A reply to Mike W's ope-l 5272.
I realize that you're agnostic about where Marx wanted the LTFPR to come,
Mike. As for the quotes from Marx, I think his point is actually very simple.
He's saying that it is possible to derive the tendency for the profit rate to
fall from considering just the general nature of capital, treated in Book I.
"This is already evident from what was developed in Book I." "[W]e can derive
the general law directly from the general nature of capital as so far
developed." However, there's a problem in doing that, namely that, for an
individual capital, its profit rate is not s/(c+v), but more or less. So were
Marx to have presented the LFTPR in book I, or before Ch. 9 of Vol. III, he'd
run into the objection that it relied on theory of the generation of profit
that is at variance with observed facts. But once he shows that, in the
aggregate, price = value and surplus-value = price, so that the aggregate
profit rate does indeed = s/(c+v), then the "laws of value and surplus value
.. which were previously developed ... are still valid"; "we once again stand
on firm ground, where, without entering into the competition of the many
capitals, we can derive the general law directly from the general nature of
capital." This is why the LTFPR comes where it does.
As I noted, "this is extremely obvious in light of the history of the debate,
since the "refutations" of the LTFPR rely on the "refutations" of Marx's
account of the transformation of commodity values into production prices." My
point was that, if Marx's account of the transformation is correct, then the
LTFPR follows as the night the day. Those who challenge the latter must
therefore challenge the former, as indeed they have done. (Of course, there
is the simultaneous single-system interpretation, in which the former is
correct but the latter is not. The integrality of these issues in Marx's
work, as verified by the passages in question, is therefore evidence against
the SSS interpretation.)
With respect to abstract and concrete: what Marx is saying here presents a
serious problem for those who interpret _Capital_ as moving from abstract to
concrete, especially when this is linked to an alleged movement from capital
as such (allegedly abstract) to competition (allegedly concrete). Marx tells
us that "we once again stand on firm ground, where, without entering into the
competition of the many capitals, we can derive the general law directly from
the general nature of capital." Note the "once again." The vantage-point
has moved from the general nature of capital to competition and BACK AGAIN.
The theory of a unilateral movement from abstract to concrete, and especially
from capital as such to many capitals, goes out the window. Moreover, what
Ch. 9 demonstrates is that competition is not the concrete; it is a mere
superficial appearance of the concrete. This is why Marx's account of the
transformation is anathema to apologists for state-capitalism. The concrete
is the total social capital: "we once again stand on firm ground"; if "firm
ground" doesn't signify "concrete," then I don't know what does. This accords
with Hegel's concept of the *concrete universal*, whereas the view that
competition is concrete and the inner nature of capital is abstract is rooted
in the notion that universals are abstract and only particulars are concrete.
I'm glad we agree about the manifestation of the LTFPR.
Andrew Kliman