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Speaking of electronics and the law of value, here is an article by Guido Starosta, a colleague of Juan Iñigo Carrera, on the Global Value Chain (GVC) approach, a sort of Wallersteinian theory that purportedly addresses the problems of competition in global chains of electronics production: The Changing Dynamics of Value production and ‘Capture’ in theElectronics Global Value Chain: A Marxian Perspective http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/PEI/publications/wp/documents/Starosta01-09.pdf Let me quote what the aim of the article is, which is elaborated further on by developing how Marxtreated capitals of different sizes, and how the simpler form of the law of value is actually unfoldedin what mistakenly, as I see it, became the monopoly capital era: "Two major weaknesses can be observed in this account (Starosta, 2008b). First, whilst thereis no doubt that some firms have more power than others to ‘capture’ value (and hence have ahigher rate of profit) this is simply an empirical fact that requires explanation. Surely, the GVCapproach attempts to ground the differentiation of ‘value-capturing’ capacities in the exclusivepossession of ‘scarce assets’ by lead firms. But this analytically displaces the phenomenon to beexplained one step further. For why is it that certain capitals systematically have a greater potentialto appropriate scarce assets whilst others have no access to those means of capitalist competition?Perhaps one could argue that lead firms possess the magnitude of capital or access to financialresources necessary to generate their own barriers to entry, whilst lesser chain members do not(Rutherford and Holmes, 2008). But this will not do the trick either. It simply begs the question ofwhy in certain branches of the division of social labour capitals of a particularly restrictedmagnitude systematically prevail despite the general tendency for the concentration andcentralisation of capital characterising capitalist production. In a nutshell, one of the centralproblems with the GVC’s ‘theory of value capture’ is that it actually assumes what needs to beexplained, i.e. the systematic differentiation of capitals of stratified valorisation capacities. Second, the GVC approach fails to grasp the relations among individual capitals beyond their immediate appearances. It is thereby unable to uncover the content of the phenomenon under investigation behind its outward manifestations and actually inverts the latter into the very cause of the phenomenon itself. Thus, it sees the constitution of commodity chains as essentially governed by direct social relations of command (or maybe co-operation). This overlooks the essentially indirect nature of the general social relation that regulates capitalist society, namely, the generalised production and exchange of commodities. A proper explanation of the social constitution of GVC should therefore show why the indirect establishment of the general unity of the division of labour through the commodity-form becomes eventually mediated by relatively enduring direct social relations on particular nodes of the overall process of social production. Building on the Marxian law of value, the following section offers such an alternative account of the content and form of GVC." I will come back to this in a couple days (?) when I have more time. But thanks for keeping the discussion respectful, and by the way Joaquin, thanks for the link to the Silvio Rodriguez' blog. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2 ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
