From: Francisco Paulo Cipolla (cipolla@UFPR.BR)
Date: Mon Apr 17 2006 - 15:08:51 EDT
Hi Jurriaan, could you explain a bit your last paragraph, especially where it reads: "But what Marx overlooks is that this indifference may become a problem.." Thanks Paulo Jurriaan Bendien wrote: > Thanks for the quote, Chris. Marx does suggest here that, from the > standpoint of the valorisation process, i.e. at a high level of abstraction, > "capital is in and for itself indifferent towards the specificity of every > sphere of production", but that is just to say that what matters *in a > financial regime* is costs, sales revenue and profit, no matter what is > produced. And further, more substantively, that the developmental impulse of > capital is to remove "all legal and extra-economic obstacles to the > versatility we are discussing". > > Yet Marx acknowledges here also "One cannot make any boots with spindles, > cotton, and spinners", i.e. use-value cannot be ignored from an economic or > technical point of view in real production. The use-value aspect is however > abstracted from "in order to present the laws of political economy in their > purity". But again, that does not mean that in reality the use-value aspect > can be, or is disregarded. Marx does not say here *capitalists* are so > indifferent, only that *capital* as self-valorising value is indifferent. > > The credibility of the "indifference" argument hinges on the question > "indifference to what, and from what point of view". The substance of the > indifference idea is, that if goods are produced for exchange, rather than > immediate use, then producing them is not an end in itself, but only a means > to an end, i.e. to obtain income in order to buy other goods, and that is > how it is looked upon. > > But what Marx overlooks is that this indifference may itself become a > practical problem, and that a great deal of management effort goes into > combatting that indifference - this would be particularly true in a services > economy. > > Jurriaan
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