From: Michael Perelman (michael@ECST.CSUCHICO.EDU)
Date: Fri May 30 2003 - 22:52:55 EDT
What happens is that the working day via Prim. Accumulation increases to allow exploitation & profit. On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 06:26:05PM +0000, Ian Wright wrote: > I have a basic question that troubles me, which may nevertheless > have a very obvious answer that I'm just not getting. Any help > on this would be appreciated. > > When considering simple circulation at the beginning of Capital > Vol 1., Marx explains, as I understand it, that if (a) the total > money in a closed economy is fixed and (b) exchange is money > conserving then (c) average profits are zero (and he therefore > concludes that profits cannot arise from circulation). Essentially, > any profit is cancelled by another's loss. > > Let's place the possibility of hoarding to one side. > > Marx then discusses how the distinction between paid and unpaid > labour-time accounts for surplus-value. But the introduction of > capitalist exploitation doesn't change the above conditions (a) > and (b). So in this situation, consequence (c) still follows and > we'd expect average profits to be zero (rather than, say, a > uniform positive rate of profit). > > Is there a flaw in this reasoning? > > -Ian. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael@ecst.csuchico.edu
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