Re: [OPE] Reply to critics

> I [Paula] wrote:
> >> Jerry .... You're assuming that
> >> 'produces a surplus-value' in the passage means 'produces a new
> >> surplus-value for capital as a whole'. That's not how it's written.>
> And Jerry replied:
> > Marx .... uses the former expression as
> > shorthand for the latter.>
> Says who? That's only your assumption, again. But if we drop it, other
> readings become possible.

 
Hi Paula:
 
Is there anyone else on the list who agrees with Paula's interpretation
of Marx's meaning concerning the expression 'produces a surplus value'?
If so, please speak up and explain why.
 

> Jerry also wrote:
> > Oh??? It's merely a 'tautology' to distinguish between the
> > production/creation of surplus value and it's realization???
>
> The tautology is to say that retail labour is unproductive because it
> realizes rather than creates surplus value. You're begging the question -
> why doesn't retail labor create surplus value in the first place?
 
 
 
I'm sorry, but that's running free and loose with the meaning of a
tautology.
 
The labor of wage-workers employed in 'retail' is to SELL commodities.
Wage labor which produces commodities is not the same as wage-labor
which helps to sell commodities. This is not in the slightest bit a
tautology - it is a reality that arises from the nature of capitalist
production and commodity exchange.
 
 

> And the same thing applies to what labor employed by manufacturing capital
> and labor employed by insurance capital have in common - EVERYTHING except
> one produces physical goods, the other services. Ergo, here lies the
> difference between productive and unproductive labor (in the sense of
> 'un/productive of new value for capital as a whole').
 
 
LOL! yOu're not serious about the "ergo" ARE YOU?

>
> And this follows from the fact that a service is not a commodity. A service
> is only a use-value, which can be provided via a commodity, or directly by
> labor.
 
 
THAT is what is known as a tautology.
 
 
In solidarity, Jerry

 
                                                
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Received on Thu Oct 21 20:53:27 2010