From: Howard Engelskirchen (howarde@TWCNY.RR.COM)
Date: Sun Jun 06 2004 - 03:52:34 EDT
In a post just sent I presented a bunch of quotes showing that Marx's analysis of commodities and value does not require the buying nd selling of albor power or the capitalist mode of production or the dominance of the circuit M-C-M. Here are some points of clarity: 1. The dispute is not about the existence of a simple mode of production. I agree with the critique of that notion. Value does not take over production except as capitalist production. But we don’t have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Accepting that there is no linear historical progression from simple commodity production to capitalist production, what is at issue is whether the social relation of value could have existed in pre-capitalist social formations as a subordinate social form. 2. Commodities existed in pre-capitalist societies, but wealth in those societies could never have been characterized as “an immense accumulation of commodities.” 3. In Capital, the Contribution, the Grundrisse, etc. Marx mixes theoretical analysis of value, exchange value, commodities and money with illustrations from the ancient and medieval worlds and from pre-capitalist formations on other continents. He never says – ‘but I don’t really mean ‘value’ here because I’m talking about ancient Rome.’ 5. Exchange value is a form of the manifestation of value. Therefore, references to exchange value presuppose the existence of value. Money is exchange value with independent existence. Therefore, the existence of money presupposes the existence of value. Marx never suggests the nature of money as money is different in pre-capitalist economic formations. Undoubtedly I’ve missed a lot, but it doesn’t seem like the evidence of what Marx’s understanding was on the existence of exchange value before bourgeois production is even a close call. This comes through particularly in the Grundrisse chapter on Money where he is engaged in working out his ideas. Howard
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