital." [p. 252]
>
> Now, no law of logic or rule of English or German usage outlaws the
> possibility that the difference between M and M' corresponds to a mere
> redistribution of existing value. From the capitalists' point of view,
> value has certainly "begetted" value: they get back more than they started
> with. The German term, and the English translation, are newly coined, and
> there's no way of knowing on the basis of the above-quoted passage that
> Marx requires something stricter as a matter of *definition.*
>
> This isn't made clear, in fact, until Chapter 5, where he argues that even
> given a redistribution between parties A and B, "the value in circulation
> has not increased by one iota." [p.265] That's the first we hear that this
> condition is part of what is stipulated by the as-yet mysterious term
> "valorization."
>
> OK, suppose that we grant this restriction. Then all of the remaining Ch.
> 5 argument to the effect that surplus value cannot emerge from commodity
> exchange, *considered by itself*, is **redundant**, since by Marx's
> *definition* in Chapter 1, increasing value requires production, and
> exchange is not production. Thus, if it had been made clear in Ch. 4 that
> "valorization" presupposes the creation of new value, then all of the
> argumentation from mid-p. 262 to top-p. 266 would have been rendered
> superfluous, since the latter only elaborates what we might already have
> known, had terms been fully defined to begin with.
>
> But now the second point: value creation (VC) is only *one* aspect of
> Marx's definition of surplus value. The other aspect is value
> appropriation (VA): capitalists must be able to *appropriate* some portion
> of the newly created value--created by someone else, that is-- made
> possible by the initiation of a circuit of capital, or surplus value does
> not exist. Marx makes this clear on p. 268 of Ch. 5, where he says that
> commodity-owners can't valorize *their own* values, and it is "therefore
> impossible that, outside the sphere of circulation, a producer of
> commodities can, without coming into contact with other commodity-owners,
> valorize value, and consequently transform money or commodities into
> capital." [p. 268]
>
> As a consequence, value-price disparities are necessary for the existence
> of surplus value, *as Marx defines the term*, if they are necessary, within
> given social formations supporting circuits of capital, for VA,
> *regardless* of whether they are necessary for VC. And on this quite
> central point, the possible connection between VA and price-value
> disparities, Marx's Ch. 5 argument is entirely silent.
>
> Again to anticipate a bit, targeted price-value disparities are *required*
> for VA in the historical cases of usury capital and merchant capital
> extended to small producers. Since these circuits of capital support VC,
> some of which the capitalists appropriate via interest payments (in the
> case of usury capital) or piece rates below average value created (in the
> case of the putting-out form of merchant's capital), they represent
> instances of surplus value in Marx's strictest sense--a point he repeatedly
> affirms.
>
> Conclusion, the bulk of Marx's Ch. 5 argument is doubly beside the point.
> [The remainder of his argument is also invalid, but for a different reason,
> requiring a different post.]
>
> >This argument does not deny that unequal exchange, 'profit upon
> >alienation', 'fleecing' of the consumers by commercial capital, exploitative
> >interest rates, etc are impossible: of course they are possible, and they
> >have existed for thousands of years.
>
> This is completely beside the point. I am not talking about instances of
> the circuit of capital that involve mere redistribution of value that
> pre-existed the initiation of that circuit. Indeed, from the vantage point
> of Ch. 5 we know that Marx does not consider these instances of "surplus
> value"--and thus "capital" in the strict sense--at all. All along I have
> limited attention to cases of the circuit of capital that satisfy *all* of
> Marx's conditions for surplus value, and thus "capital" in the strict
> sense--that is, *both* VC and VA. These conditions are satisfied by the
> canonical case of industrial capital, of course, but they are also
> satisfied by instances of usury and merchant capital extended to producers
> to support the creation of new value--again, as Marx repeatedly affirms.
>
> > But they cannot be *generalised*, i.e.,
> >these forms of exploitation do not provide the basis for the existence of a
> >stable and self-sufficient *system* of production.
>
> First, even if I accept this, it concedes that wage labor is not part of
> the *definition* of capital, but rather a *consequence* of a given state of
> class relations. But second, *why don't* these alternative systems of
> exploitation "provide the basis for the existence of
> a stable and self-sufficient *system* of production"? Marx makes no
> argument whatsoever with respect to this claim in Chapters 4 or 5, where he
> defines what he means by "capital." Indeed, he doesn't really make the
> argument anywhere in Vol I, except indirectly. The best hints are found in
> the chapters on interest in V. III, the historical chapter on merchant
> capital in V. III, and in the discussion of usury in the Economic
> Manuscript of 1861-63. Could this argument be made? Of course--but it
> would involve explaining how the state of class relations dictates that
> capital hires and subsumes labor power--i.e., establishing the latter as a
> historically specific *consequence* rather than a matter of *definition.*
>
> >Even though some people
> >can live out of this type of exploitation, it is a fallacy of aggregation to
> >presume that everyone can become rich by exploiting everyone else.
>
> And it is a fallacy of division to suggest that this point, albeit true in
> itself, has anything to do with the issue at hand (as Marx does in Ch. 5,
> in making the similar claim that "The capitalist class of a given country,
> taken as a whole, cannot defraud itself." [p. 266]) It is *beside the
> point* that everyone can't exploit everyone else, just as it is *beside the
> point* that the capitalist class can't defraud itself. What is at issue is
> whether one class, i.e. capitalists, can systematically exploit another
> class, i.e. workers, by a process that integrally involves targeted
> value-price disparities, as in the historical cases of usury and merchant
> capital extended to small producers. And *no valid argument* in Chs. 4-6
> of Vol. I shows that this cannot be done. As I've argued elsewhere, any
> argument that does so would have to proceed along historically contingent
> strategic lines (as Rakesh's does, at least implicitly) rather than
> value-theoretic ones.
>
> >In sum, M-C-M' is the *form* of capital, which can potentially represent many
> >different forms of exploitation, opportunistic behaviour and so on. However,
> >the point about capital as the social mode of production (including the
> >separation of the workers from the means of production, wage labour as the
> >social form of labour and generalised commodity production) is this: Only in
> >this case can M-C-M' become systematic and provide the principle of social
> >organisation and of social production, rather than existing in the 'pores' of
> >(any type of) society.
>
> Same arguments as above: this does not show that wage labor is part of the
> *definition* of capital; Marx makes no argument to the above effect in the
> section of Capital I'm discussing, and does so only indirectly in the
> remainder of Vol. I; and any argument sufficient to establishing this claim
> would have to proceed along different lines than those established in
> Chapters 4 and 5.
>
> Gil
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Rakesh writes:
>
> >Gil, this is an elegant and helpful formulation of your thesis.
> >Unfortunately I am away from home, and don't have your paper which lays out
> >in historical and microeconomic detail those "particular developments in
> >the social relations corresponding to the circuit of capital." As I
> >remember Marx's argument, the capitalist mode of production depends for the
> >expansion of value on the production of relative surplus value through
> >continuous technical change. This would mean workers are free to move to
> >the most advanced techique, and out of declining industries. Without such
> >labor mobility, the arteries of the capitalist system would have to be
> >hardening--as they were in Nazi Germany in which there was a regression to
> >formally unfree labor. Here I disagree with Patrick in that I don't think
> >such slavery at a late stage in capitalism is a more perfected form of
> >exploitation but rather a sign of decay and weakness. However, I do agree
> >with him on the capitalist character of plantation slavery. By the way,
> >this argument is supported by Kenneth Pomeranz's chapter on a new kind of
> >periphery in his new book The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the
> >Making of the Modern World (Princeton, 2000).
> >
> >At any rate, I have trouble understanding how a developed and dynamic
> >capitalist mode of production could do without anything but mobile free
> >wage labor. That a fully developed capitalism depends on mobile free wage
> >labor of course does not invalidate your argument about the problem in chs
> >4 and 5.
>
> Rakesh, I don't disagree with anything you've said here. To the contrary,
> your summary above puts historical flesh on the skeletal abstraction I've
> called "historically contingent strategic argument." But your
> characterization above only deals with the first, i.e. formal aspect of the
> working class condition Marx calls being "free in the double sense." I'm
> mostly concerned with the implications of the latter aspect, i.e. being
> free of one's own means of production, insofar as Marx also considers it a
> *necessary* condition for the capitalist mode of production. To anticipate
> a bit, suppose workers were free in Marx's double sense but gained access
> to the means of production only through circuits of usury and merchant
> capital described in my discussion with Alfredo. Wouldn't this situation
> permit, or even encourage, the sort of labor mobility you discuss above?
> Gil
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> >
> >(1) I do not understand Banaji's argument that there is a double
> >starting-point in Capital. Chris Arthur, Tony Smith, Reuten & Williams and
> >others have argued forcefully that systematic dialectics can reconstruct the
> >main categories of Marx's analysis from a *single* starting point which, as I
> >understand it, is the commodity *as the product of capital*.
> >Alfredo.
>
> I am sorry that I have not been able to study this interesting exchange
> properly. But since Alfredo cites me, may I state that I accepted Banaji's
> two starting points in my paper 'Against the logical-Historical Method:
> Dialectical Derivation v Linear Logic' in *New Investigations of marx's
> Method* eds F. Moseley and M. Campbell (Humanities 1997). For those
> interested I extract below the relevant relflections.
> Chris A
>
> " Marx asserted in his 1857 Introduction (and reasserted in the very title
> of his big book) that the whole contains within it industrial capital as
> its 'overriding moment'. This leaves the problem of how to start the first
> volume given that capital is a complex concept, even in its most abstract
> form as self-valorization. As Marx said, it is necessary to employ 'the
> power of abstraction' to arrive at the 'cell-form' equivalent of the body
> of the capitalist totality. The sequence of thought in carrying through
> this abstraction must be such that it arrives at a starting point which is
> sufficiently simple to be grasped immediately by thought and yet
> sufficiently historically determinate to lead to the other categories that
> structure this specific society, i.e. bourgeois society based on the
> capitalist mode of production. While Marx said in the 1857 Introduction...
> that the scientific method of exposition starts with something abstract he
> also pointed out that generic abstractions of an ahistorical type would
> tell us nothing of any importance (there is no 'production in general' for
> example).
> What is required, then, is that the movement of abstraction retain in the
> proposed immediacy of the beginning some sign of its origin in a
> historically determinate set of relations of production. It must seize upon
> some particular aspect of the whole under consideration which, while
> simple, is also so implicated in the whole from which it is separated out
> that it still bears this trace of its origin.
> Bearing these considerations in mind, let us now reconstruct the sequence
> of Marx's thought. He is faced with capital; he cannot start with that
> because even if its concept is stripped to its bare essentials it still has
> the complexity of self-valorization, whose immediate appearance is an
> increment in the reflux of money. So he abstracts from this complex
> relation the figure of money. But what is money? The fact that this is no
> simple matter, and that any show of immediacy that might be given by the
> tangible quality of coins in the pocket is illusory, may be demonstrated by
> reviewing the weird and wonderful ideas of it that have been advanced, both
> by the vulgar and by the theorists; furthermore it seems to have a
> bewildering variety of functions. It is not a suitably simple beginning.
> (Although it is interesting to note that it seems to have formed the
> beginning of Marx's first serious draft of his economics in 1857.) It is
> also clear that money is essentially an incomplete idea, having no sense
> except in its various relations with commodities, such as medium of their
> circulation. In a way it is clear that the commodity is, as he himself
> stated, the 'cell-form' Marx needed. The research program therefore took
> the form of deriving from the commodity first money and then capital.
> But what more precisely are we starting from? -and how do we advance? To
> begin with, it may very well seem to be the case that the commodity cannot
> be a suitable starting point because it is disqualified for failing to meet
> both the criteria earlier established, namely simplicity and historical
> determinacy.
> -The first because, upon analysis, it turns out the commodity itself
> embodies a puzzling dichotomy: it is a good in that it serves as a
> use-value, and on the other hand a different, even contrary, determination
> is found in it, that of exchangeableness.
> -The second because this commodity form attaches to things that are not
> even products of labor, and, even if these are excluded by fiat#, it is
> still obvious enough that commodity exchange appears in a whole set of
> epochs of history, possibly including Engels's 'simple commodity
> production'. It seems then Sweezy may be right in saying Marx's starting
> point was the general class of exchange relations, not the specifically
> capitalist, and that the theory of value antedates that of capital in the
> argument.
> However, to deal with the second point first, when we examine Marx's work
> more closely we see that in Chapter One implicitly, and in other writings
> explicitly, Marx so determines the commodity taken as the starting point as
> to exclude any such pre-capitalist formations. The key point to grasp is
> that the simple category of universality is built into the starting point.
> Over and over again he explicitly excludes as relevant to the theory social
> formations in which only surpluses appear on the market. The key point
> about choosing a sufficiently simple start is that 'simple' here means
> logically simple, i.e. pure and universal; but if this sort of abstraction
> is produced by the historical development of a concrete whole to maturity
> it is really, although in the logic a beginning, in the history a result,
> as Marx said (in his 1857 Introduction) was the case with the general
> category of labor. This requirement of simple universality is implicit in
> the first line of Capital where it is specified that wealth takes the form
> of commodities in bourgeois society.
> Thus the starting point is not some vague notion of 'commodity', but the
> commodity taken in the characteristic form in which it appears in
> capitalism. Then the way is open to derive capitalism; for, in Marx's own
> words: 'a highly developed commodity exchange and the form of the commodity
> as the universal necessary social form of the product can only emerge as
> the consequence of the capitalist mode of production'#. The phrase
> underlined (by me) is the historically determinate beginning of Capital,
> therefore. But only in one sense.
> Certainly the question to be asked is: how could it possibly be the case
> that the commodity form be universal and necessarily so? And the ground for
> this can be demonstrated to be capitalist production. But, to answer this
> question thus, it turns out that one needs to focus on that aspect of the
> commodity that betrays its social origin, namely exchange value. It will be
> recalled that a moment ago we pointed out that the commodity was itself a
> unity of use-value and exchange value. Should it not therefore be stated
> that Marx's true starting point was value, something suitably simple and
> universal which we can show to be grounded in capitalism? (Indeed it is
> interesting to note that in the various plans of the period Marx changed
> his characterization of his starting point in the process of publishing his
> 1859 Critique. Throughout 1858 his plan began: Value-Money-Capital# but his
> publications in 1859 and 1867 use the titles 'Commodity-Money-Capital.)
> However, while simplicity and universality are certainly advantages for a
> starting point, another still more important is lacking, namely immediacy.
> How do we know that we are dealing with value? Value is in truth something
> posited (though not yet grounded) only through the mediation of the
> totality of relationships of the commodities exchanged one with another.
> Faced with this ceaseless movement of exchange, the idea arises that some
> identity in essence is present behind the heterogeneous appearances of
> commodities. Such an analytical reduction of the observed phenomena may be
> mistaken, but it suggests the following research program: on what
> conditions of existence can value be shown to ground itself, so as to
> validate itself as this universal property of commodities? As we shall see
> shortly, a dialectical derivation of the necessity of money and capital may
> be undertaken to answer this. This upshot establishes that if the commodity
> is the product of capital it instantiates value.
> So what is the starting point? The commodity has immediacy in our
> experience (popular consciousness is aware that in this society practically
> everything is bought and sold) yet it is susceptible of further analysis.
> Value is a simple universal but, while an immediacy for thought is so only
> as a mediated immediacy, a thought arising from the contemplation of a
> systematic regular, reproduced set of exchanges. But on the other hand, it
> is clearly something which in virtue of its problematic status as an
> abstraction cries out for a grounding movement.
> In these circumstances we may gratefully accept Banaji's ingenious
> suggestion that Capital has a double starting point: the commodity forms
> the analytical starting point, from which we separate out value; while this
> value forms the synthetic point of departure for deriving more complex
> relationships in the course of seeking how to ground it as the pure
> universal essence of the commodity.# Once the commodity has been
> established as a form of value necessarily linked to money and capital, we
> have a very different commodity under discussion than that originally
> grasped in the immediacy of experience as a mere aspect of an
> uncomprehended totality.
> It is perhaps worth noting that in Capital Marx himself supplied a somewhat
> ambiguous characterization of his starting point: he stated that just as
> biology got properly underway when the microscope resolved the body into
> cells so 'the power of abstraction' reveals that 'for bourgeois society the
> commodity-form of the product of labour [die Waarenform des
> Arbeitsproduckts] or the value-form of the commodity [die Werthform der
> Waare] is the economic cell-form'.# Is the 'or' asserting an identity or
> disjunction? What is clear is that in the first case Marx is interested in
> the fact that in bourgeois society products take the form of commodities
> whereas in the second case he is interested in the fact that commodities
> have values. This seems to fit Banaji's suggestion that there is a double
> point of departure.
> Furthermore, in the original draft of Marx's 1859 Critique there are some
> interesting passages on the nature of his dialectical derivation of
> capital. If we begin with commodities and their circulation we see that:
> 'In the C-M-C movement, the physical matter appears as the actual content
> of the movement; the social movement, only as a fleeting mediation for the
> satisfaction of individual wants.'# Therefore it is exchange value that is
> 'the social form as such'; its further analysis, therefore, leads us into
> 'the social process which throws the commodity onto its surface'; thus we
> now 'proceed from exchange value as such, as we earlier proceeded from the
> commodity'.# Notice that in this passage Marx in effect provides evidence
> supporting Banaji's suggestion that there are two starting points in Marx's
> argument."
>
> P. S. Please note that I have a new Email address,
> <cjarthur@waitrose.com>
> but the old one will also run until the summer. (To be doubly sure load both!)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Alfredo, thanks for your latest post (2891). This is a partial response.
>
> After the posts by Andy and Nicky and Chris, does Banaji's interpretation
> of Marx's "double starting point" make a little more sense to you?
>
> I myself am not completely sure what to think about Banaji's
> interpretation. I don't know enough about Hegel to understand it
> completely. The main point I was making in my last post, which was a
> response to Andy B, was that Banaji does not argue that there are THREE
> starting points in Capital (with the concept of capital as a third
> starting point).
>
> I agree of course (and I imagine that Banaji would too) that the commodity
> is the very first concept that begins Marx's theory in Capital, prior to
> the value of commodities. As already discussed, the commodity is what
> Banaji calls the "ANALYTICAL" starting point. From this point of
> departure, Marx derived in Section 1 of Chapter 1 the value of
> commodities, i.e. objectified social labor which is the common property of
> commodities that determines their exchange-values.
>
> However, Banaji argues further the value of commodities (objectified
> social labor) then becomes a second starting point, what calls the
> "SYNTHETIC" starting point, in the sense that all later concepts are
> derived (i.e. explained) as "necessary forms of appearance" of this value
> of commodities.
>
> You may not want to call this second starting point a starting point,
> because it is not the first concept in Capital, but it is a starting
> point, in the sense that it is the concept from which all later concepts
> are derived. All the different forms of money and capital and
> surplus-value and the individual parts of surplus-value (profit, interest,
> rent) are forms of appearance of objectified social labor.
>
> This makes some sense to me. But I agree that the initial starting point
> is the commodity.
>
> In any case, the main point I wanted to emphasize in my last post, and
> want to emphasize again, is that the commodity with which *Capital* begins
> is a COMMODITY-AS-PRODUCT-OF-CAPITALIST PRODUCTION, not a general
> ahistorical commodity, and not a product of "simple commodity
> production". Engels and Sweezy and Meek and Mandel and many others have
> had it all wrong on this crucial point.
>
> I think that Banaji is extremely good on this point, so I would ask anyone
> interested in this issue to please read Banaji's paper.
>
> Alfredo, do you agree with this point? If so, then I think that is a very
> important point of agreement.
>
> Looking forward to further discussion,
> Fred
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Andy, I think we now pretty much agree on Banaji's interpretation of
> Marx's "double starting-point." I think I agree with everything with you
> say in your latest (below). But there is one point that I do not
> understand. In your sequence of categories, you have:
> commodity
> use-value
> exchange-value
> value (congealed abstract socially necessary labor-time)
> COMMODITY-FORM [emphasis added]
> money-form
> capital-form
>
> I do not understand what you mean by "commodity-form" in this sequence and
> how this "commodity-form" differs from the "commodity" with which the
> sequence begins. Would you please explain further?
>
> You also say that the "commodity-form" is the "concrete historical
> synonym" of value. What does "concrete historical synonym" mean?
> Why is the "concrete historical synonym" of value the "commodity-form" and
> not the "money-form"?
>
> Looking forward to further discussion,
> Fred
>
> On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Andrew Brown wrote:
>
> > Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 14:42:16 GMT0BST
> > From: Andrew Brown <A.N.Brown@uel.ac.uk>
> > Reply-To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> > To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> > Subject: [OPE-L:2899] Re: Re: Re: re:starting points
> >
> > I read Banaji's article to death some years back. Great to see the
> > interest in him now.
> >
> > Having looked at the article again, some suggestions:
> >
> > First, Fred is right that Banaji stresses two points of departure, not
> > three (as I had orginally and mistakenly suggested). Nicky is right,
> > also, to stress the beginning as a *movement* between the two. The
> > two points of departure are (1) the 'commodity' (as 'Schein' or
> > immediate so illusory being) and (2) 'value' (NOT 'value-form')
> > whose concrete historical synonym is the 'commodity-form'.
> >
> > However, I don't think I was all that far off the mark in suggesting
> > three starting points. This is because value is only the 'abstract
> > essence' of Marx's investigation; in its 'concrete essence' value posits
> > itself as capital (M-C-M'). This latter is the most abstract definition of
> > capital, one which Marx goes on to develop more and more
> > concretely. Thus the 'double structure' of the beginning is indeed a
> > movement from Being to Essence; a movement between two points of
> > departure; but it is vital to note that value [the second point of
> > departure] is only the 'abstract essence' of Marx's investigation;
> > capital being the 'concrete essence'. [I should add that Banaji himself
> > does not say absolutely explicitly that capital is the 'concrete essence'].
> >
> > Alfredo, the notion of 'two points of departure' is fairly clear from the
> > first few pages of Volume one, chapter one: Marx starts with the
> > 'commodity' as the immediate appearance of bourgeois wealth; he
> > then analyses it (the commodity as analytic point of departure) first
> > into use value and exchange value, next (looking at the matter more
> > closely) reaching the concept 'value', of which exchange value is the
> > form. Marx returns to the commodity, but now he grasps the
> > commodity as a form of value. Value, or the commodity*-form*, is
> > then the synthetic point of departure from which Marx derives the
> > money-form and then the capital-form.
> >
> > The sequence of categories entailed is: commodity, use-value,
> > exchange value, value [here we get congealed abstract socially
> > necessary labour], commodity-form, money-form, capital-form. In
> > general, I don't think that the various presentations of systematic
> > dialectics follow the above sequence (eg. I interpret Tony Smith,
> > 1990, as starting from the 'synthetic' point of departure - value - so
> > missing out the first three categories of the above sequence; Chris
> > Arthur rejects the introduction of labour so early in the presentation.
> > Apologies if I have mis-interpreted).
> >
> > For myself, looking back at Banaji, I am a little bit apprehensive that
> > he cites Itoh's criticisms of Marx (regarding the illegitimate discussion
> > of value prior to the discussion of money). This would then have,
> > perhaps, some resonance with the 'value-form' criticisms of Marx
> > (with which I disagree). I don't think that Banaji refers to 'congealed'
> > abstract labour quite as I would. But he does refer to the abstract
> > reified form of labour so, to the extent that I can grasp it at all (few,
> > it's tough going!), I pretty much agree with Banaji's interpretation.
> >
> > Many thanks,
> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Many thanks to Gil for his detailed comments. It will take me a few days
> before I can reply to Gil, and return to this exchange, because I am
> overwhelmed with work at the moment. But I will follow it with great
> interest, of course.
>
> alfredo.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> In a previous msg, Fred asks a direct question,
>
> --the main point I wanted to emphasize in my last post, and
> want to emphasize again, is that the commodity with which *Capital* begins
> is a COMMODITY-AS-PRODUCT-OF-CAPITALIST PRODUCTION, not a general
> ahistorical commodity, and not a product of "simple commodity
> production" ... Alfredo, do you agree with this point? If so, then I think
> that is a very
> important point of agreement.
>
> Yes I do agree with it. I don't think you need Banaji's approach to validate
> this claim though.
>
> alfredo.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Dear Fred,
> Re: sect1 of Chap 1 on the value of commodities, "i.e., objectified social
> labor which is the common propery of commodities that determines their
> exchange value."
> I don't see how this could be Marx's point here since he has already ruled
> out non reproducible commodities at the beginning of his investigation,
> i.e., he already built into his definition of capitalist commodities that
> they share the property of being objectified social labor. Nor do I see how
> Marx has proven, instead of simply assumed, here that social labor
> determines exchange value, i.e., he seems not at all to be interested in
> the mechanisms of price theory here. Rather Marx seems interested in
> (fetishistic) properties with which commodities and money in particular
> must be invested and the metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties,
> i.e., logical mysticism or category mistakes, to which we must submit
> (i.e., we must be practicing animists) if it is through things that our
> social labor is organized.
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Dear Gil,
> This may have already been sent. Having trouble with this connection.
> Re:workers gaining access to their own means of production. There is an
> attempt to break a truck drivers' unionization drive in Long Beach, CA
> presently on the ground that the truck drivers are not waged employees but
> independent contractors who under Federal Law cannot form unions. Of course
> by formalistic criteria--upon which the bourgeoisie is latching-- that the
> truck drivers are owners disqualify them from the proletarian class.
> At any rate, see for example New York Times 4/15/2000, p. A7. The reporter
> notes that a typical truck driver makes about $8/hr after his expenditures
> on fuel, insurance, payments for the truck, maintainence, etc.
> YOurs, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> The current situation in Zimbabwe is critical. After 20 years in power, the
> Mugabe Government is faced with widespread opposition from within the
> workers movement and other sections of Zimbabwean civil society, united
> under the banner of the Movement for Democratic Change. The recent spate of
> "Farm Invasions" is an open abuse of the rule of law, and is intended to
> divert attention away from the political and economic abuses of the ruling
> ZANU-PF party before the election. Indeed, there is a very real danger that
> Mugabe will not allow an election to take place at all, and may use
> 'Emergency Powers' legislation to justify increasing violence against
> workers, farmers and his political opponents. The position taken by
> front-line states (especially South Africa) will be a deciding factor in
> any decision by the Mugabe government to attempt to derail the process of
> political change. I urge you to petition the South African government, on
> behalf of FRIENDS OF ZIMBABWE. Please also forward the petition to your
> friends and associates,
> comradely,
> Nicky
>
> ------------------------
> FRIENDS OF ZIMBABWE: PETITION
>
> >Please lend your support by copying and pasting this e-mail (including
> these instructions), adding your name to the list below and then sending
> the e-mail on to all the people you know. The 100th recipient is to please
> send a copy to the President's Office at president@po.gov.za
> >mailto:president@po.gov.za> and a copy to
> >savezim@saol.com <mailto:savezim@saol.com> after sending the
> >petition on to others. The 101st person to start a new list and so on.
> Keep it tidy by omitting unnecessary headers and footers.
> >
> FRIENDS OF ZIMBABWE
> PETITION
> >
> >TO : THE HONOURABLE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA MR THABO
> MBEKI AND THE CABINET
> >
> We note with concern recent events in Zimbabwe and with even greater
> concern the ominous silence of the South African Government in the face of
> gross injustice.
> >
> We hereby petition you :
> >
> 1. To unreservedly and unconditionally condemn the forced removals of
> commercial farmers by ZANU PF and Mugabe government agents;
> 2. To unreservedly and unconditionally condemn the mindless attacks by ZANU
> PF and Mugabe Government agents on peaceful and unarmed demonstrators;
> 3. To unreservedly and unconditionally condemn the failure by the
> Mugabe Government to uphold the rule of law and democracy in Zimbabwe;
> 4. To withhold all assistance to the Mugabe government unless and until
> Mugabe restores the rule of law and holds free and fair elections;
> 5. To investigate, lobby for and implement possible sanctions against the
> Mugabe government pending the restoration of law and order, the release of
> political detainees and the holding of free and fair elections.
> >
> >FRIENDS OF ZIMBABWE
> >SIGNED:
> >
> >1. I Esat, Durban
> >2. A J Pike, Durban
> >3. A Donnelly, Durban
> >4. S Chetwynd-Palmer, Durban
> >5. Q Van der Merwe, Durban
> >6. B Saunders, Durban
> >7. M Reeves,Durban
> >8. S Coyne, Durban
> >9. K Lancaster, London
> >10. Ewen Cameron, London
> >11. Tremayne Parvin, London
> >12. M Tripp, London
> >13. J. Mostyn, Vancouver,Canada
> >14. N. Taylor, Australia
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> I don't doubt that many of the ZANU-PF, from Mugabe downwards, are
> unpleasant thugs and kleptocrats, nor that many in the opposition are people
> with impeccable credentials from the war of liberation....
>
> ...BUT this clause 1 of this petition makes it essentially a petition
> against the right to dispossess not only capitalists in general but in
> particular the settlers who sustained a racist dictatorship.
>
> Since the petition makes by implication favourable reference to the rule of
> law, it should be recalled that white rule in Rhodesia was sustained by
> armed rebellion against a democratically-elected government (that of the
> UK).
>
> Most of what the petition coyly refers to as "commercial farmers" in fact
> deserve to be hung as traitors, and numbers of them will have war records
> that would probably still be vulnerable to charges of crimes against
> humanity.
>
> Julian
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: nicola taylor [SMTP:nmtaylor@carmen.murdoch.edu.au]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2000 5:07 PM
> > To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> > Cc: jhutch@central.murdoch.edu.au
> > Subject: [OPE-L:2912] Zimbabwe Petition
> >
> > The current situation in Zimbabwe is critical. After 20 years in power,
> > the
> > Mugabe Government is faced with widespread opposition from within the
> > workers movement and other sections of Zimbabwean civil society, united
> > under the banner of the Movement for Democratic Change. The recent spate
> > of
> > "Farm Invasions" is an open abuse of the rule of law, and is intended to
> > divert attention away from the political and economic abuses of the ruling
> > ZANU-PF party before the election. Indeed, there is a very real danger
> > that
> > Mugabe will not allow an election to take place at all, and may use
> > 'Emergency Powers' legislation to justify increasing violence against
> > workers, farmers and his political opponents. The position taken by
> > front-line states (especially South Africa) will be a deciding factor in
> > any decision by the Mugabe government to attempt to derail the process of
> > political change. I urge you to petition the South African government, on
> > behalf of FRIENDS OF ZIMBABWE. Please also forward the petition to your
> > friends and associates,
> > comradely,
> > Nicky
> >
> > ------------------------
> > FRIENDS OF ZIMBABWE: PETITION
> >
> > >Please lend your support by copying and pasting this e-mail (including
> > these instructions), adding your name to the list below and then sending
> > the e-mail on to all the people you know. The 100th recipient is to please
> > send a copy to the President's Office at president@po.gov.za
> > >mailto:president@po.gov.za> and a copy to
> > >savezim@saol.com <mailto:savezim@saol.com> after sending the
> > >petition on to others. The 101st person to start a new list and so on.
> > Keep it tidy by omitting unnecessary headers and footers.
> > >
> > FRIENDS OF ZIMBABWE
> > PETITION
> > >
> > >TO : THE HONOURABLE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA MR THABO
> > MBEKI AND THE CABINET
> > >
> > We note with concern recent events in Zimbabwe and with even greater
> > concern the ominous silence of the South African Government in the face of
> > gross injustice.
> > >
> > We hereby petition you :
> > >
> > 1. To unreservedly and unconditionally condemn the forced removals of
> > commercial farmers by ZANU PF and Mugabe government agents;
> > 2. To unreservedly and unconditionally condemn the mindless attacks by
> > ZANU
> > PF and Mugabe Government agents on peaceful and unarmed demonstrators;
> > 3. To unreservedly and unconditionally condemn the failure by the
> > Mugabe Government to uphold the rule of law and democracy in Zimbabwe;
> > 4. To withhold all assistance to the Mugabe government unless and until
> > Mugabe restores the rule of law and holds free and fair elections;
> > 5. To investigate, lobby for and implement possible sanctions against the
> > Mugabe government pending the restoration of law and order, the release of
> > political detainees and the holding of free and fair elections.
> > >
> > >FRIENDS OF ZIMBABWE
> > >SIGNED:
> > >
> > >1. I Esat, Durban
> > >2. A J Pike, Durban
> > >3. A Donnelly, Durban
> > >4. S Chetwynd-Palmer, Durban
> > >5. Q Van der Merwe, Durban
> > >6. B Saunders, Durban
> > >7. M Reeves,Durban
> > >8. S Coyne, Durban
> > >9. K Lancaster, London
> > >10. Ewen Cameron, London
> > >11. Tremayne Parvin, London
> > >12. M Tripp, London
> > >13. J. Mostyn, Vancouver,Canada
> > >14. N. Taylor, Australia
> >
> > ________________________________________________________________________
> > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> I endorse Julian's sentiments.
>
> What the petition amounts to is demand that the rights
> of landlords be upheld against those of landless peasants,
> I have no sympathy with it.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Hi Fred,
>
> I'm very glad you we agree!
>
> Annotated response below.
>
> Date sent: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 09:35:58 -0400 (EDT)
> From: "Fred B. Moseley" <fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu>
> To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> Subject: [OPE-L:2907] Re: Re: Re: Re: re:starting points
> Send reply to: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
>
> >
> > Andy, I think we now pretty much agree on Banaji's interpretation of
> > Marx's "double starting-point." I think I agree with everything with you
> > say in your latest (below). But there is one point that I do not
> > understand. In your sequence of categories, you have:
> > commodity
> > use-value
> > exchange-value
> > value (congealed abstract socially necessary labor-time)
> > COMMODITY-FORM [emphasis added]
> > money-form
> > capital-form
> >
> > I do not understand what you mean by "commodity-form" in this sequence and
> > how this "commodity-form" differs from the "commodity" with which the
> > sequence begins. Would you please explain further?
>
> By 'commodity-form' I mean the commodity now grasped as, and
> positing itself as, a value. This is indeed the same 'commodity' with
> which the sequence of categories starts. But to start with I had not
> grasped the significance of the commodity. As it immediately appears
> the commodity is simply something which has use-value and exchange
> value. Exchange value is not yet grasped as a form of value. Rather, it
> appears simply to be a quantitative relation between things. Looking
> at the matter more closely it turns out that exchange value is a form of
> value and that value is objectified abstract social labour. Armed with
> this information I am able to return to the commodity to comprehend
> the social significance of the exchange relation; viz. that it is the way in
> which one commodity is able to express (give an appearance form to)
> its value; it reflects its value into the equivalent commodity. The value
> of one commodity gains appearance form in the use-value of another.
> This, then, is the 'commodity-form'. The most elementary form of
> value.
>
> >
> > You also say that the "commodity-form" is the "concrete historical
> > synonym" of value. What does "concrete historical synonym" mean?
> > Why is the "concrete historical synonym" of value the "commodity-form" and
> > not the "money-form"?
>
> Well, yes, this is more tricky. I know Banaji says it but what on earth
> does he mean?! I guess he means that the synthetic point of departure,
> value, is not itself complete until we have shown how value gains an
> appearance form (gains 'reality'); this it does in the commodity-form.
> Now, I can can grasp that 'value' *needs* a form (this is Hegelian
> essence logic I believe), without yet establishing what the form is.
> When I do establish what the form is then I have the actual historical
> manifestation, or counterpart, or synonym, for my abstract concept of
> value. (regarding the money-form; at this stage, money *is* a
> commodity. The money-form is a more concrete and complex
> development of the commodity-form - it is just that it is not the
> simplest expression of value, which is the 'simple commodity-form'.
> Granted, this simple expression is 'inadequate').
>
> I am afraid this latter paragraph may be complete rubbish; I look
> forward very much to any corrections. Regarding the former
> paragraph, then Marx's move to value and then to abstract socially
> necessary labour immediately strikes any reader as something like an
> assumption, at best (eg. Rakesh's last post). Or more
> straightforwardly it looks like an illegitimate deduction. Yet, this is not
> so if one recognises that (1) identical powers must stem from identical
> substances [one day I hope to get the time to reply to Michael
> Williams' long and illuminating post on value, posted some time back.
> To answer one question you posed, Michael: the identical power
> shared by commodities is 'exchangeability']; (2) Marx has already
> established a great deal of transhistorical knowledge which is
> presupposed in Capital and is commonly known as the materialist
> conception of history. Given these presuppostions it is indeed entirely
> obvious and straightforward that the substance of value is labour (but,
> of course, it must be labour of a very peculiar sort).
>
> Thanks very much - I hope this isn't all just total gobbledegook.
>
> Andy
>
> >
> > Looking forward to further discussion,
> > Fred
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Andrew Brown wrote:
> >
> > > Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 14:42:16 GMT0BST
> > > From: Andrew Brown <A.N.Brown@uel.ac.uk>
> > > Reply-To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> > > To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> > > Subject: [OPE-L:2899] Re: Re: Re: re:starting points
> > >
> > > I read Banaji's article to death some years back. Great to see the
> > > interest in him now.
> > >
> > > Having looked at the article again, some suggestions:
> > >
> > > First, Fred is right that Banaji stresses two points of departure, not
> > > three (as I had orginally and mistakenly suggested). Nicky is right,
> > > also, to stress the beginning as a *movement* between the two. The
> > > two points of departure are (1) the 'commodity' (as 'Schein' or
> > > immediate so illusory being) and (2) 'value' (NOT 'value-form')
> > > whose concrete historical synonym is the 'commodity-form'.
> > >
> > > However, I don't think I was all that far off the mark in suggesting
> > > three starting points. This is because value is only the 'abstract
> > > essence' of Marx's investigation; in its 'concrete essence' value posits
> > > itself as capital (M-C-M'). This latter is the most abstract definition of
> > > capital, one which Marx goes on to develop more and more
> > > concretely. Thus the 'double structure' of the beginning is indeed a
> > > movement from Being to Essence; a movement between two points of
> > > departure; but it is vital to note that value [the second point of
> > > departure] is only the 'abstract essence' of Marx's investigation;
> > > capital being the 'concrete essence'. [I should add that Banaji himself
> > > does not say absolutely explicitly that capital is the 'concrete essence'].
> > >
> > > Alfredo, the notion of 'two points of departure' is fairly clear from the
> > > first few pages of Volume one, chapter one: Marx starts with the
> > > 'commodity' as the immediate appearance of bourgeois wealth; he
> > > then analyses it (the commodity as analytic point of departure) first
> > > into use value and exchange value, next (looking at the matter more
> > > closely) reaching the concept 'value', of which exchange value is the
> > > form. Marx returns to the commodity, but now he grasps the
> > > commodity as a form of value. Value, or the commodity*-form*, is
> > > then the synthetic point of departure from which Marx derives the
> > > money-form and then the capital-form.
> > >
> > > The sequence of categories entailed is: commodity, use-value,
> > > exchange value, value [here we get congealed abstract socially
> > > necessary labour], commodity-form, money-form, capital-form. In
> > > general, I don't think that the various presentations of systematic
> > > dialectics follow the above sequence (eg. I interpret Tony Smith,
> > > 1990, as starting from the 'synthetic' point of departure - value - so
> > > missing out the first three categories of the above sequence; Chris
> > > Arthur rejects the introduction of labour so early in the presentation.
> > > Apologies if I have mis-interpreted).
> > >
> > > For myself, looking back at Banaji, I am a little bit apprehensive that
> > > he cites Itoh's criticisms of Marx (regarding the illegitimate discussion
> > > of value prior to the discussion of money). This would then have,
> > > perhaps, some resonance with the 'value-form' criticisms of Marx
> > > (with which I disagree). I don't think that Banaji refers to 'congealed'
> > > abstract labour quite as I would. But he does refer to the abstract
> > > reified form of labour so, to the extent that I can grasp it at all (few,
> > > it's tough going!), I pretty much agree with Banaji's interpretation.
> > >
> > > Many thanks,
> > >
> > > Andy
> > >
> > >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Reply to Paul Z's [OPE-L:2878]:
>
> 1) Of course, I agree that we only have so much time available and
> have to make decisions about the most "productive" use of our
> time and energy. Thus, as you suggest, time allocated for
> scholarly activities must be considered in relationship to
> possible other uses of time, such as time spent being politically
> active. This, however, is not what is at issue here in this
> exchange.
>
> 2) I strongly agree that we need to move Marx's political economy
> "FORWARD". Indeed, as you recall, that was the main consideration
> that led to the creation of this list. On the other hand, the
> task of moving forward beyond Marx pre-supposes a comprehension
> of what went before us, including a understanding of Marx's
> method. So, the task of moving forward also requires us to look
> back and critique. This, however, is not what has been at
> issue in the current exchange.
>
> 3) When you assert that we need not do "what Althusser did for
> us" (i.e. consider the indluence of Hegel on Marx), you approach
> our disagreement. Whatever the merits (or lack thereof) of
> Althusser's views on this subject, *no secondary source* can
> serve as a substitute for the reading of the primary sources
> by Marx and Hegel. This should be a simple issue that scholars
> should be able to agree to. Similarly (by way of analogy), a
> reading of Hollander on Smith can not serve as a substitute to
> reading Smith if one wants to understand Smith. I wouldn't
> have thought that this was a controversial position.
>
> 4) You said that my previous statement that condemning "those who
> have attacked Marx without bothering to read Marx seriously"
> was "too vague in its lack of class content". Then, let me
> be less vague. I was thinking especially of those "scholars",
> particularly in a university setting, who have attacked Marx
> without bothering to seriously read Marx. I'm sure we can
> think of examples at the different schools where we teach ....
> This is not an acceptable standard for those who claim to
> be scholars. I.e. the demands of scholarship require that one
> read the sources that one claims to be an authority on. Thus,
> if one were a philosopher giving a talk on the intellectual
> relationship of Plato to Aristotle, one would be expected to
> have read both Aristotle and Plato (as well as relevant
> secondary sources). Similarly, if one was an economist who
> was writing on the influence of Ricardo on J.S. Mill, one
> should be expected to have read both Ricardo and J.S. Mill.
>
> 5) One would not expect that Guiliani or the [gusano] supporters
> of Lazaro Gonzalez to have made a serious study of Marx.
> And, of course, they don't claim that they have done so.
> Thus, it is a non-issue ... at least in terms of this
> exchange. However, to the extent that *anyone* claims to
> know "what Marx meant", then a minimal standard -- from a
> scholarly perspective -- should be that they should have
> read Marx. If they have not read Marx but claim nonetheless
> to be an authority on Marx, then whatever they have to say
> on Marx can be discounted.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Re Rakesh's [OPE-L:2911]:
>
> The government uses the criteria of *income* as a proxy for "class".
> Thus, "middle class" is defined in terms of income. This is the
> "formalistic" criteria that is used by the government. The government
> *certainly* does not use the criteria of "ownership and control of
> the means of production".
>
> Thus, when you highlight the hourly net income received by self-
> employed truckers who own their own rigs, you are using the
> government's criteria of income to establish class.
>
> It is, of course, true that there are truckers who are wage-earners
> who are employed by capitalists and their are truckers who are
> "independent contractors" (i.e. they own their own rig and are self-
> employed), but this is not a inconsequential "formalistic" difference
> when it comes to comprehending class. Similarly, there are
> agricultural proletarians employed by capital who sometimes engage
> in the production of the same commodities as land-owning peasants.
> Indeed, it is often the case -- as with truck drives -- that the waged-
> workers receive more income than their petty-bourgeois counter-
> parts. Whether a truck driver earns $8/hr. or $50/hr is besides the
> point, however.
>
> btw, I wonder: do you know how much money is required (though
> savings and/or loan) to buy a large trucking rig?
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Fred and I have been discussing whether, in Marx's theory, the sum of
> value transferred from means of production to products is determined by
> the current cost of the means of production when they enter production or
> by their post-production replacement cost.
>
> This message, and the three posts that accompany it, continue my end of
> the discussion, supplementing my OPE-L 2603. The accompanying posts are
> the sections of a recent paper of mine, "The Need for a Genuinely
> Empirical Criterion of Decidability among Interpretations." "Need 1" is
> section 1 of the paper. "Need 2" is section 2. "Need 3" includes
> section 3, references, and endnotes.
>
> This paper is a response to a paper that Fred presented at the EEA
> conference last month. His paper, in turn, is a critique of a paper of
> mine that I posted to the list last year, which has been published in the
> latest volume (1999) of _Beitraege zur Marx-Engels Forschung_. (This
> volume also carries papers by Chris Arthur, Alejandro Ramos, Georg
> Stamatis -- the editor of the courageous journal _Political Economy_ --
> and others you might know.)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> THE NEED FOR A GENUINELY EMPIRICAL CRITERION OF DECIDABILITY AMONG
> INTERPRETATIONS: COMMENTS ON A PAPER OF FRED MOSELEY'S
>
> Andrew Kliman, March 14, 2000; revised, April 27, 2000. Please do not
> quote or cite without permission.
>
> 1. DOGMA AND APPEALS TO AUTHORITY vs. EMPIRICAL DEMONSTRATION
>
> Fred Moseley's (2000) "The Determination of Constant Capital in the Case
> of a Change in the Value of the Means of Production" is a critique of my
> "Determination of Value in Marx and in Bortkiewiczian Theory" (Kliman
> 1999a). [1] Although the present paper is a rejoinder, I am
> oppressively aware that I will not convince him, and I am oppressively
> aware that I will not convince any proponent of simultaneist
> interpretations of Marx's value theory.
>
> That in itself does not bother me, because it is the disinterested reader
> I have in mind. But the danger is that the disinterested reader, seeing
> that a debate is ongoing, will wrongly take this as evidence that the
> issues have not been decisively resolved. Perhaps s/he will even
> conclude that "the truth is somewhere in the middle," in other words that
> Marx's theory is riven with internal inconsistencies. To head off such a
> reaction, I want to say two things to the disinterested reader. First,
> the fact that the opponents of the temporal single-system (TSS)
> interpretation of Marx's value theory are not and will not be persuaded
> has no bearing upon whether it is correct. Second, the reason its
> opponents keep arguing and resisting is that they refuse to accept
> genuinely empirical criteria in order to decide whether an interpretation
> is correct or not.
>
> That people oppose a new truth even after it has been demonstrated is far
> from uncommon. The _New York Times_ (March 11, 2000, p. A1) recently
> reported that a nationwide poll in the U.S. found that "almost half the
> respondents agreed that the theory [of evolution] 'is far from being
> proven scientifically'." But this is not only, or even especially, a
> problem among the uninformed public. The greatest resistance to new
> truths comes from the experts. IT IS THE EXPERTS WHO HAVE A STAKE IN AND
> COMMITMENT TO THE OLD IDEAS, AND THEY WHO HAVE THE MOST DIFFICULTY IN
> BREAKING FREE FROM THEIR ACCUSTOMED CATEGORIES AND WAYS OF THINKING.
>
> Max Planck (1949:33-34), who developed quantum field theory, complained
> that "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents
> and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents
> eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
> The historical record provides ample evidence of this. Kuhn
> (1970:150-51) notes that "Copernicanism made few converts for almost a
> century after Copernicus' death. Newton's work was not generally
> accepted, particularly on the Continent, for more than half a century
> after the _Principia_ appeared. Priestly never accepted the oxygen
> theory, nor Lord Kelvin the electromagnetic theory, and so on."
>
> The historical record thus suggests two things. First, the reaction to
> the TSS interpretation that has come from simultaneist quarters is
> precisely what one might expect, even if the subject matter were not
> "political economy, [in which] free scientific inquiry does not merely
> meet the same enemies as in all other domains" (Marx 1977:92, "Preface to
> the First Edition" of _Capital_). Second, that proponents of
> simultaneism refuse to accept the TSS interpretation does not make it any
> less true.
>
> But what *explains* their refusal to accept it? It is not merely that
> they find it hard to break free from their accustomed categories and ways
> of thinking. If this were the only problem, they could acknowledge that,
> even though the TSS interpretation makes no sense to them, the empirical
> evidence nonetheless confirms that it is correct. The acknowledgement
> might go something like this:
>
> The TSS interpretation doesn't make sense to me. It contradicts what I'
> ve always thought _Capital_ is all about, and I don't think I'll ever be
> able to shake the gut feeling that it contradicts what Marx actually
> wrote. I just can't see how the proponents of the TSS interpretation can
> read the texts the way they do. But I've got to admit that the evidence
> shows the TSS interpretation is correct: WHEN YOU DO READ THE TEXTS THE
> WAY THEY DO, MARX'S VALUE THEORY BECOMES A COHERENT WHOLE. All of the
> things we all thought were errors or internal inconsistencies in Marx
> turn out not to be. They've cleared up all the problems. And what more
> can I say? Proof is proof. Now, don't get me wrong -- there's no way I'
> m going to embrace the wrongheaded, unscientific drivel that the TSS
> interpretation turns Marx's value theory into. But I have to admit that
> this wrongheaded, unscientific drivel really is Marx's. That's what the
> evidence shows. So I guess I'll just have to accept that I don't like
> Marx's value theory. I don't agree with it. [2]
>
> The proponents of simultaneism will acknowledge nothing of this sort.
> They will keep on refusing to accept that the TSS interpretation is
> correct. And that is because they refuse to use genuinely empirical
> criteria in order to decide among interpretations.
>
> At the 1999 miniconference of the International Working Group on Value
> Theory, I asked a prominent proponent of simultaneism under what
> conditions he would be prepared to accept that his interpretation was
> incorrect. Although it is a simple and rather obvious question, he had
> no answer to it. (I doubt that many natural scientists, faced with the
> analogous question concerning their theories, would have trouble
> answering it.) But if one can think of nothing that would falsify one's
> interpretation, it is literally and precisely a dogma.
>
> Nor was this particular proponent of simultaneism the only one who had no
> answer. None of them had an answer. The only one who even gave it a
> shot was Fred Moseley. He eventually said that textual evidence must be
> used to decide whether an interpretation is correct and, if the existing
> evidence is insufficient, then there needs to be more evidence. But as I
> pointed out at the time, this doesn't answer my question. *Of course*
> one refers to the textual evidence. Yet the problem is that, referring
> to the exact same textual evidence, temporalists and simultaneists again
> and again and again come to opposite conclusions. We read it
> differently. It therefore just doesn't help to say "look at the
> evidence"; that is a pseudo-criterion. What is needed, instead, are
> genuinely empirical criteria of decidability. One needs to be able to
> specify THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH ONE WOULD ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE
> EVIDENCE FALSIFIES ONE'S INTERPRETATION. If one cannot, then one is
> holding fast to it dogmatically.
>
> Reading Fred's paper, I see that nothing has changed. He continues to
> put forth his pseudo-criterion: "the main criterion for choosing between
> different interpretations . IS WHAT MARX ACTUALLY WROTE about this
> subject. One should read everything Marx wrote on this subject, in
> systematic and chronological fashion" (Moseley, 2000, introductory
> section). Okay, and then what? What would Marx need to have written
> that would lead you to conclude that your interpretation is incorrect?
> Fred still fails to answer this question.
>
> Without genuinely empirical critieria of decidability, without some
> standards that exist *outside* the interpreter's own head, we have a
> vicious circle in which an interpretation is allowed to confirm itself.
> One reads the texts and arrives at an interpretation. Then one does what
> Fred recommends; one reads some more. But one necessarily does so ON THE
> BASIS OF one's own interpretation -- its concepts, its delineation of the
> issues, its notion of what constitutes textual evidence, and so forth.
> Is it any wonder, then, that one finds that the new evidence confirms one
> 's interpretation and contradicts one's opponents' interpretation? Fred'
> s recommendation thus allows the proponents of one interpretation to
> decide that "the evidence" shows that their interpretation is correct and
> the contrary interpretation is wrong. It is as if you were to ride into
> a small Southern town, get picked up by the chief of police and, since
> this same individual also serves as the town's prosecutor, judge, and
> jury, you are quickly sent up the river, never to be heard from again.
> Meanwhile, the chief of police/prosecutor/judge/jury counts the ballots
> in the local election and finds that he's been unanimously re-elected.
>
> This is not a mere abstract possibility; it is precisely the method of
> Fred's paper. He claims to conduct "a comprehensive review of everything
> Marx wrote on this subject of the determination of constant capital in
> the case of a change in the value of the means of production" (Moseley,
> 20000, end of introductory section). But who is it that has decided what
> evidence is "on this subject" and what is off the subject? FRED MOSELEY.
> As I will discuss in greater detail below, he ignores the most crucial
> piece of evidence I presented in my paper, Marx's critique of Ramsay. In
> this text, Marx EXPLICITLY ASSUMES THAT THE VALUE OF THE MEANS OF
> PRODUCTION IS CHANGING, and he computes the value transferred according
> to the current cost of the means of production when they enter
> production, not according to their post-production replacement cost. The
> reason Fred ignores this text is *not* that he lacked the time to finish
> his critique of my paper; it is absent from his own "comprehensive review
> of everything Marx wrote on this subject," which he did complete.
>
> And who has decided what "this subject" is and isn't? FRED MOSELEY. As
> I will also discuss below, he defines the subject as the "determination
> of constant capital," a concept I reject as overly broad, vague, and
> misleading. Moreover, he dismisses a whole slew of evidence I presented
> because it supposedly does not pertain to the determination of the sum of
> value transferred "in the case of a change in the value of the means of
> production." But who is it that has decided that my evidence does not
> pertain to that case? FRED MOSELEY. Whose criterion of what pertains
> and what doesn't did he employ? FRED MOSELEY'S. And finally, who is it
> that has decided what each of the texts mean and what the evidence as a
> whole indicates? FRED MOSELEY, and FRED MOSELEY.
>
> Any guesses as to whose interpretation he finds to be supported by his
> "comprehensive review"?
>
> There does exist a simple and widely accepted method for breaking out
> of this closed circle, an empirical criterion of decidability. I have
> proposed it persistently for several years now, most recently in the
> paper Fred critiques, but he and other proponents of simultaneism have
> just as consistently rejected it or ignored it. What is even worse, he
> distorts it beyond recognition. It is very telling that in a paper so
> chock-full of quotations, some of which are nearly 500 words long, he
> chooses to give readers his interpretation of the criterion without also
> letting my own words speak for themselves.
>
> According to Fred's account, my "main criterion for choosing between
> different interpretations . is which interpretation can better derive
> more of Marx's main conclusions (most importantly, the falling rate of
> profit)." This is appallingly wrong, but it gets worse. Later in the
> paragraph, he opposes to this his pseudo-criterion of reading everything
> Marx wrote, which gives the distinct impression that I favor the
> criterion of "deriving results" without regard to, and instead of,
> referring to the textual evidence. Even worse, as the paragraph
> continues, "better derive more of Marx's main conclusions" morphs into
> what "makes it easier to derive a falling rate of profit."
>
> What "makes it easier to derive a falling rate of profit" is simply not
> at issue, not at all. It is exceedingly easy to derive a falling rate of
> profit in any manner of ways. The simplest is to assume that capitalists
> destroy all the output; the profit rate falls to -100%. But this has
> nothing to do with "WHAT MARX ACTUALLY WROTE about this subject," and
> PRECISELY BECAUSE it does not, I reject the notion that it is evidence of
> interpretive adequacy. An accurate interpretation of Marx's value theory
> must be able to show that the rate of profit can fall FOR THE REASONS HIS
> THEORY INDICATES, ON THE BASIS OF HIS OWN, ACTUAL PREMISES. [3] In
> particular, since "Marx actually wrote" -- not once, but over and over --
> that the profit rate falls because productivity rises, an accurate
> interpretation must be able to reproduce the cause as well as the effect.
> And it must do so without violating any of his other premises, for
> instance that no capitalist voluntarily adopts a new technique that will
> lower his own rate of profit. Simultaneist interpretations cannot do so.
> The TSS interpretation does.
>
> In any case, the point is not to derive Marx's conclusions, but to test
> whether an interpretation does conform to what "Marx actually wrote."
> HIS THEORETICAL CONCLUSIONS -- TAKEN TOGETHER WITH THE PREMISES THAT LEAD
> TO THESE CONCLUSIONS -- ARE A PART, A LARGE PART, OF WHAT "MARX ACTUALLY
> WROTE." Once one recognizes this exceeding simple but continually
> overlooked fact, it is clear that we can reject as inaccurate any
> interpretation that, deploying its reading of his theory's premises, is
> unable to arrive at its conclusions.
>
> As I discuss in detail in Kliman (2000), all simultaneist interpretations
> fail many applications of this test, while the TSS interpetation passes
> them all. And as I show in Kliman (1999b), simultaneist interpretations
> are unable even to replicate Marx's conclusion that surplus-labor is
> necessary and sufficient for profit to exist, even in the absence of
> joint production!
>
> But all of these instances are merely *applications* of the criterion of
> decidability I have proposed. Despite what Fred writes, the replication
> of theoretical results is *not* the criterion itself. So what is it?
> Let me quote from the paper of mine (Kliman 1999a, emphases added) he
> critiques:
>
> It is a standard tenet of hermeneutics that A TEXTUAL INTERPRETATION IS
> ADEQUATE TO THE DEGREE THAT IT CAN UNDERSTAND THE TEXT AS A COHERENT
> WHOLE. This may be impossible -- the text may indeed be
> self-contradictory -- but if it is possible, then AN INTERPRETATION
> ACCORDING TO WHICH THE TEXT FORMS A UNIFIED WHOLE IS SUPERIOR TO ONE THAT
> DOES NOT. Apparent self-contradictions are prima facie indications of
> the interpreter's misunderstanding (see, e.g., Warnke 1993:21).
>
> So I certainly agree with Fred that an accurate interpretation must
> conform to what the author actually wrote. But I go much further. I
> insist that it must not merely seem to conform to this or that passage or
> set of passages, when they are considered in isolation. An accurate
> interpretation must be able to conform to the text when it is considered
> AS A WHOLE. And again, theoretical results, taken together with their
> premises, are PART OF THAT WHOLE.
>
> Testing interpretations against the original theory's conclusions
> provides a broad test and, more importantly, a GENUINELY EMPIRICAL test,
> of their relative adequacy. It provides a clear and simple answer to
> the question I posed last year. I will ask it of myself. Under what
> conditions would I be prepared to accept that my interpretation is
> incorrect? Answer: if my interpretation cannot reproduce the original
> theory's conclusions on the basis of its premises. That's not so hard,
> is it? Why is Fred and why are other proponents of simultaneist
> interpretations unwilling to judge their interpretations according to the
> same test?
>
> Deciding among interpretations according to how well they conform to the
> text as a whole is, as I have noted, a widely accepted criterion that has
> been worked out and refined over centuries. I therefore think it is
> ill-advised to brush it aside and caricature it as Fred has does, or to
> give it the silent treatment that has come from simultaneist circles in
> general. But I am not one who maintains that authority or tradition are
> necessarily right, so if Fred or other proponents of simultaneism have
> any *argument* against deciding among interpretations by how well they
> conform to the text as a whole, I am willing to listen. Or if they have
> any *argument* that theoretical results are not part of the text as a
> whole, and therefore that an adequate interpretation need not conform to
> them, I am willing to listen. But they first have to provide us with
> these arguments, and stop stonewalling and caricaturing.
>
> And let's get real. Please don't tell me that the original theory may be
> internally inconsistent, so you don't have to replicate its conclusions.
> I have dealt with that objection many times, most recently in footnote 3
> of the present paper. And I do so again now: if there exists an
> interpretation that is able to resolve the apparent internal
> inconsistencies, the original theory cannot be said to be internally
> inconsistent. So you *do indeed* have to replicate its conclusions. HIC
> RHODUS, HIC SALTA.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> 2. HOW NOT TO READ _CAPITAL_, OR ANYTHING ELSE
>
> Some things Fred writes simply overlook the evidence in front of him.
> For instance, he asserts baldly that "Constant capital can indeed *exist
> prior* to production, but the precise magnitude of this constant capital
> *can change*, if there is a change in the value of the means of
> production" (Moseley, 2000, section 2.3, near top). He writes this as if
> I had not presented a great deal of textual evidence -- some of which he
> even quotes -- in which Marx does address the issue of magnitude, and in
> which he says that the *precise magnitude* of the value transferred is
> determined by the pre-production cost of the means of production. [4]
>
> I could continue with a laundry list of other problems with his
> arguments, but I want to concentrate instead on two really fundamental
> weaknesses, weaknesses in Fred's *method* of reading the textual
> evidence. The first is that HE BRINGS FAR TOO FEW CONCEPTUAL
> DISTINCTIONS TO THE TEXTS. He refers repeatedly to the "determination of
> constant capital." This is a catch-all concept that suppresses many
> necessary distinctions. For instance, it suppresses the distinctions
> between the determination of the sum of value advanced for the
> acquisition of means of production, the sum of value transferred from
> used-up means of production to the product, and the value of the means of
> production themselves.
>
> Fred does make a distinction between the "stock of constant capital" and
> the "flow of constant capital." But there are several problems with this
> distinction. First, these concepts are ill-defined or, more precisely,
> left undefined (this allows him to avoid recognizing that he is using the
> same concept to refer to different things). Second, they are *not* Marx'
> s own concepts. Fred imposes them on the texts, thereby distorting the
> meaning of the texts. Most importantly, just like "determination of
> constant capital," the stock/flow distinction conflates value and
> use-value aspects of determination. For instance, the "flow of constant
> capital" presumably covers both the sum of value transferred from used-up
> means of production and the value of these used-up means of production,
> which are two quite distinct things.
>
> Because he works with too few concepts, Fred fails to distinguish between
> several different issues. They all pertain to the "determination of
> constant capital," so he lumps them all together. Yet they are distinct
> issues. Quite a high percentage of the "evidence" in his paper is thus
> simply irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the issue -- the sole
> issue -- I discussed in my paper, namely whether, in Marx's theory, "the
> value transferred from inputs depends on their post-production
> replacement cost" (Kliman, 1999a, section 3). Fred chastizes me for not
> mentioning a passage in the _Poverty of Philosophy_ and for "miss[ing]"
> many in the _Grundrisse_ and the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (Moseley
> 2000, section 2.3, beginning and end). But it was for a good reason
> that I didn't discuss these passages. They do not pertain to the
> determination of the sum of value transferred.
>
> More importantly, because Fred works with too few concepts, he ends up
> juggling their distinct meanings, mixing and matching them. He thereby
> makes passages appear to refer to one thing when they in fact refer to
> another. For instance, passages which indicate that the value of means
> of production can change after they enter production (big surprise) getstatements, statements which thereby cover the particular case of
> changing technology within themselves.
>
> Yet Fred tries to deny that Marx's statements are unambiguous (Moseley,
> 2000, section 2.3, middle). Inverting the relationship between the
> general and the particular, he contends that the statements do not apply
> in the particular case in which technology is changing because Marx did
> not state explicitly that they do apply in this case.
>
> I am sorry, that is simply not how the explication and definition of
> concepts works. At the start of _Capital_, Marx (1977:128) writes that
> the common property of commodities is that they are products of abstract
> labor. He does not state explicitly that this applies when technology is
> changing. Does his statement thereby fail to cover this special case?
> On the next page, he writes that the exclusive determinant of the value
> of any article is the labor-time socially necessary for its production.
> Again, he does not state explicitly that this claim applies when
> technology is changing, so does the claim fail to apply when it does? I
> could of course produce tens of thousands of similar examples, from
> almost every paragraph Marx ever wrote, but I really think these two have
> been sufficient to make the point: the particular case of changing
> technology is included under general statements unless otherwise
> indicated.
>
> But Fred doesn't only say that Marx's general statements fail to cover
> the particular case. He compounds the error by asserting that, since the
> passages in question are not "in the context of a discussion of the
> determination of constant capital IN THE CASE OF A CHANGE IN THE VALUE OF
> THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION [, . i]mplicitly, all these passages are under
> the assumption that the value of the means of production does not change"
> (Moseley, 2000, section 2.3, middle). How does he think he knows this?
> He provides not a bit of evidence to substantiate this bald assertion of
> what Marx "implicitly" assumed. He just pulls it out of thin air.
> Perhaps, however, Fred thinks it is a logical deduction. If that is the
> case, let me simply point out how illogical it is. With equal
> justification -- i.e., none -- he could assert that, since the passages
> in question are not "in the context of a discussion of the determination
> of constant capital IN THE CASE IN WHICH CAPITALISTS INVEST SOME OF THEIR
> PROFITS [, . i]mplicitly, all these passages are under the assumption
> that the capitalists invest none of their profits"! The applicability of
> the statements is "therefore" restricted to the case in which capitalists
> invest none of their profits! The structure of the two arguments is
> exactly the same.
>
> The really sad thing is that such logical howlers are not Fred's
> invention. They have become mainstays of simultaneist discourse. What
> is at work is the modern version of the myth that Marx assumed in
> _Capital_ I that organic compositions of capital are equal. After all,
> since in passage after passage in which he considered the determination
> of value in Volume I, Marx did not do so "in the context of a discussion
> of the determination of value IN THE CASE IN WHICH ORGANIC COMPOSITIONS
> VARY ACROSS INDUSTRIES [, . i]mplicitly, all these passages are under the
> assumption that organic compositions are equal." This is indeed the
> "justification" that was used to perpetuate the myth of equal capital
> compositions, and the same kind of "justification" is regularly used by
> proponents of simultaneism to dismiss scads of textual evidence that
> contradicts their interpretation.
>
> And this brings us to the real point: the illogic is not innocent.
> Anyone can make a mistake, but when the employment of an illogical
> argument becomes regular, accepted practice, it is no accident. Illogic
> is employed because it *must* be employed in order to avoid admitting
> that one's interpretation is incorrect. The actual chain of reasoning
> goes like this:
>
> 1. My interpretation contradicts Marx's actual statements except in the
> case in which technology is not changing (organic compositions are
> equal).
>
> 2. A correct interpretation of a statement cannot contradict the
> statement.
>
> 3. My interpretation is correct.
>
> Ergo, 4. My interpretation does not contradict Marx's statements.
>
> Ergo, 5. Marx assumed that technology is not changing (organic
> compositions are equal).
>
> 6. But he said nothing of the sort.
>
> Ergo, 7. He assumed it without saying it; he *implicitly* assumed
> that technology is not changing (organic compositions are equal).
>
> The source of the erroneous conclusion is clear. The third premise, the
> dogmatic assertion that one's interpretation is correct, is false. The
> sound chain of reasoning in this case is:
>
> 1. My interpretation contradicts Marx's actual statements except in the
> case in which technology is not changing (organic compositions are
> equal).
>
> 2. A correct interpretation of a statement cannot contradict the
> statement.
>
> Ergo, 3'. My interpretation is incorrect unless Marx assumed technology
> is not changing (organic compositions are equal).
>
> 6. But he said nothing of the sort.
>
> Ergo, 7'. My interpretation is incorrect.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> 3. THIS TEXTUAL EVIDENCE, WHICH "MARX ACTUALLY WROTE," DOESN'T PERTAIN
> TO "THE DETERMINATION OF CONSTANT CAPITAL IN THE CASE OF A CHANGE IN THE
> VALUE OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION"? ARE YOU KIDDING?
>
> As I have noted, Fred's paper does not address the most crucial piece of
> evidence I presented, and the reason is *not* that his paper is
> unfinished. Apparently, Fred thinks it somehow does not pertain to the
> topic of his paper. The evidence is Marx's critique of Ramsay's early
> articulation of a physicalist conception of profitability. Marx
> EXPLICITLY ASSUMES THAT TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING, and according to his
> calculations the sum of value transferred from the means of production to
> the product is determined by the price of the means of production when
> they enter production, not their post-production replacement cost.
>
> What makes the critique of Ramsay such a crucial piece of evidence is
> that it is much less easy to distort than most of the evidence. When one
> deals only with Marx's words, it is always easy to twist and turn them
> around in order to make him appear to say the opposite of what he
> actually said. But in this case, rather than merely *discussing* how the
> value transferred is determined, Marx *shows* how it is determined. He
> actually CARRIES OUT THE CALCULATIONS. One's interpretation either
> succeeds or fails to reproduce his calculations. The TSS interpretation
> reproduces them. The "replacement cost" interpretation fails to do so.
>
> Ramsay maintained that if, due to rising productivity, a smaller share of
> total output is needed to replace inputs, the profit rate must rise.
> Marx challenged this contention by constructing a few numerical examples.
> The one most relevant to the present discussion is summarized in Table 1.
> All figures in boldface are Marx's own -- what he "actually wrote"; the
> others are inferred from the context.
>
> ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
>
> Table 1
> ========================================================================
> Constant Cap.
> Input Total ============= Vbl. Output Rate of
> Yr Price Cap. Seed Other Cap. Output Profit Price Profit
>
> 1 £2/q 60 q 20 q 20 q 20 q 100 q 40 q £2/qr 66.7%
> £120 £40 £40 £40 £200 £80 66.7%
>
> 2 £2/q 60 q 20 q 20 q 20 q 200 q 140 q £1/qr 233.3%
> £120 £40 £40 £40 £200 £80 66.7%
>
> \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
>
> Marx considers a farmer who produces corn by means of seed corn and other
> inputs. All costs are measured in terms of both money and corn. Marx
> assumes that, although "work was carried on in the same conditions" in
> both years, using "the same amount of labour," the output of year 2 is
> double that of year 1. The total value of this output, however, does not
> increase. "Since the 200 qrs [produced in year 2] are the product of the
> same amount of labour [as in year 1], then once again they are likewise =
> only £200. Thus, only £80 profit remains, which is now, however, = 140
> qrs" (Marx 1991:267). Marx thus suggests that, contrary to Ramsay's
> claim, the rise in productivity causes neither profit nor the rate of
> profit to rise in year 2.
>
> These conclusions are incompatible with the interpretation that the value
> transferred is determined by the input's replacement cost. Had Marx
> computed the value transferred from the seed corn in year 2 at £1/qr,
> profit would have exceeded £80. Used-up constant capital would have
> constituted a smaller share of the output's total value of £200, and thus
> surplus-value or profit would have constituted a larger share, even if
> variable capital is assumed not to change. Marx's conclusion that profit
> remains £80, despite the rise in the physical surplus from 40 qrs to 140
> qrs, is valid only if the value transferred from the seed corn is
> determined by its pre-production value of £2/qr.
>
> REFERENCES
> ==========
> Jay, M. 1984. _Marxism and Totality_ (Berkeley: University of
> California Press).
>
> Kliman, A. 1999a. Determination of Value in Marx and in Bortkiewiczian
> Theory. _Beiträge zur Marx-Engels Forschung_, Neue Folge.
>
> Kliman, A. 1999b. Simultaneous Valuation and the Exploitation Theory of
> Profit. Presented at Eastern Economic Association Convention, Boston,
> MA, March. Available from the author at Andrew_Kliman@msn.com .
>
> Kliman, A. 2000. Marx vs. the 20th-Century Marxists: A Reply to
> Laibman. Forthcoming in J. Wells, A. Kliman, and A. Freeman (eds.), _The
> New Value Controversy and the Foundations of Economics_ (Cheltanham, UK:
> Edward Elgar).
>
> Kuhn, T. S. 1970. _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_, 2nd ed.
> (Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press).
>
> Marx, K. 1977. _Capital: A critique of political economy_, Vol. I (New
> York: Vintage Books).
>
> Marx, K. 1981. _Capital: A critique of political economy_, Vol. III
> (New York: Vintage Books).
>
> Marx, K. 1986, 1988, 1989. _Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected
> Works_ (New York: International Publishers). 1986, Vol. 28; 1988, Vol.
> 30; 1989, Vol. 32.
>
> Moseley, F. 2000. "The Determination of Constant Capital in the Case of
> a Change in the Value of the Means of Production." Presented at Eastern
> Economic Association conference, Washington, DC, March.
>
> Planck, M. 1949. _Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers_ (New
> York).
>
> Warnke, G. 1993. _Justice and Interpretation_ (Cambridge: The MIT
> Press).
>
> NOTES
> =====
> [1] My paper has recently been published (in English) in the 1999 issue
> of Beiträge zur Marx-Engels Forschung (Neue Folge). On September 30,
> 2000 I
> posted a draft of the paper on the OPE-L e-mail list, in seven parts
> (post numbers 1375-1381), under the subject heading "Determination of
> Value." The posts can be downloaded from the OPE-L Archives,
> www.st.rim.or.jp/~ikita/OPE .
>
> [2] In case anyone would want to tell me that I am fantasizing, that
> admissions of this sort do not occur, let me recall the case of Lucio
> Colletti. Once an important Marxist philosopher with an international
> following, a major figure in the school that attempted to turn Marx into
> a positivist scientist, Colletti was finally forced to conclude that the
> evidence was against him: "The contradictions of capitalism . are not,
> for Marx, 'real oppositions' (as I too, following Della Volpe, believed
> until yesterday), i.e., objective but 'non-contradictory' oppositions,
> but are dialectical contradictions in the full sense of the word." Thus,
> as Jay (1984:449) notes, "Forced to choose between Marxism and Science,
> as he understood it, he [Colletti] chose the latter. . he ruefully
> concluded that Marxism was a pseudo-science that had to be abandoned."
> (The above quotation from Colletti can also be found in Jay's account.)
>
> [3] The one exception to this rule that I recognize is that an
> interpretation does not have to be able to replicate the original theory'
> s conclusions if it can be *demonstrated* that the original is
> self-contradictory. But I caution that to demonstrate
> self-contradiction, one must show that there exists no possible
> interpretation under which the original theory is found to be coherent.
> Thus, if such an interpretation does exist, the allegation of
> self-contradiction is thereby refuted. I and other proponents of the TSS
> interpretation claim that it is such an interpretation. This claim can
> be refuted in one of two ways only. One must demonstrate that the TSS
> interpretation either contradicts some aspect of Marx's own theory (not
> just a variant *interpretation* of that aspect) or is itself internally
> inconsistent. In twenty years, this has not been done.
>
> [4] All of the following passages presented in my paper -- eleven in
> all -- explicitly indicate that the *precise magnitude* of the value
> transferred from used-up means of production depends on their cost when
> they entered production, not their post-production replacement cost:
>
> * "[Production results in] the preservation of THE AMOUNT OF LABOUR
> already objectified" in used-up means of production (Marx 1986:288,
> emphasis added).
>
> * It "thus preserves THE PREVIOUSLY EXISTING VALUE of the capital" (Marx
> 1986:290, emphasis added).
>
> * Raw materials and means of labor "add to the labour time contained in
> the product ONLY AS MUCH LABOUR TIME as they themselves contained BEFORE
> the production process" (Marx 1988:177, first emphasis added).
>
> * The consumption of means of production increases the product's value by
> "THE AMOUNT OF ITS OWN VALUE"; Marx further specifies that this means,
> "to be precise, THE VALUE it has when it enters the process of
> production" (Marx 1988:322-23, emphases added).
>
> * A means of production "DOES NOT ADD MORE VALUE to the product than it
> possessed before production. . As value, this part of capital therefore
> enters unchanged into the production process and emerges from it
> unchanged" (Marx 1989:362, emphasis added).
>
> * "[T]he values of material and means of labour only re-appear in the
> product of the labour process TO THE EXTENT THAT THEY . WERE VALUES
> BEFORE they entered into the process" (Marx 1988:79-80, emphasis added).
>
> * Although their values can change during the course of the process, this
> "involves absolutely no alteration in the circumstance that in the labour
> process into which they enter as material and means they are always
> preposited as given values, values of a DEFINITE MAGNITUDE. For in this
> process itself they ONLY EMERGE AS VALUES IN SO FAR AS THEY ENTERED as
> values" (Marx 1988:79-80, emphases added).
>
> * A change in the value of constant capital "never alters the fact that
> in the process of production, into which it enters as a condition of
> production, it is a postulated value which must reappear in the value of
> the product. . it is A DEFINITE QUANTITY of past, objectified labour,
> which passes into the value of the product as a determining factor"
> (Marx 1988:413, emphasis altered).
>
> * "[M]eans of production NEVER TRANSFER MORE VALUE to the product than
> they themselves lose during the labour process by the destruction of
> their own use-value" (Marx 1977:312, emphasis added).
>
> * "The MAXIMUM LOSS OF VALUE the means of production can suffer in the
> process is PLAINLY LIMITED BY THE AMOUNT OF THE ORIGINAL VALUE with which
> they entered into it .." (Marx 1977:313-14, emphases added).
>
> * The constant capital portion of a commodity's value is "THE value or
> price at which these means of production went into the commodity's
> production process" (Marx 1981:992, emphasis added).
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> At 08:35 27/04/00 +0100, you wrote:
> >I don't doubt that many of the ZANU-PF, from Mugabe downwards, are
> >unpleasant thugs and kleptocrats, nor that many in the opposition are people
> >with impeccable credentials from the war of liberation....
> >
> >...BUT this clause 1 of this petition makes it essentially a petition
> >against the right to dispossess not only capitalists in general but in
> >particular the settlers who sustained a racist dictatorship.
>
> Fact: ALL of the farms that have been attacked in the current spate of
> so-called 'land invasions' are farms where the workers were solidly opposed
> to ZANU-PF. The workers who lived in 'compounds' on these farms have in
> fact borne the brunt of the current attacks on their persons and property
> (even if it is more 'newsworthy' for the foreign press to focus on the
> white farmers!). Land reform is one agenda supported by the majority of
> Zimbabweans, including many of the 'white Zimbabweans' who stayed after
> independence - using the issue of land to forceably remove, murder and/or
> imprison your political opponents - is another issue altogether.
> >
> >Since the petition makes by implication favourable reference to the rule of
> >law, it should be recalled that white rule in Rhodesia was sustained by
> >armed rebellion against a democratically-elected government (that of the
> >UK).
>
> The petition makes reference to the rule of Law, because Mugabe held a
> referendum in February asking the people of Zimbabwe to support the seizure
> of land from commercial farmers. The result of that referendum was a
> resounding NO vote. Why, when land reform is a critical issue supported by
> everyone? Because Zimbabweans are well aware that Mugabe has a twenty year
> history of dispossessing his opponents, begining with the seizure of
> Sitholi's farms in 1981 (which incidentally also dispossed the many
> thousands of black workers living on them). Are you suggesting that the
> people of Zimbabwe should not have a say in our own affairs, and that
> Mugabe can decide what is right for us? Your reference to the
> democratically elected government (the UK) escapes me. The UK was a
> colonial power - under that power only white settlers had the vote.
>
> >
> >Most of what the petition coyly refers to as "commercial farmers" in fact
> >deserve to be hung as traitors, and numbers of them will have war records
> >that would probably still be vulnerable to charges of crimes against
> >humanity.
> >
>
> You are entitled to your opinion. Members of my own family were courageous
> enough to stand up to racist regimes, and two were imprisoned for it. If
> they are willing to stand up again to the self-serving whims of dictators,
> then as far as I'm concerned they deserve all the support I can give them.
> comradely,
> Nicky
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Response to Paul C [OPE-L:2914]:
>
> >I endorse Julian's sentiments.
> >
> >What the petition amounts to is demand that the rights
> >of landlords be upheld against those of landless peasants,
> >I have no sympathy with it.
> >
>
> What it asks is that you acknowledge the rights of the Zimbabwean people to
> say "No" to Mugabe's attempt to break the law as and when it suits him
> (bearing in mind that landless peasants - the vast majority of the
> population - have already voted NO to his land grabs in the February
> referendum). However, I see your point re the wording of the petition:
> such are the hazards of united front politics [especially difficult for
> people who haven't had much experience at it!].
> comradely,
> Nicky
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Andrew,
>
> May I apply your wording to Luxemburg's _Accumulation of Capital_ (more
> ignored on this list than TSS), rather than to TSS?
>
> :)
>
> Paul Z.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 03:51:27 -0400
> From: Andrew_Kliman <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com>
> Subject: [OPE-L:2919] Need 1
>
> ... But the danger is that the disinterested reader, seeing
> that a debate is ongoing, will wrongly take this as evidence that the
> issues have not been decisively resolved. Perhaps s/he will even
> conclude that "the truth is somewhere in the middle," in other words that
> Marx's theory is riven with internal inconsistencies. To head off such a
> reaction, I want to say two things to the disinterested reader. First,
> the fact that the opponents of the temporal single-system (TSS)
> interpretation of Marx's value theory are not and will not be persuaded
> has no bearing upon whether it is correct. Second, the reason its
> opponents keep arguing and resisting is that they refuse to accept
> genuinely empirical criteria in order to decide whether an interpretation
> is correct or not.
>
> That people oppose a new truth even after it has been demonstrated is far
> from uncommon. The _New York Times_ (March 11, 2000, p. A1) recently
> reported that a nationwide poll in the U.S. found that "almost half the
> respondents agreed that the theory [of evolution] 'is far from being
> proven scientifically'." But this is not only, or even especially, a
> problem among the uninformed public. The greatest resistance to new
> truths comes from the experts. IT IS THE EXPERTS WHO HAVE A STAKE IN AND
> COMMITMENT TO THE OLD IDEAS, AND THEY WHO HAVE THE MOST DIFFICULTY IN
> BREAKING FREE FROM THEIR ACCUSTOMED CATEGORIES AND WAYS OF THINKING.
>
> Max Planck (1949:33-34), who developed quantum field theory, complained
> that "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents
> and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents
> eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
> The historical record provides ample evidence of this. Kuhn
> (1970:150-51) notes that "Copernicanism made few converts for almost a
> century after Copernicus' death. Newton's work was not generally
> accepted, particularly on the Continent, for more than half a century
> after the _Principia_ appeared. Priestly never accepted the oxygen
> theory, nor Lord Kelvin the electromagnetic theory, and so on."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> In a previous exchange, see Riccardo's [OPE-L:2875], the question of
> Keynes' perspective on the General Strike of 1926 was raised.
>
> For more information on this topic, see R.F. Harrod _The Life of
> John Maynard Keynes_ (NY, Avon, 1971; originally published in 1951
> by St. Martin's), pp. 435-439.
>
> "Liberals of all complexions agreed that the General Strike was
> not within the limits of constitutional action, that it must be
> defeated and that it must be made plain that any repetition was
> doomed to failure" (p. 436).
>
> Nonetheless, the liberals were divided on the tactics that they
> proposed for dealing with the specific way in which the strike
> should be defeated. Keynes, like Lloyd George, supported the
> position advanced by the Archbishop of Canterbury who held that
> after the strike was ended "negotiations should continue in some
> form, on the basis of a return to the *status quo* before the
> strike began and of letting bygones be bygones" (Ibid). This
> position led Keynes into a conflict with Lord Oxford.
>
> Riccardo previously claimed that Keynes had as his objective
> the desire to make both capitalists and workers better-off.
> I tend to doubt whether the British strikers of 1926 shared
> this accessment of Keynes. Indeed, with friends like that ....
>
> Yet, by supporting the crushing of the General Strike, Keynes
> did indeed show that he sought to make capitalists better off
> (so Riccardo is at least partially correct), forestall any
> revolutionary action by the British workers, and save British
> capitalism.
>
> Of course, one would expect nothing more (or less) from a
> 20th Cetury liberal.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> ...though Luxemburg actually thought there WERE inconsistencies in Marx's
> thought!
>
> r.b.
>
> P.S.: should I take these passages from Andrew as implying that the sooner
> the opponents to TSS die the sooner the light will shine on younger Marxist
> minds?
>
> At 14:43 +0100 28-04-2000, Paul Zarembka wrote:
> >Andrew,
> >
> >May I apply your wording to Luxemburg's _Accumulation of Capital_ (more
> >ignored on this list than TSS), rather than to TSS?
> >
> >:)
> >
> >Paul Z.
> >
> >---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 03:51:27 -0400
> >From: Andrew_Kliman <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com>
> >Subject: [OPE-L:2919] Need 1
> >
> > ... But the danger is that the disinterested reader, seeing
> >that a debate is ongoing, will wrongly take this as evidence that the
> >issues have not been decisively resolved. Perhaps s/he will even
> >conclude that "the truth is somewhere in the middle," in other words that
> >Marx's theory is riven with internal inconsistencies. To head off such a
> >reaction, I want to say two things to the disinterested reader. First,
> >the fact that the opponents of the temporal single-system (TSS)
> >interpretation of Marx's value theory are not and will not be persuaded
> >has no bearing upon whether it is correct. Second, the reason its
> >opponents keep arguing and resisting is that they refuse to accept
> >genuinely empirical criteria in order to decide whether an interpretation
> >is correct or not.
> >
> >That people oppose a new truth even after it has been demonstrated is far
> >from uncommon. The _New York Times_ (March 11, 2000, p. A1) recently
> >reported that a nationwide poll in the U.S. found that "almost half the
> >respondents agreed that the theory [of evolution] 'is far from being
> >proven scientifically'." But this is not only, or even especially, a
> >problem among the uninformed public. The greatest resistance to new
> >truths comes from the experts. IT IS THE EXPERTS WHO HAVE A STAKE IN AND
> >COMMITMENT TO THE OLD IDEAS, AND THEY WHO HAVE THE MOST DIFFICULTY IN
> >BREAKING FREE FROM THEIR ACCUSTOMED CATEGORIES AND WAYS OF THINKING.
> >
> >Max Planck (1949:33-34), who developed quantum field theory, complained
> >that "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents
> >and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents
> >eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
> >The historical record provides ample evidence of this. Kuhn
> >(1970:150-51) notes that "Copernicanism made few converts for almost a
> >century after Copernicus' death. Newton's work was not generally
> >accepted, particularly on the Continent, for more than half a century
> >after the _Principia_ appeared. Priestly never accepted the oxygen
> >theory, nor Lord Kelvin the electromagnetic theory, and so on."
>
> Riccardo Bellofiore
> Office: Department of Economics
> Piazza Rosate, 2
> I-24129 Bergamo, Italy
> Home: Via Massena, 51
> I-10128 Torino, Italy
> e-mail bellofio@cisi.unito.it, bellofio@unibg.it
> tel: +39 035 277545 (direct)
> +39 035 277501 (dept. secr.)
> +39 011 5819619 (home)
> fax: +39 035 249975
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> On Fri, 28 Apr 2000, riccardo bellofiore wrote:
>
> > ...though Luxemburg actually thought there WERE inconsistencies in Marx's
> > thought!
>
> and therefore the reason for Marxist economists not to read her carefully?
>
> :)
>
> Paul Z.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Dear Jerry,
> I think you raise an important question. The 'formalistic difference' to
> which I was referring dealt not with national income accounting but Federal
> Law under which the formally independent contractors are disallowed from
> unionizing. In the NYT article (4/15/00, p. A7--if you can access it, I
> would be interested in your thoughts), the reporter Stephen Greenhouse
> notes that port truckers have gone from being unionized drivers with
> impressive wages and benefits to being new non union competitors who are
> independent contractors. Now I am wondering whether this de jure change in
> any way means that that they are not still producing surplus value--though
> now it falls entirely to the warehouse, insurance and banking companies,
> not direct employers. I only take the low wage as suggestive of continued
> exploitation, not proof. But your challenge is an important one.
>
> Apparently invoking some kind of anti monopoly law, The Feds have also
> latched on to this change in status to frustrate a unionization drive of
> port truckers whose rebellions in Long Beach, Houston, Miami, Newark and
> Seattle seem to me to stand at the front line of class struggle in a
> "globalized" economy.
>
> We know that a change in status is often driven by a need to heighten
> exploitation, e.g., hourly workers who are turned into salaried employees
> so that the overtime that they are expected to do "on their own time" can
> longer be counted.
>
> I don't know the size of the loan that needs to be taken out to get one's
> own rig, but the article notes that in the case of one worker he made
> payments of $6000/yr for his truck. Most of the truckers in Long Beach are
> immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
>
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Jerry,
> >From the article:
> "'They're definitely independent contractors,' said Joseph Nievez, pres of
> the Qwikway Trucking Company and past president of CA Trucking Assoc. 'The
> one huge defining factor in my eyes i they have made an investment in a
> piece of equipment and they're not punching a clock. Someone who invests
> 10,15,20 thousand in a pice of equipment, he's in business for himself.'"
>
> The reporter Greenhouse also notes: "But the catch could be the shipping
> lines might hesitate to contact with the unionized trucking companies [to
> which the Teamsters hope to attract the 'independent' contractors-rb] to
> transport their loads, espeically since the unionized companies might
> charge more because they would pay their drivers more."
>
> rb
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Re Paul Z's [OPE-L:2927]:
>
> I'm not sure how serious you are in raising this question since you
> deliberately inserted a "smiley face" [i.e. ":)"], but I'll treat it
> as if you are indeed serious on some level. I don't think that
> Luxemburg has been ignored by contemporary Marxist economists because
> she pointed to some alleged inconsistencies in Marx. Rather, her work
> (especially _The Acuumulation of Capital_) hasn't been closely examined
> by most Marxists since the late 1970's since there has been relatively
> little theoretical focus on *imperialism* and related fields of study
> such as economic development and international trade. In other words,
> when her works were carefully read in the 1970's (along with other
> works by Hilferding, Sternberg, and Bukharin) it was most frequently
> in connection with evaluating different theoretical perspectives
> on imperialism. This is unfortunate, though, since only a small portion
> of her book discussed imperialism (even though, in a sense, that was
> the subject that the book built-up towards).
>
> One person who did read Luxemburg carefully was the late Joan Robinson.
> Have you considered Robinson's perspective on Luxemburg and why there
> has been a sympathetic reading of RL's work by Post-Keynesians?
>
> Also: have you ever read *Dialectical Economics* (Lexington, Mass.,
> D.C. Heath and Company, 1975) by "Lyn Marcus", more commonly known
> as Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. [!] ? At the time when this book was first
> written, LaRouche still considered himself to be a Marxist and, if I
> recall correctly, referred to his perspective as "Neo-Luxemburgist"
> (this was prior to his descent into ultra-right-wing craziness). He
> also wrote the "Introduction" for Luxemburg's _The Industrial
> Development of Poland_ (NY, Campaigner Publications, Inc., 1977).
>
> In any event, I think that *all* of the classics of Marxist political
> economy (of which, I certainly include Luxemburg's writings) deserve
> a careful reading. A study of her life, as well, is well worth
> studying.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> A reply to Paul Zarembka's OPE-L 2924:
>
> I noticed your smiley, so this may have been a joke. But if so I don't
> get it, so I'll try to respond seriously.
>
> (1) I don't understand the relevance of the point that RL's
> _Accumulation_ is "more ignored on this list than TSS." I wasn't
> discussing the reception of the TSS interpretation of Marx's value theory
> specifically (or mainly) on this list, and my point was not that it has
> been ignored. What I was getting at is rather (a) the resistance of its
> critics has no bearing on whether it is correct, and (b) they resist it
> because they do not apply empirical criteria to decide among
> interpretations.
>
> (2) Since I was not talking about this list, the relevant comparison is
> between the *entire record* of how RL's work, and the TSS interpretation,
> have been treated by their respective critics. Her work was addressed
> promptly, not ignored at all. It was studied seriously and replied to
> seriously (even if not in every case). There's just no comparison with
> how the TSS interpretation has been treated, although things have
> recently begun to change a wee bit, thanks in part to your efforts as
> editor of _Research in PE_.
>
> (3) Your question seems to ask whether I would agree that RL's
> opponents' resistance to her theory of accumulation has no bearing on
> whether it is correct. The answer is yes, I agree.
>
> (4) Your question seems to ask whether I would agree that RL's opponents
> are to be criticized for not using empirical criteria to evaluate her
> interpretation of Marx's theory. The answer here is no. I think people
> *have* used empirical criteria to do so. Dunayevskaya, for instance,
> shows several instances in which RL overlooked or misread what Marx
> wrote, and argues against RL that the Vol. II analysis, although indeed
> not prepared for publication, is essentially summarized in Vol. I and
> elsewhere. Dunayevskaya also singles out several differences between
> Marx's and RL's theories.
>
> (5) Perhaps you were asking whether I would agree that RL's opponents
> are to be criticized for not using empirical criteria to evaluate her
> *theory* of accumulation. Here again the answer is no. The reason is
> that she essentially stated an *impossibility* theorem (expanded
> reproduction is impossible in a closed, purely capitalist society).
> Claims of impossibility cannot be decided empirically.
>
> For instance, the Okishio theorem is also an impossibility theorem. It
> cannot be challenged empirically, by showing that in reality the profit
> rate tends to fall. It can only be challenged deductively, by showing
> that the proof of impossibility is flawed. This is what we have done.
> Likewise Marx's schema of expanded reproduction show deductively that the
> underconsumptionist impossibility claim is false. I say this in full
> recognition of (and agreement with) VIL's point that schemes and models
> cannot *prove* anything about reality. But taken literally, he isn't
> right to claim that they can *only* illustrate. They can also disprove
> statements of necessity and impossibility.
>
> Let me clarify one thing: the schema of expaned reproduction do not
> prove that expanded reproduction is possible in a closed, two-class
> capitalist society. Nor do they disprove the contention that it is
> impossible. They rather disprove the *underconsumptionist argument* for
> impossibility -- i.e., the argument that the growth rate of Dept. I
> cannot "ultimately" outstrip the growth rate of Dept. II, because all
> production, even under capitalism, is "ultimately" production for
> consumption, not production for the sake of production. [BTW, this
> perspective makes the class antagonism a matter of distribution of net
> output, rather than also and mostly of the domination of workers by the
> products of their own hands.]
>
> *Alternative* arguments against the implications of the reproduction
> schema, such as those you advance in your paper (which I was able to read
> the other day) must therefore be considered on their own terms. The
> refutation of the underconsumptionist argument does not constitute a
> refutation of them.
>
> (6) I had some trouble understanding your paper. I never understood
> what you think is the definitional problem, or how that relates the the
> rest (middle) of the paper. More important, I think, are your criticisms
> of the implications of Marx's reproduction schema. If I understood you
> correctly -- and I'm far from certain about that -- you have three
> criticisms.
>
> The first is that the schema imply that expanded reproduction requires
> that means of production that would have been used in Dept. II are
> diverted to Dept. I, but (you seem to argue; unfortunately I don't have
> the paper here with me) means of production are not in fact physically
> homogeneous, and thus the change in their destination isn't possible. Or
> perhaps the point is that the change in their destination may not be able
> to occur without disruption (disproportionality crisis). I agree with
> the latter, but not the former. Put differently, this is not a
> *long-run* barrier to expanded reproduction.
>
> I'm a bit surprised that you didn't cite Marx in regard to this. In
> section I. (b) of Ch. 21 (Vol. II), end of first para., he writes
>
> "to make the transition from simple reproduction to expanded
> reproduction, production in department I must be in a position to produce
> fewer elements of constant capital for department II, but all the more
> for department I. This transition, which can never be achieved without
> difficulty, is made easier by the fact that a number of the products of
> department I can serve as means of production in both departments."
>
> In any case, I'm very glad you're dealing with this issue. Almost all of
> the literature (not RL, though, or RD) deals with the schema of simple
> and expanded reproduction as two distinct models of *balanced* growth.
> Then they debate whether the schema show that balanced growth takes place
> (or can take place) or whether the schema highlight obstacles to balanced
> growth. But I have long been of the opinion that Marx was doing a
> *comparative* exercise, analysizing the "transition from simple
> reproduction to expanded reproduction," or, in other words, the process
> of unbalanced growth, the expansion of Dept. I *relative to* Dept. II.
>
> (7) The second criticism is the effective demand argument. RL makes it,
> as you noted, and Joan Robinson emphasized it. Where is the demand for
> the additional means of production? (Also Bleaney has a lot of
> discussion of this. It is on its basis that he says, much as you do,
> that RL wasn't an underconsumptionist. Consumption demand per se wasn't
> the issue.) I find this line of argument perplexing. Surely there can
> be a lack of demand (that's what crisis *is*), but that doesn't prevent
> expanded reproduction in the long-run unless there's a permanent
> structural lack of demand (stagnationist tendency). And what would be
> the reason for a stagnationist tendency if not the alleged-but-refuted
> notion that demand for means of production cannot ultimately outstrip
> demand for consumer goods, so that underconsumption constrains *total*
> demand?
>
> The point is that the schema of expanded reproduction show (under their
> assumptions of homogeneous means of production, etc., etc.) that *if*
> demand for means of production is strong enough, lack of consumer demand
> is not an obstacle to expanded reproduction. But this implies also that
> when there is a lack of *total* demand, it cannot be accounted for by
> appeal to underconsumption alone. It is rather that investment demand --
> which could in principle rise to offset any shortfall in consumption
> demand -- has not done so. So the issue boils down to why investment
> demand is too sluggish. The schema show that the answer is not that
> investment demand is constrained by consumer demand. And to say that
> investment demand is constrained by investment demand is meaningless.
> Hence, the problem that *appears* as a demand problem *originates* from
> outside, outside the market. The origin is instead the tendency of the
> rate of profit to fall IN PRODUCTION, and the lack of surplus-value
> GENERATED IN PRODUCTION, *prior* to the sale (or non-sale) of the
> products on the market. (This is what I think RD was arguing against the
> "effective demand" claim.)
>
> (8) The third criticism of the implications of the reproduction schema
> seems to be that they do not incorporate technical innovation (which is
> correct), and (unless I'm mistaken) a suggestion that they couldn't be
> extended to incorporate it. Expanded reproduction could not occur in a
> closed, two-class capitalist nation that undergoes technical change.
>
> I think part of this is right, at least to some extent. Because the
> schema assume unchanged values, expanded reproduction is *both* physical
> expansion and expansion of value. But if values fall do to technological
> progress, then we need to consider them separately. I'm convinced that
> there is no barrier under the stated conditions to the *physical*
> expansion of the system, taken abstractly. But there is a continuing
> problem of lack of self-expansion of value. As I was suggesting above,
> this can clearly retard investment demand (and consumption demand).
> Again, this appears as a demand problem, but originates on the supply
> side, in the production process.
>
> I don't construe this as a criticsim of the schema, because I don't think
> they were intended to address this issue. Where Marx does consider the
> circulation of capital in the context of revolutions in value (e.g., Ch.
> 4 of Vol. II and Ch. 15 of Vol. III) he's well aware of the problems
> these revolutions in value create.
>
> Ciao
>
> Andrew Kliman
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> A reply to Riccardo's P.S., in OPE-L 2926.
>
> The answer is "no." Planck for instance isn't saying the old guard are
> able to hoodwink the younger generation, but only that new truths cannot
> *triumph* as long as an old guard that resists them dogmatically remains
> in control.
>
> Andrew Kliman
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Re Rakesh's [OPE-L:2928-9]:
>
> You assert that the transition from being a waged-worker employed by
> capital to being a small businessperson who owns and controls the
> means of production (in this case, the truck) and contracts-out with
> a capitalist to perform a service in exchange for a fee is a "de
> jure" change (or as you put it elsewhere, a change in "status"). It
> is this assertion that I take issue with.
>
> If you think it is merely a "de jure" difference, try asking the
> self-employed truckers whether they think it is important whether
> they own their own trucks!
>
> What this so-called "de jure" difference means is that the entire
> relationship (and balance of forces) between the two groups is
> changed.
>
> But, this story is not new by any means. Indeed, large corporations
> have often mercilously used and twisted the arms of small
> independent suppliers. Capitalists have tremendous clout in this
> circumstance if they know that the suppliers are unlikely to find
> an alternative way of selling their supplies and/or services.
> Indeed, this has been a component part of the "just-in-time"
> flexible production system that originiated in Japan as the
> "kan-ban" system.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> Jerry,
> I agree that what I wrote was incorrect. There has been more than a de
> jure change or change in status, though of course the de jure change is
> what matters in terms of the legal right to unionize. From Greenhouse's
> report, it seems however that the most important change is that the
> shipping/warehouse companies are enjoying lesser costs/greater profits by
> having busted unionized trucking firms and instead contracted out to
> (formal) independents whose incomes have taken quite a hit in no small part
> exactly due to how much of their gross revenue is reduced by payments for
> the truck, insurance, maintainence, fuel, etc(I think Greenhouse notes an
> example of one trucker logging 60 hr/weeks for $20K/yr). Now it seems to me
> that by your (and the Fed's) criteria of the working class, these truckers
> are not proletarians. It seems to me that in terms of the arguments you
> advanced in our discussion of slavery, you must take the Fed union-busting
> line against the so called petit bourgeois truckers.
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> This is a multipart message in MIME format
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>
> I thought I had sent this earlier. I hope it makes it through as an
> attachment
>
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> Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:54:52 -0400 (EDT)
> Message-Id: <200004290054.UAA16725@mailserver.Princeton.EDU>
> From: bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> To: bhandari@Princeton.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OPE-L:2932] Re: Re: Need 1 and Luxemburgs *Accumulation of Capital*
> X-Mailer: Netscape Messenger Express 3.5.2 [Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; AOL 5.0; Windows 98; Compaq; DigExt)]
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>
> This is a multipart message in MIME format
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>
> Dear Andrew,
> Somewhere in your paper you criticized Lucio Colletti's abandoning of
> Marxism as a science upon belated recognition that Marx indeed accepted
> that dialectical contradictions were at work in bourgeois reality. You seem
> to argue that a postivist philosophy of science undergirded this
> abandonment.
> 1. What do you mean by positivism? In Peter Halfpenny's book, more than six
> definitions are offered, and Colletti, quite keen about the historical
> specificity of abstract labor, does not seem to demonstrate that putatively
> condemnable positivistic obsession with eternal laws of nature.
>
> 2. What do you mean by dialectical contradiction? Examples of which would
> be? That capital is the product of workers but variable capital is part of
> total capital. Is that really contradictory? Or are the dialectical
> contradictions the three peculiarities of the value form? As I have been
> suggesting, category mistake may be more helpful here than dialectical
> contradiction. I look forward to looking at the beginning of Ryle's the
> Concept of the Mind when I get back.
>
> 3. If I remember correctly the last few chapters of Colletti's Marx and
> Hegel book are quite brilliant. He shows that the sensuous, surpra sensuous
> nature of commodities, the centaurs, the metaphysics and theology ( all
> those things taken even by Marxist economists as mere rhetorical flourish)
> are precisely Marx's most important point--the phantasmorgia of commodity
> fetishism, as revealed by painstaking philosophical analysis, is at the
> same Marx's critique of the money driven behavior understood as the apogee
> of human rationality implicity and/or explicitly by the political
> economists (the last few chapters of Maurice Godelier's Perspectives in
> Marxist Anthropology are also quite fine in my opinion).
>
> But I don't have my books with me, so again this is how I understand Marx's
> argument
>
> --value seems to those caught up in everday life to be a unatary predicate
> of commodities though it is at least a second order predicate (I did not
> get through logic as an undergrad)
>
> --there is constant conflict between everyday understanding and
> philosophical analysis about whether value is an intrinsic or relational
> property, subject independent or relational or whether value is a property
> or predicate (I am out of my philosophical depth here, and I think is
> precisely Marx's critique of the political economists that they did not
> understand the nonsense and contradictions of the commodity world, though
> this critique seems to me to apply to most Marxist economists who simply
> gloss over what Marx is trying to do as mere literary flourish, as Colletti
> so brilliantly pointed out).
>
> --money is simply metaphysically ill-formed. That is gold stands for or
> represents (incarnates) human labor. But human labor seems to be a
> construct, i.e., an abstraction, an idealization, a conceptual object which
> is not really subject to change like actual things. Money is thus
> metaphysically ill formed in that there is an attribution of conceptual
> properties to a concrete thing and substantial properties (the properties
> of gold) are attributed to a construct. In being both thing and construct,
> money is metaphysically ill formed.
>
> I think Colletti opened up questions like this. I don't remember Martin Jay
> expressing much real appreciation in that breezy survey for the issues
> which Colletti raised.
>
> Riccardo and Chris A will doubtless have much more to say.
>
> Yours, Rakesh
>
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> for bhandari@princeton.edu; Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:40:39 -0400 (EDT)
> Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:40:39 -0400 (EDT)
> Message-Id: <200004290040.UAA13557@mailserver.Princeton.EDU>
> From: bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU))
> To: bhandari@Princeton.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OPE-L:2932] Re: Re: Need 1 and Luxemburgs *Accumulation of Capital*
> X-Mailer: Netscape Messenger Express 3.5.2 [Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; AOL 5.0; Windows 98; Compaq; DigExt)]
>
> Dear Andrew,
> Somewhere in your paper you criticized Lucio Colletti's abandoning of
> Marxism as a science upon belated recognition that Marx indeed accepted
> that dialectical contradictions were at work in bourgeois reality. You seem
> to argue that a postivist philosophy of science undergirded this
> abandonment.
> 1. What do you mean by positivism? In Peter Halfpenny's book, more than six
> definitions are offered, and Colletti, quite keen about the historical
> specificity of abstract labor, does not seem to demonstrate that putatively
> condemnable positivistic obsession with eternal laws of nature.
>
> 2. What do you mean by dialectical contradiction? Examples of which would
> be...That capital is the product of workers but variable capital is part of
> total capital. Is that contradictory? Or are the dialectical contradictions
> the three peculiarities of the value form? As I have been suggesting,
> category mistake may be more helpful here than dialectical contradiction.
>
> 3. If I remember correctly the last few chapters of Colletti's Marx and
> Hegel book are quite brilliant. He shows that the sensuous, surpra sensuous
> nature of commodities, the centaurs, the metaphysics and theology ( all
> those things taken even by Marxist economists as mere rhetorical flourish)
> is precisely Marx's most important point--the phantasmorgia of commodity
> fetishism, as revealed by painstaking philosophical analysis is at the same
> Marx's critique of the money driven behavior understood as the apogee of
> human rationality implicity and/or explicitly by the political economists.
>
>
> -------=_MM95696969216716--
>
> -------=_MM95697137924257--
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Objet:
>
> oops I meant unary predicate...
>
> Just to take one more shot.
>
> social labor is regulated through movements in commodity value as reflected
> in so many physical units of the ordinary use value (think of it as so many
> boxes of chocolate!) that however itself, as a category mistake, comes to
> incarnate human labor.
>
> In this way any one *thingly* commodity or *member* commodity comes to
> represent, in yet another logical error, some real quantity of what however
> is merely a *construct* or *equivalence class*--abstract labor, which
> perhaps unless conceived as an expenditure of energy, shouldn't be real or
> thingly enough to be counted at all. All this seems terribly
> metaphysically ill-formed (constructs having thingly properties, things
> having conceptual properties) though strangely parallel with Christian
> ideas about abstract man.
>
> Wasn't it something like this that Colletti was probing?
>
> I would of course appreciate any clarification of what Marx himself sees
> to the be the contradictions here. I don't know if these are dialectical
> contradictions, or what would be gained by calling them such. But I do
> think Colletti was on to them, and appreciated that Marx, the logic
> chopper, was demonstrating how out of their philosophical depth the
> economists were.
>
> Yours, Rakesh
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