From: Fred B. Moseley (fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 21:54:50 EDT
> From: Christopher Arthur <cjarthur@waitrose.com> > > Hi Fred > 1) You say Marx determined total SV in V1. You have no evidence for > this: as I pointed out many times Marx does not say in V1 that this is > what he was doing and no statement in V1 even comes close. > But that is an old story. Chris, I think there is lots of textual evidence to support my interpretation, including especially that Volume 1 is about the total class relation between the capitalist class as a whole and the working class as a whole (which I thought from your last post - 7793 - that you agreed with). The most important aspect of this total class relation is the production of surplus-value by workers for capitalists. Therefore, it seems to me that Volume 1 is about the total surplus-value produced by the working class as a whole for the capitalist class as a whole. Chris, what is wrong with this argument? How can Volume 1 be about the total class relation between capitalists and workers and not be about the total surplus-value produced by the working class as a whole? > 2) I want to draw your attention to the fact that your presentation of > your theory has drifted. In recent mails you say the above. But earlier > you said something different. You said Marx does not need to determine > total SV at all because it is an empirical given, a premise not a > result. On this version of your theory you start from social dM as a > problem and then you have various stages of its *explanation*. First you > try to explain it using the categories of V1 but with a macro twist > (which Marx's V1 does not have, but I have no objection); but this is > only provisonal because this categorial mesh is too crude; so the second > stage of the explanation you draw from V3; I assume you would then need > a third stage of explanation to cope with the realisation issues raised > by Jerry. Chris, I never said that "Marx does not need to determine total SV because it is an empirical given, a premise not a result." What I have said is that the total surplus-value is determined in Volume 1, under the assumption that there is no realization problem. This total surplus-value determined in Volume 1 is the actual total surplus-value in periods in which there is in fact no realization problem. The distribution of this total surplus-value is then determined in Volume 3, again under the assumption that there is no realization problem. The crucial point is that the total amount of surplus-value does not change in Volume 3 as a result of the distribution of surplus-value (i.e. total profit = total surplus-value). There is no further determination of the magnitude of the total surplus-value in Volume 3. That has been my main point all along. Comradely, Fred
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Oct 17 2002 - 00:00:01 EDT