From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@STANFORD.EDU)
Date: Tue May 20 2003 - 12:03:31 EDT
>> >> >The fact that a mode of production has an internal dynamic >that causes it to evolve into something different, does not >mean that it did not exist. > >Capitalism has an internal dynamic that leads towards >the collapse of profit rates. It is inherently a transitory mode >of production that can only persist so long as it is surrounded >by pre-capitalist production. But it would be wrong to >conclude from this that capitalism never existed. >Likewise with simple commodity production. > >-- >Paul Cockshott >Dept Computing Science >University of Glasgow > The analogy is false. Expanded reproduction of the capitalist mode is possible on the basis of wage labor. The simple or expanded reproduction of simple commodity production would lead to the differentiation of simple commodity producers, i.e., to the formation of classes (that was GA Cohen's point). Moreover, Marx believed that as merchant capital organized the expansion of simple commodity production it turned apparently independent proprietors into de facto wage laborers, i.e., it only seems that simple commodity production is persisting. See Capital, vol 3, pp. 452-53. Vintage. Kriedte is charting a similar process led by merchant capital in the organization of proto industrialization. Rakesh
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