>First, Gil, again Marx basically assumes that all labor is carried >out by wage workers--he accomodates himself to this theoretically as >entrepreneurs are confined to it practically in a developed >capitalist society. We are on the labor island: there are no >independent commodity producers, no merchants and no creditors--so I >truly don't understand your fascination with these examples. First: you've begged a key question here. "Practically" speaking, "developed capitalist economies" have merchant and credit capitalists as well as industrial capitalists. So if I can show that, by the definition you've affirmed, the latter can give rise to surplus value, then it passes this rather narrow theoretical test. But second: Marx makes no mention whatsoever about the particular *forms* of the circuit of capital until Ch. 6, and that only after he has explicitly motivated his focus on a particular circuit of capital involving wage labor. Indeed, in the first two pages of Ch. 5, he goes out of his way to say that there is no evident distinction in the circuit of capital other than the inversion of the order of exchanges M-C and C-M. *Only* once he has analytically justified the focus on wage labor does he make the comment about theoretically confining himself, and if you'll read the passage you're paraphrasing here, the context is that he's not concerned with why or how workers come to be free in the double sense and offering their labor power for sale. He's definitely NOT saying that he's ruling out alternative circuits by fiat; he argued previously, in Ch. 5, that he ruled these alternative circuits as irrelevant by *argument*, and I've shown the *argument* by which he does this--and justifies his theoretical focus in Ch. 6--is invalid. Which brings me to third point: You're defending Marx by running his argument in reverse. As the argument is presented, going from Chapter 4 to 5 to 6, he defines surplus value; claims to justify an analytical focus on price-value equivalence on the basis of definition; then justifies his substantive focus on the purchase and subsumption of labor power on the basis of the need to account for surplus value given price-value equivalence. But I've shown that following Marx's argument in the order he gives it, at least given your reading of his definition, his middle inference is invalid, based on a fallacy of division. Thus, in logical terms, one can't justify the sole focus circuits of capital involving the purchase and subsumption of labor, which you're now using to justify the analysis *that came before it and putatively led to the conclusion*. You're using an invalidly derived *conclusion* to justify the argument that generated the conclusion. So again I ask: reading Marx's argument in the order *he* presents it, moving from Chapter 4 to Chapter 5 and not from Chapter 6 backwards to chapter 5, do you agree that, given your reading of his definition of surplus value, Marx's rejection of redistribution as a basis for surplus value is a non sequitur based on a fallacy of division? > In >Marx's own case he is able to show that workers would have to >alienate labor power rather than their time in exchange if dM is to >result from the circuit of capital. This begs the question at hand, because if surplus value can result from redistribution of existing values (as in the case of merchant capital), then we need not talk about alienating labor power in the first place. >> >>Imagine an exchange economy of A's and B's in which the A's are all small >>commodity producers--thus non-capitalists-- and the B's are all merchant >>capitalists. Each merchant capitalist buys commodities from some producers >>(M-C) and sells them to others at a profit (C-M', completing the circuit >>of capital). If this is done by the merchant capitalists as a class we >>have surplus value in the sense you attribute to Marx: M-C-M', with M' >>greater than M, as an aggregate category descriptive of the entire class. >>Of course, for the class of small commodity producers taken as a whole, we >>have an aggregate circuit C-M-C', with the value content of C' less than >>that of C, *but this is utterly irrelevant from the standpoint of Marx's >>definition, as you have specified it.* All we need to know is that M' > M >>in the circuit of *capital*. > >No new value has been created in the circulation of *commodities*. We >begin at t0 and end at t+1. At t+1 the merchants have M' and the >independent commodity producers have C'. That's right, and M' is greater than M, so by your own definition, surplus value has been achieved. >You misunderstand Marx's aggregate definition. No, I asked if you had any problem with my understanding of your characterization of surplus value as an "aggregate category", and you voiced no concern at all. It doesn't seem legitimate to bring up a new issue now that it seems there's a difficulty with the definition. > If we are going to >judge whether surplus value has been produced in the circulation of >commodities, the C and C' would have to be assigned monetary values >so we can aggregate what we have have at the beginning and the end of >the circuit for comparative purposes. I do not see the basis for this. All we need to know, by the definition you advanced, is that the capitalists as a class achieved M' > M via the circuit of capital M-C-M'. There was no requirement in the definition about attaching monetary values to C and C', or aggregating C and C' in the circuit of commodity exchange, which is not the circuit of capital. Furthermore, it's unnecessary for the purpose of aggregation, because you can aggregate them on the basis of their labor values "for comparative purposes", which is of course what I've done in my example of merchant capital. So at t + 1 we have >*aggregate* M' and at t0 we had *aggregate* M. > >Of course at t + 1, the value difference between M' and M for the >merchants is cancelled out by the value difference of C' minus C for >the independent commodity producers. There is no surplus value in >the aggregate from circulation--that is, aggregate M' minus aggregate >M is zero: there has only been a redistribution of value in exchange. This does not follow from the definition you gave. The C and C' in the circuit of *commodity* exchange C-M-C' are not a part of the circuit of *capital* M-C-M'. "Surplus value", as you said, is an aggregate condition for *capitalists*, not for mere *commodity exchangers* engaging in *commodity exchange* C-M-C. Nowhere in Chapter 4 will you find an aggregate condition on C-M-C as a part of the definition of surplus value corresponding to the *separate* circuit M-C-M'. Again, you are importing an additional condition on the definition after the fact, which eliminates the fallacy of division by brute force. But that's all right. Suppose I were to grant you this extension of the definition, although you never mentioned it before and Marx says nothing whatsoever about this additional condition anywhere in Chapter 4 or thereafter. The force of the amended definition is to *require by definition* that surplus value correspond only to value that is *newly created* subsequent to the initiation of a given circuit of capital. Then the fact that surplus value cannot be accounted for on the basis of redistribution of existing value follows *necessarily* from the definition of surplus value, plus the definition of value. Since value as Marx defines it can only arise in commodity production, and exchange is not production, then it follows immediately that *if* surplus value is *defined* as corresponding to newly created value, then surplus value cannot arise solely in exchange. And since this fact follows tautologically from the *definition* of surplus value, this renders the entire analysis of Ch. 5 superfluous. Would you agree, Rakesh, that if surplus value is defined as being based on newly created value, then one can infer from the fact that exchange is not production that exchange cannot itself give rise to surplus value, and that one could make this inference without reading a line of Chapter 5? In any case, I think we've successfully identified the fundamental point of divergence. Gil
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