At 09:58 AM 11/4/96 -0800, you wrote: > >On Sun, 3 Nov 1996, Ajit Sinha wrote: > >> .... Exploitation and accumulation is not a result of man's >> inherent greed or desire to better his condition, but because of the forces >> of competition that reduces the capitalists to a cog in the system.... > >Ajit, does this mean that you see "competition" as the essence of the >capitalist exploitation and accumulation? If so, then why does Marx write >"It is not our attention to consider, here [Vol. I, Part IV, Production of >Relative Surplus Value, Chp. 12, about four pages in], the way in which >the laws, immanent in capitalist production, manifest themselves in the >movements of individual masses of capital, where they assert themselves as >coercive laws of competition, and are brought home to the mind and >consciousness of the individual capitalist as the directing motives of his >operations". > >In other words, I believe that all of Capital, Volume I, takes competition >as a support for exploitation and not the reverse (as you seem to have >it). > >Paul Zarembka _____________________________ I'm not talking about "essence" of anything here. The object of knowledge for Marx is the capitalist mode of production, which is a complex structure formed by relations of various elements organized under the dominance of the relation of production; and non of the elements that constitute the structure have independent existence outside of the structure itself. Competition is an aspect of the capitalist mode of production. Without the notion of competition, the "law" of value would not make much sense. My point is that exploitation is given in the very discription of the relation of production of capitalism. Marx's problem is to explain its incessant reproduction. Now Adam Smith and most of the economists would explain it on the basis of human nature. Marx explains it on the basis of competition, which is an aspect of the capitalist mode of production. To quote Marx: "Except as capital personified, the capitalist has no historical value, and no right to the historical existence which, to use Linchnowsky's amusing expression, 'ain't got no date'. ... But what appears in the miser as the mania of an individual is in the capitalist EFFECT OF A SOCIAL MECHANISM IN WHICH HE IS A COG. ... and competition subordinates every individual capitalist to the immanent laws of capitalist production, as EXTERNAL AND COERCIVE LAW. (Capital I, p. 739). (I have made many of such points in my paper in RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY VOL 15, if anyone is interested out there). Your quote from Marx. as I understand is basically alluding to the 'transformation problem': how competition implies a redistribution of surplus value and formation of equal rate of profit etc. is a problem he is not dealing at the volume one level. So, in the end, I have no problem with your concluding sentence. Cheers, ajit sinha
