RE: [OPE] the market and a classless society

> At the abstract level we cannot simply will ourselves into the realm
> of freedom. We'll have one foot in the realm of necessity for a long
> time to come. Some labor and its fruits will need to be rationed. A
> good way of doing that is on the principle of the equality of all our
> labors. Market exchange mediated by money in a classless society can
> realize that principle for those goods and services that are either
> new, experimental, costly, scarce etc.
 
 
 
Hi Ian:
 
So you think that you can have a "classless society" even with the
market and monetary exchange? How is it that this "classless society"
came about in the first place?
 
 
> Capitalist social relations of production are a specific social
> relation within production (not exchange), i.e. the wage-capital
> relation enforced by the contractual relations of the capitalist firm.

 
Your formulation is self-contradictory: you say that capitalist
social relations "are a specific social relation within production
(not exchange)" which refer to the wage-capital relation. *The
wage relation to capital requires the purchase and sale of labor
power - an exchange relation*. The point here is that capitalist
social relations of production can not be understood independently
of exchange because there is a unity of the processes of capitalist
production and capitalist circulation. Those who argue most vocally
against value-form theory seem to repeatedly miss this basic point:
it is precisely the specific relation between the process of
production and circulation insofar as the class relation is concerned
that distinguishes capitalism from non-capitalist modes of production.
It is utterly impossible to conceive of the wage labor - capitalist
relation without grasping the essential and indispensible role of
commodity exchange.
 
In solidarity, Jerry_______________________________________________
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Received on Tue May 5 17:50:26 2009