Thanks very much to Gil for his very helpful recent post (1162). I think
that I understand Gil's arguments about Chapter 5 much better now. In
particular, I now understand that Gil is not arguing that Marx is trying to
prove in Chapter 5 that surplus-value is not possible in non-capitalist
modes of production; rather Gil is arguing that this result is IMPLIED by
Marx's conclusion in Chapter 5 that surplus-value must be explained on the
basis of the assumption that individual prices are equal to their values.
More on this "pernicious" inference below. But first, I would like to
address the point of our discussion that I am most interested in: whether
Marx's statement at the end of Chapter 5 about individual prices
conntradicts my "aggregate" interpretation of Volume 1.
I have argued that Volume 1 is mainly an aggregate analysis about the
determination of the total amount of surplus-value in a given, existing
capitalist economy as a whole (following Mattick, Rosdolsky, etc.) I have
argued further Marx's theory of the aggregate amount of surplus-value
depends on the assumption that the aggregate price of commodities is equal
to its value, but does not depend in any way on the assumption that the
prices of individual commodities are equal to their values.
Marx often illustrated this aggregate analysis with an individual capital,
but this individual capital is not the real subject of Marx's theory of
surplus-value in Volume 1. An individual capital is considered in Volume 1
only for the purpose of illustrating the aggregate capital, which is the
real subject of Marx's anlysis.
(For similar interpretations, see Rosdolsky, p. 48 and Foley, Understanding
Capital, p. 6.) As Marx expressed this point in the 1861-63 manuscript:
In capitalist production [i.e. Volume 1], each capital is assumed to be a
unit, an aliquot part of the total capital. (TSV.I. 416)
Volume 3 is then mainly about the distribution of the total amount of
surplus-value in this given capitalist society, first into individual
branches of production and then the further division of surplus-value into
merchant profit, interest, and rent. The distribution of surplus-value
across branches of production involves the determination of individual prices.
I have presented substantial evidence to support this interpretation of
Volume 1 as an aggregate analysis and Volume 3 as a disaggregated analysis
in my 1993 paper on the transformation problem ("Marx Logical Method and the
Transformation Problem" in Moseley (ed.), Marx's Method in Capital) and in a
soon to be published paper (The Development of Marx's Theory of the
Distribution of Surplus-Value", in Moseley and Campbell (eds.)
Investigations of Marx's Method.
Evidence to support this interpretation is also found in Chapter 5: (1)
Marx's arguement that, even if the prices of individual commodities are NOT
equal to their values, these divegences do not increase the total amount of
surplus-value, which indicates that this total amount of surplus-value is
the main subject of Marx's analysis (more on this argument and Gil's
critique below). (2) Marx's discussion of merchant profit and interest,
which states that these individual parts of surplus value cannot be
explained until after the total amount of surplus-value has been explained,
which is the main task of Volume 1.
Now, Gil argues that this aggregate interpretation of Volume 1 is contradicted
by Marx's conclusion in Chapter 5, where he stated that surplus-value must
be explained on the basis of the assumption that the prices of INDIVIDUAL
commodities are equal to their values.
I agree that Marx did say at the end of Chapter 5 that he would explain
surplus-value in capitalism on the basis of the assumption that the prices
of individual commodities are equal to their values. However, this
assumption is not so much the conclusion of Chapter 5, as Gil suggests (the
main conclusion of Chapter 5 is that surplus-value within capitalism cannot
be explained on the basis of exhange alone), but rather is an abstract
expression of Marx's basic assumption of the labor theory of value,
initially presented in Chapter 1 and the basis of everything after Chapter
1, including Chapter 5. All the arguments in Chapter 5 are based on this
assumption. Marx argued first that, if the prices of individual commodities
are equal to their values (so that equivalents are exchanged), then
obviously exchange cannot be a source of surplus-value. Marx then argued
that, even if the prices of individual commodities are not equal to their
values (so that non-equivalents are exchanged), the individual divergences
of prices from their values do not affect the aggregate amount of value
surplus-value, which is the main subject of Marx's analysis in Chapter 5 and
the rest of Volume 1. "The capitalist class as a whole cannot defraud
itself." Therefore, these individual divergences can be ignored in an
analysis of the aggregate amount of surplus-value. Hence, Marx returned to
the original assumption with which he began the chapter: that individual
prices are equal to their values.
Gil has argued that this argument of Marx's is not valid because it ignores
the possibility of capitalists appropriating surplus-value from other
classes, i.e. from other modes of production.
The claim that "the capitalist class of a given country, taken as a whole,
cannot defraud itself" is perhaps true but necessarily irrelevant: the
question at issue is whether it can "defraud" some other class.
But this is Gil's "question at issue", not Marx's. I have argued, and Gil
has indicated that he agrees or at least is willing to accept, that Marx's
theory from
the beginning of Capital - and in Chapter 5 - is about the capitalist mode
of production. Hence Marx ruled out by assumption the possibility of
appropriating surplus-value from non-capitalist modes of production. His
analysis is concerned solely with surplus-value produced and appropriated
within the capitalist mode of productioin. Therefore, under this
assumption, Marx's argument that "the capitalist class as a whole cannot
defraud itself" is valid. Individual divergences of prices from values do
not affect the total amount of surplus-value produced and appropriated
within capitalism and hence can be ingnored in an analysis of this total
amount of surplus-value.
However, this assumption stated at the end of Chapter 5, that the prices of
individual commodities are equal to their values, is not essential to Marx's
theory of the aggregate amount of surplus-value. The precise assumption
that is essential to this theory is that the aggregate price of commodities
is equal to their value. This assumption is often illustrated by an
individual commodity (e.g. the explanation of surplus-value in Chapter 7),
but this individual commodity represents the aggregate commodity product.
Therefore, Marx's statement at the end of Chapter 5 that surplus-value must
be explained on the basis of the assumption that individual prices are equal
to their value means only that: (1) this is the only assumption regarding
the prices of individual commodities that is consistent with the labor
theory of value at this abstract level of analysis; (2) since the aggregate
amount of surplus-value cannot be explained on the basis of divergences of
individual prices from their values, this aggregate surplus-value must be
explainable on the assusmption that individual prices are equal to their
value. This statement does NOT mean that surplus-value is not actually
possible unless individual prices are equal to their values, as Gil seems to
suggest.
The provisional nature of this assumption that individual prices are equal
to their values is indicated in the final sentence of the footnote to the
final paragraph of Chapter 5.
How can we account for the origin of capital on the assumption that prices
are regulated by average price, i.e. ultimately by the value of
commodities? I say "ultimately" because average prices do not directly
coincide with the values of commodities, as Adam Smith, Ricardo, and others
believe.
Here Marx explicitly acknowledged that individual prices are in fact not
equal to their values. But the divergences of individual prices from their
values due to the equalization of profit rates, like the divergences
discussed in Chapter 5 due to cheating, etc., do not affect the total amount
of surplus-value and hence can be ignored in the analysis of this total
amount of surplus-value. The actual determination of individual prices is
not considered until Volume 3, as one aspect of the division of the total
surplus-value into individual component parts.
Therefore, I conclude that Marx's statement at the end of Chapter 5 that he
would assume that individual prices are equal to their values in his theory
of surplus-value does not contradict the interpretation (mine and others)
that Volume 1 is mainly an aggregate analysis of the total amount of
surplus-value and that the assumption that individual prices are equal to
their values plays no essential role in this aggregate analysis. This
assumption is simply the only assumption about individual prices that is
consistent with the labor theory of value at this abstract level of analysis.
"PERNICIOUS" INFERENCE
Gil also argues that Marx's "conclusion" in Chapter 5, that he will assume
that individual prices are equal to their values in his theory of
surplus-value, is "pernicious" because it has led many Marxists to infer
that surplus-value is possible only within the capitalist mode of
production. But this inference is incorrect. If many Marxists have
interpreted Marx in this way (I am not familiar with this literature) then
they are wrong. Since Marx's theory assumes from the beginning the
capitalist mode of production, it excludes by assumption all other modes of
production. Marx's argument in Chapter 5 simply says that, within
capitalism, surplus-value cannot arise from circulation alone. It does not
preclude the possibility that surplus-value might be produced in
non-capitalist modes of production and appropriated by capitalists. Marx's
assumption that individual prices are equal to their values does not refer
to the actual possibility of surplus-value (i.e. it does not imply that if
individual prices are not equal to their values, then surplus-value is not
actually possible), but rather is only a provisional, inessential
assumption in Marx's theory of the aggregate amount of surplus-value in the
capitalist economy as a whole. Marx's theory of surplus-vaue is only about
the capitalist mode of production and implies nothing necessarily about
non-capitalist modes of production.
CENTRALITY OF LABOR-POWER
Gil's ultimate point seems to be that Marx's emphasis on labor-power as the
source of surplus-value depends on Marx's "conclusion" at the end of Chapter
5 that individual prices are equal to their values, and that, since this
conclusion is invalid, Marx's emphasis on labor-power as the source of
surplus-value on these grounds is also invalid. Gil asks: if Fred also
accepts that individual price-value equivalence is not essential to Marx's
theory of surplus-value, on what grounds can Fred justify the emphasis on
labor-power? Gil claims that whatever I give cannot depend in any way on
Marx's labor theory of value.
Thanks again.
Fred