In response to Steve Keen, Jim Devine writes:
> ... an individual may claim a share of societal
> surplus-value simply by lending and collecting interest
> (M -M') because behind the scenes is the exploitation of
> labor.
Hmm. This seems to beg a question, namely that the existence of a
circuit M--M' such that M' > M is in fact *tantamount* to
exploitation of labor, as can easily be shown.
On this score I note that even Anwar Shaikh's _Palgrave_
definition of exploitation does not require direct coercion in
production as a precondition. Also note Marx's comment in Volume
III: "Usurer's capital has capital's mode of exploitation without its
mode of production." Usury, of course, is just M--M', and Marx is
here describing social relations prior to capitalism.
> If it is the latter, then Marx is contradicting his own
> theory: he's saying that one can earn interest, create
> surplus-value, simply by lending, following what W.W.
> Rostow termed "the magic of compound interest."
Compounding has nothing directly to do with it, but note on this
score Marx "contradicts" himself more than once--cf the above quote,
as well as this beauty, courtesy of Mike Lebowitz, from the
_Resultate_ : "[Usury] transforms its money into capital by extorting
unpaid labor, surplus labor, from the immediate producer. But it
does not intervene in the process of production itself...."
> Reading the context of your quote, it looks like the
> former interpretation is accurate: immediately before,
> he says "Instead of the actual transformation of money
> into capital, we see here only form without content." I
> interpret this as saying that M - M' is a pale imitation
> of the actual production of surplus-value. Later he calls
> M - M' "the fetish form of capital and the conception of
> fetish capital" and "the meaningless form of capital."
Hard to see how this interpretation is consistent with the above
quotes, and with the fact that usury made all that money before
capitalist production relationships were born. [How much money? Marx
again, Volume III: "In the form of interest, the usurer
can...swallow up *everything in excess of the producers' most
essential means of subsistence*..." Pretty good for a pale
imitation!
This leads me to a question: Jim, how do you define [capitalist]
exploitation--not its necessary conditions, its definition--and how
do you think Marx defines it?
Cheers, Gil [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
