Ajit Sinha wrote: > In my opinion, this is a common mistake commited by Marxist scholars. Since > profit in capitalism is seen as resulting from the exploitation of labor, it > does not mean that an economy with labor input being zero (i.e. 100% > mechanized production process) would necessarily mean that 'profit' will be > zero in such an economy. As long as the total input needed in the process of > production is less than the total output, you have surplus production; and > 100% mechanization does not ipso facto rule out this possibility. So one can > imagine a totally mechanized economy with division of 'capital' and prices > of goods such that the rate of 'profit' is equalized accross sectors. The > economy will simply be not a capitalist economy because it would be missing > an essential element--the wage labor. But a theoretical possibility of such > an economy cannot be denied. Cheers, ajit sinha A zero labour input is impossible, because automatisms have neither plasticity regarding to forthcoming events, nor conceptualization ability. But it's true that as productivity grows, the sharing part of real time work decreases in the global production. Why would the production be limited, so that the number of employed workers would tend to decrease, as the productivity grows ? Because, for more than fifty years, a depreciation of the money has unfailingly been accompanying the production growth, detroying, in this way, a great part of the global absolute surplus-value in terms of purchasing power of it. So that capitalists are no more interested in extracting profit by the growth, and leaded to chase after it by reducing the part of wages in the product (number of workers, and wages level). But this is a relative profit, and here is the point where the "Marxist Scholars", and not only them, are wrong-footed... Regards, Romain Kroes
