From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Sat Dec 06 2003 - 09:00:09 EST
Hi Paolo. I haven't forgotten your Tuesday, December 2, message. I think that in both of the instances you cite, Marx was explaining different aspects of capitalist reality. On the one hand, the market tends to obscure and mystify the origins of surplus value to _all_. On the other hand, capitalists on some level -- in perhaps mystified form -- have _class consciousness_. Class consciousness presumes that members of the capitalist class are able to identify and act to further areas of mutual interest and that requires at least on some level a recognition of the origin of surplus value. How else could they effectively strategize about their class interests? Within the context of the section of Volume III that you cited, capitalists, through the formation of the general rate of profit and prices of production, each receive a "share" of the total surplus value even though they are "hostile brothers" in competition. Within that context, banking capitalists who might not employ variable capital or capitalists who only engage in speculation would receive a share of surplus value produced in the circuit of industrial capital. One can receive a share of surplus value without any surplus value being produced by your workers. In this section, capitalists are still wearing 'character masks' and are not yet given the attribute of class consciousness, imo. Where then in the ordering of the presentation would capitalists -- and the working class -- have class consciousness? In solidarity, Jerry
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