From: Fred B. Moseley (fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu)
Date: Sat Oct 12 2002 - 09:28:36 EDT
On Thu, 10 Oct 2002, Christopher Arthur wrote: > I agree with Riccardo that the unfinished state of V III means we are at > liberty to interpret (in particular Marx never completed the thought he > began when he said in real periods of production the input would be > production price). We are also at liberty to improve. One problem here is > the word "production"; Fred's interpretation is most strongly supported in > Marx by his continual reference to what is produced cannot be increased or > diminished by its distribution. However value is not produced. What is > produced are commodities. Value is the social measure of these commodities. > Now if these commodities are mediating different social relations it makes > sense to suppose there might be different ways to measure. I think it is > not a question of two stages but of two perspectives. There is the class > against class perspective where the real wage and the real surplus product > are key givens, and a V1 measure of total SV is obtained. And there is the > 'hostile brothers' perspective in which these givens are reevaluated for > their purposes. The 'substance' is invariant but the social determination > of its measure varies. The 'transformation' is the site of an objective > "contradiction in actuality" rather than a technical move in determining > prices and profits. Chris, even though Volume 3 is unfinished, one point that remains consistent throughout the various drafts of Capital is that the total surplus-value is determined prior to its division into individual parts. I do not think we are at liberty to interpret this point any way we like. We may of course want to change or improve Marx, but I think it has to be acknowledged that the prior determination of the total surplus-value was Marx's own logical method. I am glad that you agree that Volume 1 is about the class relation between capitalists and workers. Therefore, it is about the total surplus-value produced by the working class as a whole, right? Why do you think it is better to conceive of the class relation between capitalists and workers in real terms and the individual relations among capitalists in money terms? Capitalists actually pay workers a money wage, not a real wage. Workers produce for capitalists a money surplus-value, or dM. Isn't the goal of capitalist production dM, in money terms? What exactly is the "substance" that you say is invariant between Volume 1 and Volume 3. You have agreed in the past that the total surplus-value, in money terms, is taken as given in Volume 3 and is not affected by the distribution of surplus-value. How do you think this total surplus-value that is taken as given in Volume 3 is determined, if not by Marx's theory of surplus-value in Volume 1? Comradely, Fred
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