A response from Jurriaan to [5481]: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <j.bendien@wolmail.nl> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 6:41 PM Subject: Re: Counteracting factors > Hi Jerry, > > I will get back to you about that, I'm a bit short of time. Just a few > thoughts. I am happy to concede that Mandel thought the arms industry has a > contradictory effect on average profitability levels, but my main point is > that the arms industry can have a large semi-independent effect on average > profitability levels, which Marx himself did not consider. > > For Paul, the profits of the arms industry are a transfer by the state, > therefore, tautologically (by virtue of the accounting definition) they > cannot represent a fraction of new value added. However if the state pays > for utilities, then Paul would presumably consider those utilities > productive, adding new value. Now why is that ? What is the difference ? It > reduces apparently to the fact that the output of the arms industry doesn't > enter into the reproduction process. (I doubt this is fully true anyway, > the arms industry does have a big economic effect also in terms of its > innovations; for the same token, I can make an argument that the arms > industry provides a big stimulus to production in both Dept 1 and 2). But > anyway I don't think that whether a good re-enters the reproduction process > or not, is a criterion for whether new value is added through producing the > good in the first place. > > I am sympathetic to Paul's concept of productive labour, from a socialist > economist's point of view (i.e. "waste" is socially defined), but what Marx > is talking about, is simply what is productive from the point of view of > the overall functioning of the bourgeois system. > > And as Mandel emphasises, from THIS point of view, all wage-labour which > produces commodities for private profit is productive. It doesn't matter if > the commodities are dum-dum bullets or pornographic magazines or nuclear > bombs or pyramids or any sort of horrible use-value, or what the exact > consequences are of its consumption (about which there may be a moral > panic), the simple fact is that a commodity is produced out of which you > can make a profit. (The real analytical problem is then to correctly > delineate the realm of commodity production, and this as we know is not so > easy to do). > > Regards > > Jurriaan (5481 deleted, JL)
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