From: Ian Wright (ian_paul_wright@HOTMAIL.COM)
Date: Wed May 14 2003 - 13:12:45 EDT
Hello Rakesh, Thanks for the welcome! Rakesh wrote: >I am interested in what you make of this point raised by GA Cohen. > >"In simple commodity production the produers are self employed market >exchangers. They are not free labourers, since they own their own >means of production. Yet could they not produce for the sake of >accumulating capital? It is irrevlevant here that simple commodity >production has never in fact characterized an entire economy. What >does matter is that if it were general and, moreover, oriented to the >expansion of exchange-value, then it would rapidly transform itself >into capitalist commodity production. In the competition between >producers, some would prosper and others would fail, and be reduced >to labouring for the successful ones. This is just what tends to >happen where simple commodity production in fact obtains. A 'process >of social differentiation [Dobb] slices the set of commodity >producers into a rudimentary bourgeoisie and a rudimentary >proletariat." > >From KM's Theory of History: A Defense, p. 186 Coincidentally I have just started reading Cohen's book. I think the paragraph you quote is almost right, apart from the third sentence. In an economy of simple commodity producers no-one can produce for capital accumulation because there are no wage-labourers (this is true for me by definition). However, it is correct to say that, if such a simple commodity economy existed, then the anarchy of the market is a sufficient explanation for the emergence of significant income differences. The event of a particular producer enjoying a sequence of highly advantageous trades has a low but non-zero probability. So some individuals will accumulate disproportionate amounts of money. If there is a pool of wage-labourers then, formally at least, such individuals can employ them, and classes naturally emerge. (In my experiements with the simple commodity economy, irrespective of the initial money endowments, the stationary income distribution for the economy is approximately exponential, i.e. a small proportion of the producing population is always very rich). What's behind your question? -Ian. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
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