Re: [OPE-L] What a whacky debate

From: Philip Dunn (hyl0morph@YAHOO.CO.UK)
Date: Sat Oct 27 2007 - 07:28:00 EDT


On Sat, 2007-10-27 at 12:48 +0200, Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
<snip>
>
> Marxists thought it was radical to prove that the workers are exploited as
> such. After all, Marx had aimed to show that the profit-based trading proces
> in capitalist society is ultimately based on getting something for nothing,
> and traced that unequal exchange to its roots, with the idea of making the
> working class conscious of its real position in society, and explaining what
> the emancipation of this class would mean (the abolition of "wage slavery"),
> and what the preconditions for it would be.
>
<snip>

Hi Jurriaan,

I was under the impression that Marx sought to explain profit without
invoking unequal exchange:

"To explain, therefore, the general nature of profits, you must start
from the theorem that, on an average, commodities are sold at their real
values, and that profits are derived from selling them at their values,
that is, in proportion to the quantity of labour realized in them. If
you cannot explain profit upon this supposition, you cannot explain it
at all."

Value, Price and Profit, ch6.

Presumably, this applies to the commodity labour-power as well.

Whether or not he succeeded is another matter.





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