In reply to Paul Bullock's OPE-L 4876. He wrote: "If workers lived on air there would be no exploitation, and so no capitalism, w[hic]h rather messes up the general discussion doesn't it?" Did Jerry put you up to this? (He harangued me for months and months -- it felt like decades -- about this issue.) It seems to me your methodological beef is not really with me, but with the originator of the "live on air" assumption. As I'm sure you know as well as or even better than I, he said that, given a large enough rise in the composition of capital, the rate of profit would fall even if workers live on air. He meant that it would fall, not because of "no exploitation," but despite an infinite rate of exploitation. Marxists continually build models of reproduction without including an armaments sector. But capitalism could not reproduce itself for a week, maybe not even for a day, if the State were not armed to the teeth. So your argument applies equally well against such models of reproduction. But once we include armaments, we also need to include a separate sector for army boots, because the military can't keep the "peace" barefoot. Etc. Etc. What I don't understand is why no one ever raises the "capitalism would be impossible" argument in such contexts. In any case, I don't think it is good to try to constrain the free movement of thought by making it conform so stringently to appearances. Drewk
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