Marx, Capital vol.2, pp. 224-25:
"It is not necessary to go into all the details of the costs of circulation
here, such as packing sorting, etc. The general law is that *all
circulation costs that arise simply from a change in form of the commodity
cannot add any value to it.* [Marx's emphasis] They are simply costs
involved in realizing the value or transferring it from one form into
another. The capital expended in these costs (including the labour it
commands) belongs to the *faux frais* of capitalist production. The
replacement of these costs must come from the surplus product, and from the
standpoint of the capitalist class as a whole it forms a deduction of
surplus-value or surplus product, in just the same way as the time that a
worker needs to buy his means of subsistence is lost time for him."
Andrew writes (#3509):
>Now often Marx implicitly distinguishes constant capital from _faux frais_,
>but if one is dealing with three categories only, C, V, and S, then _faux
>frais_ are part of C. In other words, they are indeed costs of production,
>but not part of V. Not even _faux frais_ paid in the form of wages are part
>of V, because they are not used to purchase labor-power that performs
>*productive* labor. Indeed, the _faux frais_ function in value terms just
>like the rest of C. Capital is advanced for them, they are in the denominator
>of the profit rate, their value is transferred to the value of the product.
>All this is because they are indeed *costs* of production, as the term the
>_faux frais de production_ indicates.
I completely agree that, with respect to the faux frais, "Capital is
advanced for them, they are in the denominator of the profit rate," but the
rest of the sentence appears to be inconsistent with (my reading of) Marx.
To say of the faux frais that "their value is transferred to the value of
the product" seems inconsistent with Marx's view that "replacement of these
costs must come from the surplus product, and from the standpoint of the
capitalist class as a whole it forms a deduction of surplus-value or
surplus product." In other words, like Andrew I read Marx as including the
faux frais in the denominator of the rate of profit, but unlike Andrew I
understand him to subtract the faux frais from the total surplus-value and
to include only the residual amount (what's left after "replacement" of
these costs from the surplus product) as the numerator of the rate of
profit. Others, I know, have made this argument (didn't this issue come up
recently as a sideline in another thread?). So I am puzzled as to how
Andrew makes sense of the reference (here and in many other places in Marx)
to the costs of unproductive activities as "deductions" from the
surplus--not simply as costs that don't produce more surplus-value but as
costs that literally are replaced only by reducing the surplus-value
available to be realized as profit. So, unlike Andrew's argument that "if
one is dealing with three categories only, C, V, and S, then _faux frais_
are part of C," if I'm given the same three choices, I'd say that Marx
views the faux frais as "part" of S. How do others view this?
Bruce B. Roberts
broberts@usm.maine.edu
Department of Economics
University of Southern Maine
Portland ME 04104-9300
(O) 207-780-5503
(H) 207-772-7047
fax 207-780-5507-------------------------------------------------