Forwarded from Gernot Köhler -------------- Louis Proyect circulated an interesting quotation from Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory, recently (see below). Mandel's expression of "two forms of surplus-value" caught my attention. The second form of surplus value a la Mandel refers to the well-known historical fact of plundering and pillage of Third World societies by Europeans in the period 1500 - 1800 and beyond. (See, details in Mandel's quotation below.) While other Marxist authors do not call that value by the name of "surplus value", but (imperialist) "pillage" and "plunder", the observation itself is widely shared in the Marxist literature. The reason why that is not generally called "surplus value", is, most likely, that Marx did not call it that.
I find Mandel's formulation - namely, that this constitutes a second form of surplus value, appealing and important for theory. The fact that a majority of observers does not subsume this value under "surplus value" has, in my opinion, the effect that, somewhere along the analytic path from historiography of capitalism to the analysis of the present state of capitalism, this second form of surplus value drops out of sight of the analysis for most Marxist observers. Two exceptions that I can think of are Mandel and Samir Amin, who calls this value "transfer value". Surplus value is commonly conceptualized and calculated for the territorial unit of the nation-state. (Good example is Mosely for USA.) However, in a global view of the world economy (capitalism, imperialism), Mandel's second form of surplus value would appear to be a most important category. How else can you come to terms with facts like: a pair of shoes sells for 70 cents US FOB from the Chinese border and sells for $35 in US retail? Amin uses the term "transfer value" in the context of his discussion of unequal exchange, which is strangely rejected by many leftists. But the concept of transfer value (Amin) = second form of surplus value (Mandel) could, in my opinion, also be defined in a less exchange-oriented and a more production-oriented analysis. In any case, I have made an attempt to study the relationship between transfer value (Amin) and surplus value (Mandel's first form of it) (see, Kohler-Tausch, Global Keynesianism, Unequal Exchange and Global Exploitation, cahpter on surplus value and transfer value) and reached the conclusion that the quantities of the two forms of value must be added, in order to arrive at an estimate of the global aggregate of value extracted from the global mass of working folks. Reading Mandel's quotation with the "two forms of surplus-value", it appears that there is a peculiar inconsistency in the Marxist literature, namely, that (imperialist) pillage and plunder is an accepted fact, as far as the genesis of capitalism is concerned, but that it somehow drops out of sight or is not properly conceptualized and quantified as one approaches the analysis of the present world situation. Gernot Köhler Extract from Proyect's post: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Ernest Mandel and the Brenner thesis by Louis Proyect pen-l, 06 November 2003 . . . snip> You must have a read a different Ernest Mandel than the one I am familiar with. He wrote in "Marxist Economic Theory": >>In the decisive formative period of the capitalist mode of production, extending from the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, the creation of the world market was of crucial importance. Its main results for the primitive accumulation of capital in Western Europe have been examined above. But all through this period of the birth of capitalism the two forms of surplus-value appeared at each step. On one hand, it was the outcome of the surplus labour of the wage workers hired by the capitalists; on the other, it was the outcome of vales stolen, plundered, seized by tricks, pressure or violence from the overseas peoples with whom the western world had made contact. From the conquest and pillage of Mexico and Peru by the Spaniards the sacking of Indonesia by the Portuguese and the Dutch and the ferocious exploitation of India by the British, the history of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries is an unbroken chain of deeds of brigandage which were so many acts of international concentration of vaIues and capital in Western Europe, the enrichment of which was for, in the literal sense of the word, by the impoverishment of plundered areas. It can be stated unhesitatingly that the contribution made by this capital was decisive for the accumulation of the commercial capital and money capital which, between 1500 and 1750, created the conditions which proved propitious for the industrial revolution. It is difficult to calculate the total amount involved, but if one takes into account only the most substantial contributions these add up to a staggering sum. Hamilton estimates at over 500 million gold pesos the total amount gold and silver exported from Latin America between 1503 and 1660. According to Colenbrander, the total value of the dividends, officials' remittances and cargoes of spices taken out of Indonesia by the Dutch East India Company amounted to 600 million gold forms for the period 1650-1780. On the basis of the calculations made by Father Rinchon, we know that profits from the slave trade amounted in eighteenth-century France to nearly half a billion livres tournois (without including the profit arising from the work done by the slaves, which came to several billion livres).' The profits obtained from the labour of the negroes in the British West Indies amounted to £200 to £300 million.<< . . . snip> -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
