>On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Rakesh Narpat Bhandari wrote: > >> >The "annual rate of surplus value", introduced in Vol. II, should not >> >be confused with the ordinary rate of surplus value from Vol. I, and >> >only the latter bears the interpretation of a rate of exploitation. >> >> I am not confusing the two; nor did I forget either. In Vol II Marx >> does not call one the annual rate of surplus value and the other the >> rate of exploitation. Can you show me where he distinguishes between >> the two in this way? > >Yes. Vol. II, Ch XVI, section 1 (Moscow ed., p. 308): > >"It follows ... from what has been set forth above that the annual >rate of surplus-value coincides only in one single case with the real >rate of surplus-value which expresses the degree of exploitation of >labour; namely in the case where the advanced capital is turned over >only once a year..." > >There are numerous other places where the same distinction is made or >implied, and Marx consisently uses the term "real rate of surplus >value" for the ordinary s/v. > >Allin Cottrell. Allin, Marx underlines just a few paragraphs later that the annual rate of surplus value is not something merely subjective, just a kind of financial calculation created out of Engels' head as you suggested elsewhere. Marx is emphatically arguing that annual rate of surplus value is no less real than the real (or simple as Engels called it) rate of surplus value: "The annual rate of surplus value...is therefore not something merely subjective, but a comparison produced by the actual movement of capital itself." (Capital 2, penguin, p. 381) Indeed Marx's whole point is that the real or simple rate of surplus value is in itself a misleading measure. That is, the volume one determination of the rate of surplus value is incomplete due to omission of turnover time. the volume one real or simple rate of surplus value now becomes an element of the more complex annual rate of surplus value. There is development and complexification of Marx's basic determinants. That is, I read the passage which you quote to be underlining that real rate of exploitation expresses the degree of exploitation only when the advanced capital is turned over once a year. Once we allow for variability in turnover time, we now have two measures of the rate of surplus value: S/V and S/v. To put it another way: once we drop the assumption that the advanced capital only turns over once a year, how should the rate of surplus value and the rate of exploitation be measured? Marx later notes that a decrease in turnover time from a reduction in production time (itself nothing other than an expression greater labor productivity) does in fact lead to labor being ever more dominated by its own product. With a reduction in production time the capitalist "can buy the workers all the more often, and set their labour in motion, with the money form of *their own* value product." (Capital, vol 2, Penguin, p. 389; emphasis mine). That is, the capitalist has to advance less money himself as workers will finish the first cycle of production quicker; moreover, the capitalist finds that he can dominate labor with its own product because with a reduction in production time labor's product more quickly takes the form of money which the capitalist can use as variable capital. The variable capital which is advanced by the capitalist is thereby lessened and the profit rate objectively and really and truly improved. You choose to say that this is not a rise in the rate of exploitation and claim that reduced turnover time is itself responsible for increased profitability (of course by thingifying time as a (co)determinant of profits, you are opening the door wide open to the apologia of bourgeois economics of the profit making system). I say that once we consider turnover (which marx did not do in volume one) the annual rate of surplus value becomes a better (more developed, more complex) measure of the rate of surplus value. And since the rate of surplus value *is* the rate of exploitation, the annual rate of surplus value is ipso facto a better measure of exploitation once the reality of turnover time is allowed into the picture. It does no violence to reality to describe workers who have halved their production time while still being paid out of the same flow of surplus value as more exploited. It would seem to do quite a bit more violence to reality to attribute to the factor of reduced turnover time in itself the increased profitability which results from capitalists being able to advance less variable capital on account of workers' greater labor productivity (as manifested in a reduction of production time). For this reason, I argue that S/V is the better measure of exploitation once turnover is considered and it is thus heightened exploitation which explains the rise in profitability: in this way, we do not make time itself do things it cannot do such as increase the rate of profit. What you cannot deny however is that the annual rate of surplus value is not any less real in its effects on profitability than the real or simple rate of surplus value. Yours, Rakesh
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