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> Yours is nothing other than a neoclassical focus of "accumulation of
> capital" used by Solow, et al. It does not even use value categories (as
> in "constant capital"), much less consider that accumulation has anything
> to do with the producing class.
>
> Paul Z.
This is unfair.
I take it as read that the source of value is productive labour. The
question
at issue is when can we say that accumulation is taking place. I say that
it involves 'a net increase in the value of the stock of capital'. The
category
I am using is clearly a value category, I could hardly state it more
bluntly.
By a net increase in the value of the stock of capital I mean a net increase
in its value measured in labour hours.
This differs from neoclassical formulations in the unit of account.
As your own article points out Marx acknowledges that a growth of the work
force employed by capital is not a precondition for accumulation, the
definition
of accumulation thus can not depend on the current size of the work force.
In determining whether capital accumulation is taking place one is concerned
with stock calculations. Accumulation is a rate of change of stock. The only
form of capital stock is what Marx calls constant capital. Variable capital
does
not exists as a stock, it is a flow measure. The corresponding stock measure
is,
as Smith and Ricardo pointed out, the stock of subsistence goods held by
retailers etc against which wages are exchanged.
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