Rakesh, Yes, case by case indeed, but it seems pretty evident that the same road can be used as part of the reproduction process generally and/or for private (revenue) final - non capitalistic - use, as i said before. Neverthless, even this argument cannot evade the fact that surplus labour is extorted in the building of roads, railways etc and I see this labour process as all productive.... otherwise we will be denying that all final consumption goods production not aimed at reproducing constant or variable capital is unproductive ( eg luxury good production) and this is clearly contrary to Marx. Paul B -----Original Message----- From: Rakesh Narpat Bhandari <rakeshb@Stanford.EDU> To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu> Date: 08 March 2001 19:18 Subject: [OPE-L:5121] Re: Re: waste, value, and potential >Well, we've been having the debate whether surplus value spent by the >state is wasted, or serves as capital. Paul B has made the argument >that state spending can be a public form of constant capital. Jerry >has said that because the infrastructure built for the state that >will not take the commodity form the surplus value incurred in its >construction have been wasted. Is this simply a version of Shane Mage >vs.. Shaikh/Tonak? > >Seemingly like Mage, Paul B has said however that those costs are >recovered like building costs in the realization of the commodity >output. So state spending need not constitute the destruction or >waste of capital. I have noted that much state spending in Japan >today however cannot be reasonably taken to contribute to the >realization of commodity capital. I don't think Paul B would take >Keynes' famous example of treasury bill burying to be a case of a >public form of constant capital. And he has argued that whether state >spending forms a (public) part of constant capital or the waste or >pulverization of surplus value has to be decided on case by case >basis. > >Yours, Rakesh > >
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