Re Allin's [5433]: > I believe you're muddling levels of abstraction. Surely constant > capital and variable capital are jointly exhaustive categories. > If "commodity capital on the market" is not variable capital (and > surely it's not) then it's constant. Let's consider this from a temporal perspective using the conceptual device of a period of production. At the end of any period of production, there are commodities which are offered for sale on the market. This inventory of unsold commodities does not represent c or v but _only_ commodity capital. If and when there is exchange, _then_ the owners of the commodity capital receive money-capital with which they can _then_ purchase c + v to begin the _next_ period of production. If one views a circuit of capital and the different moments in M - C - M' as an instantaneous and continuous process, then the above is not obvious. When one views it at various moments of time in the circuit that includes production and circulation time, then one can observe the transFORMation of capital, i.e. how capital can assume diffewrent forms at different moments in this process. So, c and v are only exhaustive categories if we assume that circulation time equals zero. If it takes time, then a portion of the total capital assumes the form of commodity capital. After sale, then depending on the type of commodity, it can then become for the buyer either means of consumption or means of production. If the latter, then it can _then_ take the form of constant capital. For the seller, the commodity capital becomes money and hence profit and the surplus value can _then_ be either unproductively consumed or used as money-capital to purchase c and v on the market. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed May 02 2001 - 00:00:06 EDT