From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Thu Oct 10 2002 - 07:43:35 EDT
Re Fred's [7779]: > If there is no difficulty in the sale of commodities, then the actual > total surplus-value determined after sale is equal to the total > surplus-value determined in production, right? In other words, in this > case, the total surplus-value determined in production is the actual total > surplus-value, and not a hypothetical total surplus-value proportional to > the labor-time embodied in surplus goods, as in Riccardo's interpretation. > I argue that Marx assumed throughout Volume 1 (and indeed generally > throughout the three volumes) that there is no difficulty in the sale of > commodities, so that the actual total surplus-value determined after sale > is equal to the total surplus-value determined in production. Well, yes, one can make the *assumption* that the entire commodity product is sold in which case the magnitude of surplus-value determined in production will equal the magnitude of the surplus-value that is actualized. Yet, so long as this is an assumption rather than a result, the magnitude of *actual* surplus-value can not be taken to be the same as the magnitude that emerges from production. But, I thought it was your claim that the given surplus-value was the actual (vs. 'hypothetical') magnitude of s. Both claims to me do not appear to be logically consistent _unless_ this assumption is shown to be a result. Yet, nowhere in _Capital_ that I know of has this emerged as a result rather than a presupposition. I guess that returns us to the question (that I asked you a number of years ago): what is the meaning of "givens" in Marx's theory? If we take the magnitude of s to be given by assumption we must show later in our analysis (at a more concrete level of abstraction -- possibly as part of a "post-Capital" analysis) that either what was presupposed has not been demonstrated or that what was presupposed must be modified. In solidarity. Jerry
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