On 09/20/99 at 10:15 AM, "Michael J Williams"
<michael@williamsmj.screaming.net> said:
Michael,
I will skip over the first part of your answer through the bracketed
expression and the next paragraph, since we are not meeting at the same
crossroads. I do note that you teach business economics and I could
imagine that business students, if they go into marketing, would resist
the idea that they will be engaged in "unproductive labor", so I might
have to spend pretty much time on the issue if I were teaching there
within a Marxist tradition. (I am not saying that your opinion derives
from the students you teach but I do think you would get more resistance
if you were teaching, as say Rosa Luxemburg did, at a party school.)
>> Is a mortgage loan a commodity, even though we have only interest (M-M',
>> the collapsed form of M-C-M')? If so, what is its use value, given that
>> there is no "C"? (Note: I am abstracting from the banking system as an
>> intermediary in posing this question. Also, if this question takes us on
>> a new road, perhaps I should withdraw it.)
>It is relevant to the general (un)productive labour distinction. As I
>have stated previously, imo, a mortgage is a commodity, notwithstanding
>that it is a (package of) service(s) rather than a physical product.
If it is to be a commodity, where is ANY labor power involved (remember
the banking system as intermediary is abstracted from the question)
whether productive or unproductive and why does Marx eliminate the "C"
from M-C-M' in such a case?
>> "Help...to sell" and "sell them at a higher price" are again criteria of
>> "success".
>See above. If Coke cannot systematically succeed in selling its products
>(for an adequate price) *they* will cease to be (successful) commodities.
The issue you are now introducing is the question of realization of
surplus value, not the productive/unproductive distinction. For the
productive/unproductive question, I do repeat that using a criterion of a
result ("success") is circular. However, I know we are on different
crossroads.
>I have argued that it is to generate success in their sales efforts that
>capital causes to be produced products with a use value for someone.
Yes, Coke and Pepsi are the use-values, not the ideological propaganda in
ads. You attempt, in part of your message (not reproduced), to package
the propaganda INTO the product itself, and I guess you are not surprised
that I reject such a turn in posing the issues.
I do not need to get into the final case of what happens if the sales
effort fails to succeed. Resolving that would not change the basic issues
at stake. I think you are saying the productive labor would be involved
but it would be unrealized and, yes, that happens in capitalism (and that
is of course correct).
Paul
***********************************************************************
Paul Zarembka, supporting RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY at
******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
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