Jim writes:
> Victor, thanks for the analysis of the context of the sentence
quoted > by Marx. But there are two debates going on here:
>
> (1) does money-lending lead to the creation of surplus-value or is that
> simply an illusion arising from the fetishism of commodities?
> Here, I believe, Steve Keen and I agree: it is the latter. Gil Skillman
> disagrees with us.
>
> (2) Can use-value be described as being quantitative in nature? Here
> Steve and I disagree. I don't know what Gil thinks about this.
>
Re (1), I may disagree with Jim and Steve, but not in terms of the
way Jim states the issue. Money-lending, or usury as Marx termed it
for pre-capitalist interest capital, can most certainly be the basis
for the *realization* of surplus value by interest capitalists. Marx
affirms this repeatedly in the _Grundrisse_, the _Resultate_, and
_Capital_ Volume III. The connection works like this: capitalist
lends money--producer uses resources thereby provided to create more
value than could otherwise have been produced--transfers some of the
resulting increase to capitalist in the form of interest payment.
Note, though, that it's still surplus value to the capitalist,
whether the surplus value was originally produced with the
wherewithal provided by the capital loan or not.
And if anybody thinks the "fetishism of commodities" has anything to
do with this, or shows that the above is an illusion, then
s/he have made a fetish of Marx's theory of the fetishism of
commodities.
Re (2), I think I agree with Jim's earlier post on the issue of use-
value, if I interpret it correctly. If one interprets use-value as a
cover term which, with respect to given commodities, translates into
particular qualities-- heat, durability, resiliency, colorfastness,
etc, etc--then in many cases these particular characteristics, and
thus use-value in these senses, can be measured.
If, on the other hand, use-value is interpreted to mean something
like "utility"---forget it. Gil [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
