From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Tue Dec 05 2006 - 11:27:57 EST
--- Paul Cockshott <wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK> wrote: Ajit: > Now try to tell your students that capitalists get > their profits because workers produce their wages in > a > few seconds (8/8001 hrs.) and the rest of the time > they work for the capitalist and see how convinced > they will be. > ------------------------------ > Paul > I would not be attempting to convince the > capitalists > I would be addressing the workers. I think that in > The circumstances I would have little difficulty in > Convincing them that this was the most outrageous > Exploitation of labour imaginable! _______________________ Paul, there is no need to assume that your students are capitalists. They are just young kids interested in learning about the world and things. _______________________ > Ajit > Put a few more zeros on the right hand > side of the production equation and you will see how > ridiculous the argument will begin to sound, and > particularly when you will have billions of people > living with only few thousand workers working. > ---------------------------------- > Paul > > Why should this situation ever eventuate, if the > rate of profit is so high, and there is so much > surplus value available for accumulation then > capitalists will reinvest leading to higher > employment. __________________________ I think this is the most important theoretical sticking point for you. The point I'm trying to make is made by workers all over the world every day these days, i.e. the spector of "jobless growth". The capitalists do keep reinvesting their profits but the technical changes are taking place simultaneously and its nature is such that though the growth in total output are taking place but simultaneously either employment is stagnant or even declining. I'm just trying to work out the theoretical consequences of this scenario. In India the left is arguing for a move toward 'labor intensive' job creating technology or minimum employment guarantee etc. I wrote a short piece on this kind of scenario in EPW sometime ago (it came out on July 2, 2005). I attach the draft file for you. ________________ > More generally though, I don't see why you think > that positing examples that are so far out of the > range of the normal is enlightening. The fact that > examples with these sort of ratios do not exist > indicates that there are dynamical laws which > prevent their occurrence. _____________________ That's the only way I know how to do theory. I think to think that there is a dynamical law that prevents the things that do not exist from occurring is to argue that whatever does not exist cannot exist--does not make sense to me. Cheers, ajit sinha __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
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