Gil writes in 6366 > >Of course it doesn't, since Marx never mentions the term "labor power" (or >for that matter, "prices of production" or "wage goods") in Chapter 5. The >term, and the corresponding distinction between "labor" and "labor power" >is first introduced in Chapter 6. However, what *does* matter is that >Marx's *sole* justification for introducing these concepts in *Chapter 6* >(not chapter 5) is in order to account for the existence of surplus value >*given price-value equivalence*. Thus Marx: > >"The change must therefore take place in the commodity which is bought in >the first act of circulation...but not in its value, *for it is equivalents >which are being exchanged, and the commodity is paid for at its full >value.* The change can *therefore* originate only in the actual use-value >of the commodity, i.e. in its consumption. In order to extract value out >of the consumption of a commodity, our friend the money-owner must be lucky >enough to find within the sphere of circulation...a commodity whose >use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value..." >[p. 270, emphases added] > >It is *this* reasoning, based explicitly and solely on the postulate of >price-value equivalence, that Marx uses to motivate his subsequent >treatment of the labor-labor power distinction in Chapter 6. To put this >point another way: granting entirely that profit and thus surplus value >requires the expenditure of surplus labor, it does not follow that >capitalists must *purchase labor power as a commodity* in order to achieve >this result. The latter conclusion is dictated *solely* by the postulate >of price-value equivalence. Gil, so you agree (at least implicitly, it seems) that if value is not increased in circulation and/or PVE is postulated, surplus value can in fact be appropriated if it is not labor time itself but rather not only labor power but also labor power at its full value that is alienated in exchange? But your point is that Marx does not prove that surplus value has to be produced that way? Merchants may indeed be able to appropriate surplus value through the putting out system that is based on exchanges that violate price-value equivalence. If this is what you are saying, I agree. Are you saying that if one postulates PVE then one is eliminating by fiat the putting out system since it relies on violation of PVE and thus not explaining why for the most part surplus value has come to be appropriated through the exploitation of free wage labor rather than through the putting out system? Are you saying that you can't rule out the putting out system (or some variant thereof) by simply making the arbitrary postulate of PVE? Are you saying that Marx is trying to show the necessity of the commodification of labor power by arbitrarily postulating price-value equivalence? And by the law of value do you mean PVE? And is this why you are saying that the law of value is an arbitrary postulate in the logical derivation of the commodification of labor power? And is why you are saying we must do away with value based reasoning and discover microinstitutional reasons for the vanquishing of the putting out and like systems by the system of free wage labor? I am trying to understand you, am I doing a good job? I even had Steve Keen express amazement that I understood what he was saying about use-value/exchange value dialectic. Now try to understand my perspective. First, I agree that Marx gives no reason in chs 5 and 6 why the putting out system has historically been displaced by the commodification of labor power because I don't think is Marx's concern in the least. But you do agree--no?--that if the working class has been proletarianized (that is assume the expropriation of independent producers and the creation of a free wage labor market; assume a fully developed capitalism) and now assume that value cannot be created in circulation itself, the working class can still be exploited and surplus value produced even *if* the thing that it exchanges is not in fact its labor time but rather its labor power even if this labor power is sold at its full value and the so called laws of exchange in this way respected. Now please understand that for Marx's argument it does not matter whether labor power actually does sell at its value. You are way hyping the importance of PVE in the argument as it unfolds. For Marx himself realizes that surplus value can result from labor power having sold *below* its value. But this would be *extra* surplus value that results when price-value equivalence does not hold and in this case the working class is in effect *super* exploited. Then Marx tells us that he will not consider this possibility in the course of his investigation though we do learn that the wage must cover the prices of production rather than the value at which wage goods sell. Now you speak of the legitimate impact of your theory, I ask you please to refer us to one person who agrees with you that even if your criticism is legitimate in some detail it is in any way important. Either on this list or off. I know that no one agrees with my inverse transformation interpretation but it builds on insights of Allin and Fred and Alejandro. I am trying to put together pieces of puzzle that others see and hoping that they will come to agree with what I take to be the strong sides of their respective interpretations. I am trying to put together Jerry's criticism of the V=0 assumption with what I think is the legitimate dropping of the input price=output price assumption by Ersnt, Carchedi, etc. But you are not getting any support that you are on to something important, any agreement that it's not legitimate for Marx to focus on and work out how the exploitation of free wage labor is possible under the strictest conditions, any support that at the very least it's not a neat thing to turn the Lockean game on itself by postulating PVE and showing how the laws of exchange can become laws of appropriation. But you go on. No one has been able to state your criticism back to you in a way that you find legitimate; Fred however understands exactly what I am saying. And when people understand what you are saying, they say big deal. And I say big deal as well. Surplus value can and did result quite often in the early stages of capitalism from the putting out system that is explicitly not based on PVE--by the way Grossmann emphasized this. You did not discover this; in fact you say that Marx himself had a good historical sense of this--so he just forgot about it in chapter 5? There was some argument about whether only free wage labor can produce surplus value. I agreed with you and Patrick against Jerry against this formalistic stricture (modern plantation slavery in my and grossman's opinion was sv producing, and surely there was no PVE there). I even follow Jan Breman and Jairus Banaji that surplus value is produced in India today not uncommonly outside the free wage labor form, but these forms are unstable modes of surplus value production. I still don't think this matters very much as to what Marx is accomplishing in chs 5 and 6. But I suppose that you will admit that your ch5/6 critques has been a needless detour the same your fellow economists admit that Marx does not have a transformation problem. Rakesh >
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