On Sun, 14 Apr 1996 glevy@acnet.pratt.edu wrote:
> I gave the definition in the first paragraph of Ch. 24. You said (and say
> above) that the following paragraphs (and few pages) are relevant for the
> definitional issue. I am asserting that the remainder of the chapter as
> well has relevance for our understanding of both the definition and
> process of accumulation.
I disagree. After 4-5 pages, the definition has been completed.
Consider the following (how could any writer be clearer in what s/he is
trying to say?):
1) First four-five pages of Chapter 4, particularly the arithmetic
presentation.
2) Chapter 24 (p. 727 Pengium, p. 545 Lawrence & Wishart/Progress):
"All capital needs to do is to incorporate this ADDITIONAL [my emphasis,
P.Z.] labor-power, anuually supplied by the working class in the shape of
labor-powers of all ages, with the additional means of production
comprised in the annaul product, and the transformation of surplus-value
into capital has been accomplished".
3) Chapter 24 (p. 729 and p. 546):
"In every case, the working class creates by the surplus labor of one year
the capital destined to employ additional labor in the following year. And
this is what is called creating capital out of capital."
4) Chapter 25 (p. 763 and p. 575)--the beginning of this chapter
represents of summary of what has been learned theoretically in the prior
chapter):
"As simple reproduction constantly reproduces the capital-relation
itself, i.e. the presence of capitalists on the one side, and
wage-laborers on the other side, so reproduction on an expanded scale,
i.e. accumulation, reproduces the capital-relation on an expanded scale,
with more capitalists, or bigger capitalists, at one pole, and more
wage-laborers at the other pole."
5) Chapter 25, (p. 764 and p. 576):
"Accumulation of capital is therefore multiplication of the proletariat."
> Definitions [in Marx} are not always given clearly...
This one is.
Paul Z.