[OPE-L:1667] Re: Do bears accumulate in the woods?

Iwao Kitamura (ikita@st.rim.or.jp)
Tue, 2 Apr 1996 08:00:11 -0800

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Paul Z.:

>Alan, how does this definition of accumulation of capital jive with
>Marx's summary statement (I, Chap. 25) "Accumulation of capital is,
>therefore, increase of the proletariat" or "accumulation, reproduces the
>capital-relation on a progressive scale, more capitalists or larger
>capitalists at this pole, more wage-laborers at that" (slightly earlier
>in the introduction to the chapter on the "The General Law of Capitalist
>Accumulation"? Your statement and his do not seem to me to amount to the
>same thing.
>

Iwao:

I found out that I red-underlined the phrase Paul Z quoted at my first
reading of Capital. This statement gave me strong impression.
But there's a term 'expanded scale of reproduction' placed just before
the phrase ""accumulation, reproduces the capital-relation on a progressive
scale,...".
Accumulation derives more scale of capital-relation.
But more scale of capital-relation doesn't define accumulation though
it well characterises that.

I tend to think that "The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation" points
production of relative surplus population. Capitalist accumulation
unavoidably causes unemployment=reserve army. And thus derived unemployment
becomes a necessary condition for existence of capitalist mode of production.
This is what Marx shows in the chapter of GLCA.

in OPE-L solidarity,
Iwao

------------------------------------
Iwao Kitamura
a member of theoretical study group
Japan Socialist Association
mail-to : ikita@st.rim.or.jp
personal web: http://www.st.rim.or.jp/~ikita/