From: ope-admin@ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu
Date: Sat Mar 31 2007 - 12:32:49 EDT
Hi Jurriaan: This is a topic of some significance, especially as it concerns the informal (petty comnmodity) sector in many nations. The collection and re-sale of used goods has become a means by which many of the poor are able to meet their subsistence requirements. This includes both means of consumption (e.g. clothing) and means of production, especially goods which can be re-sold to capitalists and then be re-used as elements of constant circulating capital (e.g. scrap metal). Because of its informal nature, though, it is difficult to estimate the worth of these goods and therefore the _extent_ to which this has significance for economic activity. It is also difficult to estimate the *waste of use-values* in the world economy -- but there is no question that there is a tremendous amount of waste particularly of means of subsistence (e.g. food) in the advanced capitalist nations. (More anecdotally, there is evidence that there is a lot of waste in advanced capitalist nations within manufacturing e.g. of intermediate goods and other elements of constant capital. This seems to be related to whether the expendditure for wages is greater than the possible savings from collecting and re-using or re-selling these materials.) In solidarity, Jerry
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