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Fair enough Rakesh.
I'll be arguing a different reading of that--and many other related
passages--at tonight's talk. We'll get a chance to debate the point more
fully there.
Cheers,
Steve
>From: bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari)
>Reply-To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
>To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
>Subject: [OPE-L:3115] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: re:starting
>points
>Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 03:00:20 -0400 (EDT)
>
>Steve noted this passage:
>
> >"It also has to be postulated (which was not done above) that the use
>value
> >of the machine significantly greater than its value; i.e. that its
> >devaluation in the service of production is not proportional to its
> >increasing effect on production." (Grundrisse 383).
>
>Here he considers the introduction of machinery which is double in cost to
>the equipment it is replacing while employing the same number of workers.
>The disproportionality here is that output is more than tripled despite it
>only costing twice as much.
>
>The more than tripling of use values produced however allows the same labor
>costs to be spread over so many more units that unit values fall despite
>the doubling of depreciation costs per unit. The older capital is "done for
>because its selling price is infinitely too high" (384). Yet the rate of
>profit has fallen for the new capital, though the rate of exploitation has
>risen.
>
>So far from the consumption of dead labor creating surplus value in this
>example--indeed this section of the Grundrisse is largely devoted to
>demonstrating that capitalists who do not pay the worker for the
>preservation of old value nonetheless demand the renumeration for giving
>the workers permission to preserve that old capital--the introduction of
>machinery actually engenders lower profit rate.
>
>Of course this raises the question of why any capitalist would introduce
>such machinery, but that's not the point here.
>
>Yours, Rakesh
>
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