Dear Rakesh,
Some answers to your questions
Best wishes
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Rakesh Narpat Bhandari <rakeshb@Stanford.EDU>
To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu>
Date: 19 February 2001 22:59
Subject: [OPE-L:4971] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: arms, roads and fictitiouscapital
Paul B writes in 4969
PRIVATE CONTRACTORS PRODUCING MEANS OF PRODUCTION UPON RECEIVING STATE ORDERS, WHO THUS SELL THEIR PRODUCT TO THE STATE THROUGH THE MARKET - BIDDING AGAINST OTHER PRODUCERS FOR THE CONTRACT - , ARE PART OF DEPT I.
Yes but those goods, unlike other dept one goods, will not absorb surplus labor in the production of value and surplus value. If the state buys computers for use in a public university, those means of production are not used to absorb surplus labor. So in what sense are they means of production?
Rakesh, you are muddling up 2 different relations. A) In the first the contractor extorts surplus labour time from his employees which becomes realised as value and surplus value when the customer (the State) pays. Then as I said before the infrastructure is used (after a charge is levied) by other capitalists as if they had bought it, but by their collective agreement - which includes the collective provision of their own capital to the state to do this B) in your second sentence we find purchases which enter educational provision. The degree to which training labourers (not the students) are to be classified as productive or not requires, in my mind, a further assessment, ie the degree to which they themselves are part of the socially necessary consumption of the workers . I see the two examples as conceretely different. Marx made the point on several occasions that one cannot force a move from general definitions to emprical reality in one leap.
>2. how does Marx define revenue? I ANSWER THIS ABOVE, IN PART. IN ADDITION THE WORKERS SPEND THEIR OWN WAGES AS REVENUE (THEY ARE NOT CAPITALISTS)
But we are interested in how surplus value is split between capitalisation and expenditure as revenue.( Yes we are, the comment was for completion, to stress the idea that revenue is final unproductive consumption by the buyer , the labourers are different in the sense that they reproduce their labouring powers, but they do not create capital in the process . Thus they spend their wages as revenue ) Only that part of surplus value devoted to the latter is revenue, as I understand it. Wages are wages. If surplus value is seized ( Why do you talk of seizing.??.. this poses the state as antagonistic to the bourgeoisie as a class which is quite misleading) by the state through taxes or loaned, it has defacto been expended as revenue (except in the case of a state capitalist enterprise in which commodity output is produced by wage labor)...even if the purchased bond generates a stream of interest payments. (State Loans are of course different, repaid out of future taxation, however the degree to whci any state uses such Loans as Capital or spends them as Revenue is a practical, not an automatic, matter)
I DO NOT KNOW OF FRED AND MURRAY'S ARGUMENT. I SHALL ASK FRED - WHO SHOWS HIMSELF TO BE A MOST PATIENT FELLOW -
Yes, their opinions would be most highly appreciated. I am willing to be convinced that I am wrong by you and them.
The value of highways, airports, >bridges, or seaports is NOT preserved in their use and transferred
gratis by labor to commodity output. WHY NOT? I SUPPOSE YOU WOULD ACCEPT THAT THIS WOULD BE THE CASE WHERE PRIVATE TURNPIKES OPERATE? WHY NOT WHERE THE STATE OPERATE THE TURNPIKE?
IS A MARKET NOT IN SOME SENSE OPERATING? SIMPLY BECAUSE THE MANNER IN WHICH THE VALUE OF THE ROADS RECONVERTS ITSELF INTO MONEY ( ROAD TAXES) IS ARRANGED DIFFERENTLY , THE STATE NOW HAS TO REPRODUCE THOSE ROADS (THE CONSTANT CAPITAL) OR THIER MEMBERS - THE CAPITALISTS - WILL TURF THEM OUT.
THE STALLED UK EXPERIMENT IN CREATING PRIVATE TOLL SUPER HIGHWAYS ALONG THE SIDE OF EXISTING STATE ROADS ONLY EMPHASISES THE PRESENT ARRANGEMENT AS MORE RATIONAL FROM A CLASS STANDPOINT, AND HAS BEEN REPLACED BY DEMANDS FOR INCREASED SPENDING ON ROADS AND RAIL BY THE STATE. DEMAND IS MOVING TO RAIL AGAIN, THE STATE FOLLOWS THE NEEDS OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE, DOING COLLECTIVELY WHAT CANNOT BE DONE PRIVATELY.
A TRUCK DRIVEN FROM A TO B VIA A STATE ARRANGED ROAD, WHOSE OWNER PAYS BY TOLL OR OTHER TAX, WEARS OUT THE ROAD IN THE PROCESS AND THE COMMODITIES HE TRANSPORTS BENEFIT FROM THE SPATIAL REAARANGEMENTS AFFORDED, SO CARRYING IN THEM PART OF THE DEAD LABOUR BUILT INTO THE ROAD ITSELF. THIS IS WHY THE TOLL/TAX IS PAID! THE REPRODUCTION OF THE ROAD NOW REQUIRES THAT THOSE TOLLS AND TAXES ARE ONCE AGAIN TRANSFORMED INTO UP-TO-DATE ROADS, THAT THE CONSTANT CAPITAL IS REPRODUCED IN THIS PRACTICAL FORM FROM THE MONEY FORM MEDIATED THROUGH THE STATE. SUCH CONSTANT CAPITAL WILL BE EXPANDED AS NEEDS REQUIRE AS CAPITAL OVERALL EXPANDS.
1. But you leave out the possibility that the state collects no tolls for roads. So there is no reconversion of the road into money in many cases. Would you classify roads as constant capital in this case?
(No I would not, and I do so only to the degree that capitaolists use them for business. Where wear and tear is imposed by you and me our taxes are indeed spent as revenue, out of our wages. You may now see why I made the point above)
2. it does not follow from the fact that there are tolls that the tolls represent depreciation on roads, bridges, canals or seaports. These tolls can simply be taxes which are easy to collect and difficult to evade. (These question of tax evasion is another point entirely)
3. the state invests in roads but not for the purposes of surplus value production. Even if the costs of the road are recovered so that roads can be kept in place over the long haul, surplus value has not been extracted. Thus, the surplus value which was taken or borrowed to pay private contractors to build those roads has in fact been expended as revenue. To pay back the bond the state will then have to seize surplus value from the private economy.
(Here you repeat your argument from before, my own differs as we can see)
>?( I HAVE SAID NOTHING ABOUT THIS. WHY MAKE SUCH SILLY ASSERTIONS.?...IT IS CLEAR TO MANY THAT I HAVE STRESSED THE CONCEPT OF FICTITIOUS CAPITAL PUBLICLY CONSISTENTLY SINCE 1975 IN ORDER TO TRACE THROUGH THE ACTUAL CONVERSION PROCESSES OF CAPITAL, AND TO UNDERSTAND FINANCIAL MARKETS)
I explain above why I think govt securities are a form of fictitious capital. (Yes but the point was I said nothing to cause you to say I had a particular view - and a wrong one - in previous exchanges.....no point getting hot under a fictitious collar is there?) Paul
Yours, Rakesh
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