on 2/2/02 07:55 PM, Rakesh Bhandari at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Jim writes: > > >> >> >> (2) no, Marx shows convincingly in volume III of CAPITAL that as long as (1) >> the rate of surplus-value is constant and uncorrelated with the OCC; (2) the >> OCC differs between industries; and (3) the rate of profit tends toward >> equality between sectors, prices gravitate toward prices of production >> (POPs) that differ from values. Maybe you're thinking of Ricardo, who saw >> exactly this kind of result from his analysis but assumed that the value/POP >> correlation was "good enough for early 19th century British political >> economy work" (embracing what historians of economic thought call the 98% >> labor theory of value [i.e., of price]). For Marx, the connection between >> prices and values is macroeconomic in nature, with total value = total price >> and total surplus-value = total property income, with the macro structure of >> accumulation limiting and shaping the microprocesses that make up that >> totality. (Charlie Andrews' recent book, FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY, is >> good on this.) > > > I agree with the focus on totality here. but it is a peculiar focus, > and I am going to make an outlandish guess as to why. > > By vol 3, Marx is nearing his descent to the concrete totality, yet > Marx seems not interested in *individual* capitals even as he > approaches them because any one individual capital does not yield--as > a result of the variance in compositions--surplus value at the same > rate as would the *typical particular* capitalist (that is, the > prototype of or a perfect aliquot of the whole class; Meek links > Marx's typical particular of a capital of average composition to > Sraffa's standard commodity). > > In vol 3 Marx remains more interested in total surplus value produced > by all the individual capitals, and it is only in terms of > capital-as-a-whole that the total mass of surplus value can be > defined, and the average rate of profit determined. > Capital-as-a-whole is thus revealed to be itself a concrete unit with > its own specific attributes. > > So even as Marx comes to appreciate fully individuality, as opposed > to typical particularity, in the multiplicity of capitals, he is not > ultimately interested in the the multiplicity or aggregate of > individual capitals but with the concrete individual that is itself > capital as a whole. > > Itself a concrete individual, capital-as-a-whole is thus not like > say boats-as-a whole which is merely a *generalized concrete > abstraction* for small open craft, ocean liners, battleships and and > exchange carriers. > > In this latter case the members are of course more concrete than the > abstract class. > > But in the case of capital-as-a-whole, the class itself has been > concretized in that it alone has attributes that its members, as > individuals *abstracted* from that class, do not. > > The capitalist *class* is not a not a mere plurality of capitals; it > is itself a fairly concrete unit. > > I do not think we have here a fallacy of misplaced concreteness or > an error of hypostatizing. > > Though I do not know whether I am making sense either. > > > And it may be that the fault should be put on capitalist social > relations, not those social scientists who reject methodological > individualism which seems only to accord concreteness to members, not > classes. Such a stricture may be illsuited for the very society that > produces the standpoint of the individualist. > > rakesh > SIr Rakesh Bhandari > > In "Capital" Marx distinguish buyer-seller relation from class relation Below is this. True, in the act M---L the owner of money and the owner of labour-power enter only into the relation of buyer and seller, confront one another only as money-owner and commodity-owner. In this respect they enter merely into a money-relation. Yet at the same time the buyer appears also from the outset in the capacity of an owner of means of production, which are the material conditions for the productive expenditure of labour-power by its owner. In other words, these means of production are in opposition to the owner of the labour-power, being property of another. On the other hand the seller of labour faces its buyer as labour-power of another which must be made to do his bidding, must be integrated into his capital, in order that it may really become productive capital. The class relation between capitalist and wage-laborer therefore exists, is presupposed from the moment the two face each other in the act M---L (L---M on the part of the laborer). It is a purchase and sale, a money-relation, but a purchase and sale in which the buyer is assumed to be a capitalist and the seller a wage-laborer. And this relation arises out of the fact that the conditions required for the realisation of labour-power, viz., means of subsistence and means of production, are separated from the owner of labour-power, being the property of another. > > > > > >
