michael a. lebowitz wrote:
But Marx, when talking about the relation between surplus value and profit/interest/rent (or value and price)--- which is the relation relevant to 'transformation' issues--- is not talking about 'shared characteristics' (which implies coexisting on the same level); rather, he is explicitly talking about 'invisible essence' and surface forms--- which cannot exist on the same level:"Surplus-value and the rate of surplus-value are… the invisible essence to be investigated, whereas the rate of profit and hence the form of surplus-value as profit are visible surface phenomena" (Marx, 1981b: 134).
of course Marx used the words "essence" and "invisible." But I've found "shared characteristics" to be theoretically clearer. It helps me understand what Marx is talking about. (A major part of my general method is to try to translate all academic language into different terms -- sometimes other academic language -- to see if the translation works. I think this one does, and in fact improves our understanding.) I don't know exactly what's meant by "coexisting on the same level." Surplus-value and profit/interest/rent do not exist on the same level in our minds and in Marx's order of presentation in CAPITAL. Profit/interest/rent is something that's immediately obvious to the casual observer, whereas the real-world existence of SV is something that can be perceived by applying the "acid of abstraction" (but not the "acid of lysergic"). So they are on different _mental_ levels to us. In CAPITAL, on the other hand, Marx progressively goes from the abstract toward the concrete and so presents SV first (in volume I) and then profit/interest/rent (in volume III). My point is that both profit/interest/rent and SV are on "the same level" in the real world in the sense that the both exist as characteristics of real-world production under capitalism. The former is diverse, heterogeneous, while the latter is homogeneous, representing the shared characteristics of the former. -- Jim Devine / "Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." -- Bertolt Brecht
