I sent this to a list member who has criticized the manner in which I have replied to Gil I just don't get the point of Gil's argument. He has argued that if surplus value by definition requires production, then Marx's chapter five argument is mere tautology, but I have granted that there is an element of that here. For example, in Marx's criticism of Condillac, he wants to show how circulation can increase the service of commodities as use values to their new owners without increasing the value in circulation. So Marx is sharpening the distinction between use value and exchange value. Gil has argued that Marx is wrong to say that surplus value has to be explained on the basis of the assumption of price-value equivalence, but you have yourself noted that Marx does not set this condition. Gil has said that Marx ignores that merchant capital or interest bearing capital can profit even if the sum of values in circulation does not increase, but Marx clearly himself highlights this; moreover, Gil pays no attention to how in his complete theory Marx sees the relations among the different circuits of capital. This stikes me as very ungenerous. Gil has then said that surplus value can be produced, to take a simple example, if merchants lend out raw materials or extend credit to independent commodity producers who then sell back the final product below value to merchants (this sort of mercantile industrial capital circuit is indeed found in India--see writings of Jan Breman), so surplus value production does not depend on the commodification of labor power (though the possibilities of relative surplus value production are limited by such mercantile industrial capital as Breman), but even if this is true (and because of the law of value such independent commodity production is usually done in by large scale enterprise in which free wage labor is employed), it in no way undermines Marx's argument that in the case that capitalists find on the market only free wage workers, the production of surplus value can only be explained if it is labor capacity (rather than labor time) that is alienated by proletarians, qua juridical subjects. That is, there is still the discovery of what is alienated by whom... labor power and the juridical persona who is free to enter into and thus is bound by contract (see Pashkunis). At any rate, I find no clear point to Gil's argument. Gil seems to me a very ungenerous reader of Marx out to hoist him by his own petard or impale him on his own sword. He seems to have haughily dismissed anyone who has been convinced by Marx's theory of value as Ptolemian--it seems that you do not find this as insulting as I do. Again, if you do look over the exchange, I did not call Gil an anti semite. I MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT THINK THIS. Gil responded that it was implied in my criticism that if one criticizes Marx on logical grounds, he becomes an apologist for the Holocaust. I said that Marx's theory provides the most solid foundations for the criticism of common sense notions of the roots of exploitation which has animated modern anti semitism. I do think this this is true of Marxian theory. I remain not clear at all as to what the ultimate point of Gil's critique is. Since he is so obviously smart, I worry that I may be missing something of great importance; this is why I attempted to engage him. But after five years of reading his criticism, I just don't get the point. All best, Rakesh
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