[OPE-L:7460] RE: Re: Re: Formal subsumption and putting-out

From: Howard Engelskirchen (lhengels@igc.org)
Date: Wed Jul 24 2002 - 14:27:14 EDT


Gil, you write

> No subsumption:  Usury capital, merchant's capital up to the level of 
> putting-out arrangements (no direct capitalist oversight, workers still
own 
> some of their own means of production); productive of surplus value.

Wouldn't this be "productive of surplus AS value"?

The point is that the productive process is not capitalist, formally or
really.  A surplus is created and the surplus takes the value form, but the
surplus is not generated by the capital relation.

Howard

  

> [Original Message]
> From: Gil Skillman <gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu>
> To: <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu>
 > Date: 7/24/2002 1:53:18 PM
> Subject: [OPE-L:7458] Re: Re: Formal subsumption and putting-out
>
> Paul writes
> 
> >does not the formal/actual subsumption parallel his later use of
> >the distinction between manufacture and modern industry. I take the
> >distinction between these to be the mature form of the concept that
> >is prefigured in the Grundrisse
> 
> Actually, no: in Marx's representation, the formal/real subsumption 
> distinction *doesn't* parallel his later distinction between manufacture 
> and modern industry.  The reason is that, for Marx, real subsumption is 
> necessary for the production of *relative* surplus value, and manufacture 
> and modern industry are stages in the production of relative surplus 
> value.  The only changes in the production process that Marx associates 
> with merely formal subsumption are those associated with an increase in
the 
> intensity, continuity, and length of the working day, and correspondingly 
> an increase in (only) the scale of production under the command of the 
> capitalist.
> 
> So it looks as if Marx makes this three-level distinction:
> 
> No subsumption:  Usury capital, merchant's capital up to the level of 
> putting-out arrangements (no direct capitalist oversight, workers still
own 
> some of their own means of production); productive of surplus value.
> 
> Formal subsumption:  industrial capital based on direct oversight of 
> production process (workers don't own means of production, but capitalist 
> merely takes over previous methods of production without altering 
> them).  Leads to creation of *absolute* surplus value.
> 
> Real subsumption (presupposing formal subsumption): Industrial capital
that 
> has seized control of the methods as well as the process of production, 
> resulting in creation of *relative* surplus value. Stages:  cooperation, 
> manufacture, modern large-scale industry.
> 
> I'm not suggesting that this is the only way to analyze the progression
of 
> the circuit of capital.  But it appears to be the way that Marx has done 
> it.  Again, this is based on my reading of the Economic Manuscript of 
> 1861-63 and the Resultate; I'm not claiming this reading as definitive.
> 
> Gil  



--- Howard Engelskir



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