Gil writes in 4752 > >No, both are necessary, since as Marx recognizes in Ch. 25 of Volume I, >workers may be propertyless and yet the rate of capital accumulation is so >strong as to drive the rate of surplus value to zero. As John E has pointed out many times, Marx here is assuming accumulation on the basis of a constant OCC. But even here the rate of accumulation will slow down until the price of labor falls to a price corresponding with the need of capital for expansion. > To suggest otherwise >is to say that it is *logically impossible* for the rate of accumulation to >be so high as to drive the rate of surplus value to zero. This strikes me >as implausible. Don't know what you mean by logically impossible. However, as soon as we have such a rise in labor's relative share due to a growing disproportion between the capital seeking labor power and the supply of labor, then the rate of accumulation slows since the stimulus of profits has been reduced. So yes the rate of surplus value can be driven to *zero* not because of rising wages but because capital expansion will stop. I suspect that there is a question of political strategy at stake. You will correct me if I am wrong. But you could be making the (revisionist) argument that there is no need for the collectivization of the means of production to eliminate exploitation; there need only be an elimination of the scarcity of capital. And this can be accomplished by the euthanasia of those rentiers whose "oversaving" forces the economy to operate below full employment which discourages investment so that the capital stock does not expand as fast as possible. As Catephores puts it, this then eternalizes capital scarcity and interest--a scarcity price for capital--is maintained as a source of income for rentiers. Yours, Rakesh
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