Re: [OPE-L] workers' consumption and capitalists' consumption

From: Ian Wright (wrighti@ACM.ORG)
Date: Thu Jun 15 2006 - 15:20:59 EDT


Hi Rakesh

> 1. Does your accounting
> conflate juridical and real-productive categories:
> to quote more or less from the critique of Adolph Wagner,
>  profit on capital is not a constitutive element,
> yet the value not constituted by the labour of the capitalist
> conceals a portion which he can appropriate legally

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but I look at it this way. Profit
on capital is not technically necessary to produce the net output. But
the presence of profit on capital is socially necessary in capitalism.
It is an empirical fact that it does occur. This results in a
different method of production compared to simple commodity
production. Under capitalist conditions it is not possible to
technically produce any output without also producing capitalist
consumption goods in the same period. The replacement costs, measured
in terms of labour-time, are therefore higher. Sraffa's objectivism
doesn't extend to counting money-capital as a commodity that is a
socially necessary input to the production process, and therefore
misses the objective social relations that differentiate capitalism
from simple commodity production.

Best wishes,
-Ian.


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