From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Apr 23 2004 - 19:05:24 EDT
Problem with defining things in money terms is that the value of money is not time invariant so you can get misleading results. Defining things in value terms gets round this. -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L on behalf of glevy@PRATT.EDU Sent: Fri 4/23/2004 6:36 PM To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: (OPE-L) accumulation and de-accumulation of capital? Hi again Paul C. A quick response before I head to the afternoon session of the "Globalization and Empire" conference and hear David Harvey talk. > Are you talking in stock or flow terms. Flow. I.e. For capital to accumulate, surplus value must be productively consumed at a greater scale than before by investing more money-capital in c and v. > In flow terms, the dimension of variable capital is people, > specifically the number of people needed to reproduce the > work force in the capitalist sector. The dimension of v is not people but the quantity of _money_ paid to productive wage-workers in exchange for the commodity labour-power. A flow. > This is implicitly a stock analysis you are making but > even in this form it wildly wrong. > Your account only makes sense with gold money, with modern money > an accumulation of money is a purely paper operation and > does not represent an accumulation of value. All I was saying is that if we look at the circuit M - C - M' then for there to be capital accumulation the M that goes towards the purchase of c and v in the next period of production must be greater than the M that began the previous period. Thus, the M in Period 2 must be a greater quantity than the M that began Period I. There is no need here for complications that arise because of commodity-money vs. non-commodity-money regimes. In solidarity, Jerry
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