Re Howard's [OPE-L:5155]: > Of course as to land, but you speak of taking > objects to market and land is > not an object of that sort. Wealth does not have to be physically transported to a market to be sold. Undeveloped virgin land can be bought and sold in a geographic location very far from the location of the land itself. > Land is the basis of social existence, but > the monopoly of a private landowner formalized > in legal title does not > represent social wealth. Why doesn't it represent social wealth? Because it wasn't created by human labor? I think it can represent wealth -- a point well understood by landowners during the enclosure movement. Relatedly, the laying claim to wealth produced in non-capitalist societies does not represent a new production of wealth or value but a change in form and ownership of wealth. This has significance for understanding the "primitive" or "original" accumulation of capital. You will recall that this also had significance in terms of the colonization of what eventually became the US and its later geographic expansion. This land came to be treated, in many cases, *as if* it was value even before there was value creation on the land. Your comment about "promises" was interesting, especially because of the role of promises in contract law. And, I agree that a promise can have a price, *assuming the state-form*, even though it is not value. > <snip, JL>, then what is an example of a good > that consists of social wealth > alone? Certainly elements of infrastructure, such as roads, are valued, > whether produced by unproductive labor or not. This is, so far, our biggest disagreement: I agree that elements of the infrastructure "are valued"; I don't agree that they represent value. I.e. objects which can be valued are not necessarily objects which represent value. Whether those "objects" are produced by productive or unproductive labor is key to determining whether they represent value or are merely "valued". > Finally, the unpaid labor of employees of a commercial capitalist does not > create surplus value but enables the commercial capitalist to appropriate > surplus value. Nonetheless we speak of a merchant's variable capital. Should we speak of variable capital in this context? Well, some proportion of the "costs of circulation" should be viewed as representing variable capital. More specifically, to the extent that there is wage-labor required for the "transport industry, storage and the dispersal of goods in a distributable form", then that process would require variable capital. Yet, that is because these processes "should be viewed as production processes that continue within the process of circulation" (Vol 3, Ch. 16, 3rd paragraph, p. 379 in Penguin/Vintage ed.; also see Volume 2, Ch. 6 on "The Costs of Circulation"). As for commercial capital proper, I think it is a mistake to speak of variable capital employed by the commercial capitalist. See the long last paragraph of Vol. 3, Ch. 16. I think it is very clear that Marx does not view the labor employed in the process of circulation as creative of surplus value. He says this quite explicitly in that paragraph. Even though the labor employed here by commercial capital might benefit capital in other ways (see end of paragraph) it can not itself create value and it is therefore misleading to consider the wages paid to those workers as representing variable capital. Rather, they represent a deduction from value for the payment of unproductive labor. In solidarity, Jerry
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