Don't worry about summarizing the key elements of the Zmolek--Albritton exchange, Rakesh, I just went and scanned it myself. Despite some annoying aspects I found it quite interesting--many thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'm also interested in pursuing our point of agreement re the putting-out system. I believe we can do this without risking a return to the Chapter 5 quagmire. You write >I shall not re-engage your ch 5 criticism (which I had recently mentioned) >except to say that we are both agreed that putting out manufacture can be >a form of surplus value production. Viewing the putting-out system through the lens of Marx's analytical categories, I understand the putting-out system to be an instance of the circuit of merchant's capital that involves the commodification of labor power but *not* the subsumption of labor under capital, in even the formal sense. Insofar a this system is a form of surplus value production, then subsumption is not required for capitalist exploitation, or at least wasn't required under the class conditions obtaining in that era. If this is an accurate summary, it prompts two questions: first, what made it possible for capitalist exploitation to occur without even the formal subsumption of labor under capital, and second, would it be possible for surplus value to exist--if perhaps not at the same magnitude as in the circuit of industrial capital characterized by wage labor and capitalist production--on the basis of putting-out production under modern class conditions?
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