Dave B
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I think this was about anticipating a communist revolution before or when a significant proportion of overall production in terms population/labour power was agricultural and was thus by default non proletarian-ised, unwaged and politically ‘backward’ etc etc. According to their own theories of political economic development etc; the ‘peasantry’ would still be locked into the little independent businessman idea. With economic aspirations to own their own small farms, produce stuff and sell it at a fair price or at its value without exploitation; like the Ingalls in The Little House On The Prairie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_House_on_the_Prairie_(TV_series) (It is really important I think to watch this kind of TV as background to Marxist economics.) If, or when, we wereat this stage of ‘national’ or ‘regional’ development then maybe 30-40%? of the population would be at this stage of development. Not only that they would be ‘in control’, or concentrated within a essential sphere of production to communism; ie food production. So you would have, then, a choice. Force them to produce stuff for free at gun point? Send communist factory workers into the country to take over the farms and learn to plough the fields, again etc. Or sit back and wait for the development of industrial scale agri-capitalism, which has only just over the last 50 years started to take hold in the ‘western world’, and maybe regards global agricultural commodities and sphere of production in general. As regards these small farmers etc and their cultural/ political background, you only really need to find them and talk to them, as well as watching programmes like; ‘The Little House On The Prairie’. The first generation South East Asians, parents mostly, in the UK, still with peasant relatives in India/Pakistan, are a good place to start. Industrial workers, since the 1960’s, still fixated with the idea of the extended family farm back home, pouring wage earned hard currency, as remittances, back into economic black hole 10 acre farms in the Punjab etc. It is not though now that these people are not anti-capitalists, or not bourgeois. They are playing a game whose basic rules they accept and are loosing at; it in their case to agri-capitalism. The responses are varied. One is to throw in the towel and see things as they are, and become wage workers. Another is to stick fast to the peasant to the economic political/cultural analysis and play the capitalist class system of economies of scale and go into or remain at the level of cooperative, syndicalism, economic communes etc. Producing commodities and trading them with others etc. It is perhaps no historical/political /cultural accident that the new world of Abe Lincoln has produced the likes of Richard Wolff. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44485.htm There was some other ‘contemporary’ analysis in the 1860’s I think which concerned the then perceived problem of the much slower development of capitalism, mechanised capital, and waged work in the sphere of agricultural production. Which to some extent, as a prediction, was accurate. It is only fairly recently that small European dairy (for instance) farmers have starting crying about big ‘farms’ at one end and merchant capitalism (supermarkets) at the other. I think the idea in the 1860’s was that in addition to the anticipated slow introduction of capitalism into the sphere of agricultural capitalism for pre-Monsato and other technological reasons. These peasants and their political/cultural ideology would hold out to grim death and would have to be slowly starved out of their farms. I mean this is another important programme about that kind of ‘reactionary’ tendency’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Life_(1975_TV_series) They suggested fast tracking the ‘peasants’ to wage workers by nationalising the land. Eg or for discussion? https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/04/nationalisation-land.htm There was an even a worse, pro Richard Wolff example, as below. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_21.htm But the issue in 1890-ish was that socialism required an advanced industrial society to run it and the ‘workers’ were then as thick as pig shit and the ‘technicians, agronomists, engineers, chemists, architects’; Where in bed and whoring with the owners of capital. Well the ‘chemists’ have come down in the world since then and we now have to sit in the canteen in our blue overalls with the riff raff.
I was going to mention the ‘over attachment’ and smothering theories but thought I was rambling a bit. A classic case was of course Adolph who suffered under the extremely harmful situation of a smothering mother and a tyrannical father. And became a text book stereotype case of a sadomasochist. The US CIA in 1941, or whatever it was then, asked the trick cyclists to profile Hitler as part of a data mining exercise I suppose to get some insight on how he and the Nazi regime might start to behave when things started to go wrong for them. They had his incidentally ‘Jewish’ family doctor from childhood apparently which helped; he seems to have had, then, two bollocks . It proved to be quite accurate; but these kind people can be quite predictable as stereotypical archetypes. I find it quite disturbing how the culture today demands that children should be wrapped up in cotton wool and it is now criminal, almost literally, to leave under 10 year olds home-alone kind of thing. Denying them to; ………..explore, develop resilience, develop peer group friendships…… I also think this face-book virtual friendship along with all the other crap that goes along with it, from the safety of the home, is more insidious and dangerous than the healthy hazards of playing on building sites and the kind of stuff I, and Tim, used to get up to. Neurotic ‘attachment’ would be considered or categorised in ‘neo Freudism’ as ‘masochistic’ tendency which isn’t I think a particularly illuminating term and was based on how it allegedly often expressed itself in sexual activity. [Apparently Hitler like to have women sit on his face an urinate on him; which was straight out of the play book for the US trick cyclists; and a bit too sophisticated a ‘Freudianism’ for the kind of interviewees they got it from.] Not my thing really. Freudian ‘masochism’ or ‘oral dependency’ is all about completely subsuming, abnegating or sacrificing the sense of self and your individuality to something that is supposedly greater than yourself; often enough represented or personified as an authoritarian figure or individual. Kind of? I think it actually plays on what would be otherwise a positive side ie a social instinct. It is no accident I think that it is often associated with what would be Jungian like concepts like ‘motherland’ and the ‘fatherland’. I think Fromm, as well as Reich, put the ‘German’ nation on the couch and diagnosed them then as collectively ‘masochistic’. The first person to do that kind of thing was Feuerbach who put the early Christians on the couch and diagnosed them as psychotic communists and ‘it’ as ‘projected’ religious- political anthropomorphism. Although Wilhelm Weitling probably started that off around the same time; been reading some of his stuff recently. Is there an English translation of Guarantees of harmony and freedom? It looks as if it might have been one of the first and seminal historical book on modern communism and seems to have shook up Karl and Fred at the time.
Actually I am a scouser and supported Liverpool in my youth. The Manc- Scouser thing like the Newcastle- Sunderland is a curious regionalism. There was a dark secret in my family- my grandfather was transferred to a Manchester regiment in the first world war- the East Lanchashire fusiliers. When I first went to ManchesterI went with some friends to the Stretford end to watch Liverpool play united.The bastards tried to get me talk whilst I played the deaf mute.I take a sort neo Freudian Karen Horney/ Erich Fromm type perspective as part of the Freudian Marxist school of thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Horney I think human beings have an instinct to ‘want’ to fit in and be appreciated. Love; is probably a bit too strong a word for it but there is probably a need in the English language for more words to cover the spectrum that it is supposed to cover. People are either for or against behavioural instincts without thinking about how we as thinking animals would experience them; if we had them. If you believe it as Darwindid of humans. You would expect them to appear as urges or drives resulting in stress or unhappiness or whatever when frustrated and satisfaction when fulfilled. As thinking animals you would also expect possibly some sort of possibly rational recognition or understanding of that. Children under the age of three probably have a de-intellectualised and probably extremely strong, for that, instinct or need to be appreciated. And made that much more imperative based on helplessness and dependence. I think it should be fairly obvious that any adult – child dependent relationships are going to be what any infant is going to be instinctually focussed on. I suspect that children come pre-programmed with a suite of capacities to recognise that things are going OK; or not. Eg a smile, prolonged eye contact, tone of voice, being gobbly-gooked talked too and pointless physical contact etc etc. [This was generally very controversial until recently. They now believe that new born infants come with ready made precepts of even how the physical universe operates. They have realised that by showing almost new born children sets of images, some of which are paradoxical, and monitoring their eye movements and how long they look at things etc. They spend significantly more time looking at absurdities that otherwise could only be absurd given a learned familiarity with the subject matter.] As they get a bit older I think most of them up to the age of about 5 are excellent instinctive psychoanalysts.When I have observed them they seem to have an unerring ability, call it innocence, to quickly pick out the neurotic and fake from the genuine. I think they can even see past patronisation and being bought with gifts etc better than most adults even if they ‘cynically’ play along with game for what its worth. And I think they react appropriately to living in a mad house of a dysfunctional family. I suppose when it comes to TV and the media, and as growing adolescent adults, we understand that there is a bigger and another world out there and other reassuring mutually supportive and understanding social groups that we can be part of. Which can be Goths, Rockers, Mods, heavy thrash metal, trousers with a split at the knees and all the temporary philosophical implications of that, or for the totally ideologically regressive, desperate and destitute; supporting Newcastle United. Actually I had a problem myself with that kind of “Newcastle United” thing in the past but I have overcome it now and can see it rationally from the other side. Capitalism and the commercialisation of football and seated stadiums has helped enormously; for which I am grateful for cold turkey. And I have foregone the opiate chasing the dragon rush of standing on the terraces in ecstatic solidarity; in a do or die nothing else matters football match. I still think though that is what communism would feel like; without the negation. Afterwards, watching bourgeoisie tennis and golf is never the same. On ‘attachment’ theory I suspect too much of it, which is often the case, can cramp the child’s independence and capacity to learn with a sense of achievement and courage blah de blah etc. There seems to have been a paradigm shift on this over the last 20 years. When I was a kid our mother used to kick us out of the house at 3, 5 & 8 years to roam around on the streets, greenbelt woods and sewage works plant that was nearby with a hole in the fence and a death trap for the like of us; but all the more interesting for it.
Hi Meel I was being a bit flippant about doctors and I do appreciate that junior doctors are being over worked now. But until very recently there was gold at the end of tunnel if 100K per annum is an incentive to stick at it. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11856441/Average-GP-pay-dips-below-100000-for-first-time-in-a-decade.html I know of two doctors from working class backgrounds who did their training in the 1970’s to become GP’s and they are both pretty loaded having earned in excess of 100K. Way outside my bracket. There was a couple of guys from my sixth form that went on to do it and that was a inner city comprehensive ; don’t know what happened to them. Michael Moore did a really interesting film on healthcare in the UScalled ‘Sicko’. I think maybe in that he drew attention the falling wages of airline pilots as well. I think high wages can ‘corrupt’ the ‘politics’ of individuals even if they did come working class backgrounds eg John Prescott, who used to serve drinks before he got two Jags so his wife’s hair didn’t have to get wet in the rain and David Blunkett of the Sheffield city council politburo. It is the same with these trade union officials; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10176757/Union-leaders-enjoy-bumper-pay-hikes-and-golden-goodbyes.html I, or we, went on a wildcat strike once at the factory I worked at and the local Apparatchik from the GMB turned up in his Merc and told us to go back to work. I think working class solidarity works through understanding based upon reflection of personal understanding otherwise known as empathy that I believe is or should be part of the healthy human condition or human nature. No longer just dingbat philosophy but now real science with all this brain scan mirror neurone stuff. Although it can be trans generational in a way where you learn about the sufferings and experiences of your parents and grandparents directly I suppose; and carry that with you etc. There was a interesting case recently I think with Russell Brand- Jeremy Paxman- ‘who do you think you are’. Jeremy Paxman burst into tears, or became lachrymose according to Russell, at hearing of his ancestors being shipped out from Suffolk? poor houses to work in satanic mills in Yorkshire? What made it interesting for me is that it was described in detail in volume one of Karl’s Kapital. Although Karl, two faced as ever and always , dodged the cursed moralist bullet by quoting from bleeding heart liberal’s reports. As a ‘humanist’ and human nature bod, I think most Marxists are full spectrum moral cowards. And capuchin monkey communism and exchange values? http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e82_1345278829
I take a probably non SPGB position, but in my opinion a Marxist theoretical one, that healthcare is part of necessary labour time or is theoretically funded from it. If anything reproduces labour power then healthcare does. Therefore cuts in healthcare are effectively cuts in wages and working conditions. The fund for healthcare should be viewed as deducted from wages at source and should not be viewed as coming out of taxes; which is theoretically deducted from surplus value. If the capitalist effectively plunder the part of wages that has gone towards healthcare by introducing cuts; they are using workers ‘wages’ towards the reallocation of funds to reduce general taxation that does come out of surplus value. Therefore fighting healthcare cuts is an economic issue and not a reformist one. And the bollock brained and stupid workers have a better understanding than ‘we’ do. The efficiency savings for the capitalist class in general of having nationalised and/or for that matter ‘free’ systems for generating and maintaining a high quality workforce should be neither here or there. Personally these doctors, who 150 years ago used to have servants, have had it coming. Secondly, because the necessary training, knowledge of commercial practices, languages, etc., is more and more rapidly, easily, universally and cheaply reproduced with the progress of science and public education the more the capitalist mode of production directs teaching methods, etc., towards practical purposes. The universality of public education enables capitalists to recruit such labourers from classes that formerly had no access to such trades and were accustomed to a lower standard of living. Moreover, this increases supply, and hence competition. 2How well this forecast of the fate of the commercial proletariat, written in 1865, has stood the test of time can be corroborated by hundreds of German clerks, who are trained in all commercial operations and acquainted with three or four languages, and offer their services in vain in London City at 25 shillings per week, which is far below the wages of a good machinist. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch17.htm#2 On Indian doctors etc there is quite a lot of ‘medical tourism’ now particularly when it comes to cosmetic healthcare.There is for instance a lively industry on myopic people going to India for eye lazer surgery at bargain prices which you can done for a song apparently. I think education now is quite interesting as it is being turned into capital itself, and social capital, embodied in workers with legs and passports. One suspects it is capital when it returns interest payments re student loans. Education, like capital in general requires investment with the objective of improving productivity and demands a return. All these educated young Polish workers over here now didn’t grow on trees, much. All this Tory lets keep the Johnny foreigners out is just for the less than 25K per annum people. The over 25K people are more than welcome as a steal with another set of national capitalist class public education capital embodied in them. It is particularly obvious in the IT industry in the UK; not me but I have lots of friends who do that stuff. It is not even just EU its Cubans! and people from south America; as well as south east asia eg Pakistan. Ha ha! ; English IT people got paid too much as well in my opinion. People seem to complain that the rich are getting richer and the ‘middle class’ or better paid workers are getting poorer. Well good! Learn the hard way then; and get back to you later.
'Knowing' requires an 'active knower'. As I think someone mentioned earlier L. Bird ‘appears’ to be following in the well trodden footsteps of old intellectual ‘giants’ like Bishop Berkeley. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley The question is I think does the claimed ‘existing material world’ or the ‘truth’ actually continue along its merry little way independently of whether it is known about and understood, or not, or with or without 'active knowers'. Or is the ‘material world’, as we think, or used to historically think of it, just or mostly, a product of thought? The ancient Egyptians used to think that the sun was carried across the sky by one of their gods in an invisible chariot. It had to be invisible otherwise they would be able to see it. That was a good idea I think, and a hat tip to the material reality of things being pulled along, by in this case, ‘invisible horses’ etc. And Harry Potter etc. If it moved, something albeit invisible, moved it. We have now in modern theory our own ‘invisible horses’ except they just call it ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’. Dark being invisible as it is? ; we ‘know’ ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’ exists because of its effects which operates in the same way as the invisible chariot. Is the ‘real material world’ and the ‘truth’, that exists independently of thought, the horse dragging the thought cart, and chariot, behind it? And; “In reality we know nothing, for truth lies at the deep bottom of the well.” https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/ch03.htm I think this idea, as a bit of fluffed joke, appears elsewhere in a strange place! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+4
See what you have done now Adam, you have got me reading Stalinist text books on Marxist theory from 1954! The first half of the following was surprisingly good; I suspect people like Mandel were plagiarising this. POLITICAL ECONOMY A Textbook issued by the Economics Institute of the Academyof Sciencesof the U.S.S.R Russian edition, 1954 English translation of second revised and enlarged Russian edition 1957
The Birth of Capitalist Production in the Womb of the FeudalSystem. The Role of Merchant Capital In the feudal period commodity production gradually developed, town handicrafts expanded and peasant economy was more and more drawn into exchange. Production by small craftsmen and peasants, based on private property and personal labour creating products for exchange, is called simple commodity production. Commodity Production-the Point of Departure for the Rise ofCapitalism and a General Feature of Capitalism The capitalist mode of production, which arose as successor to the feudal mode of production, is based upon exploitation of the class of wage-workers by the class of capitalists. To understand the essence of the capitalist mode of production one must bear in mind, first and foremost, that the capitalist system has commodity production as its foundation: under capitalism everything takes the form of a commodity and the principle of buying and selling prevails everywhere. Commodity production is older, than capitalist production. It existed in slave-owning society and under feudalism. In the period when feudalism was breaking down, simple commodity production served as the basis for the rise of capitalist production. Simple commodity production presupposes, first, the social division of labour, under which individual producers specialise in making particular products, and, second, the existence of private property in the means of production and in the products of labour. The simple commodity production of craftsmen and peasants is distinguished from capitalist commodity production by the fact that it is based upon the personal labour of the commodity producer. BRIEF CONCLUSIONS (1) The point of departure for the rise of capitalism was the simple commodity production of craftsmen and peasants. Simple commodity production differs from capitalism in that it is based upon the individual labour of the commodity producer. At the same time it belongs fundamentally to the same type as capitalist production, in as much as its foundation is private ownership of the means of production. Under capitalism, when not only the products of labour, but labour power too becomes a commodity, commodity production acquires a dominant, universal character.(2) A commodity is a product which is made for exchange, Formation of the Average Rate of Profit, andTransformation of the Value of Commodities into theirPrice of Production In contrast to what happens under simple commodity production, under capitalism commodities are sold not at prices which correspond to their value but at prices which correspond to their prices of production. The transformation of value into price of production is result of the historical development of capitalist production. Under conditions of simple commodity production the market price of commodities in general correspond to their values. CHAPTER XX In nearly all capitalist countries a considerable part of the population is composed of peasants, the bulk of whom carryon simple commodity production. In the colonial and semi-colonial countries……… https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/ On ‘private labour’. https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htmThere is some truth to Adam’s seemingly outrageous statement, thus and there is now interesting wiki articles on everything; Shaykh Abdul-Aziz Ibn Baaz, the former supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia, believed the earth is flat,[10][11]and so does Muslim Researcher on Astronomy Fadhel Al-Sa'd, who declared in a televised debate aired on IraqiAl-Fayhaa TV (October 31, 2007) that the Earth is flat as evidenced by Qur'anic verses and that the sun is much smaller than the Earth and revolves around it.[12]As devout Muslims, they have good reason to conclude the Earth is flat; the Qur'anic verses 15:19, 20:53, 43:10, 50:7, 51:48, 71:19, 78:6, 79:30, 88:20 and 91:6 all clearly state this and not a single verse in the Qur'an hint to a spherical earth https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Flat_Earth_and_the_Quran However I think for balance medieval Islam was at the time more enlightened that medieval western Christianity, even if Christianity hadn’t set the bar very high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world and a pre Darwinian survival of the fittest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jahiz Besides Algebra and the decimal number system which they probably plagiarized from the ‘Hindu’s’ who have their own strange ideas.
I can recommend chapters 4,5 and six of the following of Devilles 1883 das capital for dummies Actually all quite short and much easier to read than capital. https://www.marxists.org/archive/deville/1883/peoples-marx/index.htm
Kautsky as below does his version of chapter one. Is he also proceeding from simple commodity production? Karl Kautsky The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx Part I.COMMODITIES, MONEY, CAPITAL Chapter I.COMMODITIES(1) The Character of Commodity Production Let us take a potter and a cultivator, considering them first as members of an Indian communistic village community, and secondly as two commodity producers. In the first case, they both work in the same manner for the community; one hands over his pots, the other the fruits of his labour in the fields; one receives his share of the fruits of the field, the other his share of pots. In the second case, each carries on private work independently for himself, but each works (perhaps to the same extent as before) not only for himself, but also for others. Then they exchange their products, and it is probable that one receives the same quantity of cereals and the other as many pots as formerly. It seems that nothing has been altered in essentials, and yet the two processes are fundamentally different………….. …………As soon, however, as various kinds of work were carried on by individuals independently of each other, as soon, therefore, as production became planless, the relations of producers to each other appeared as the relations of products. Henceforth the determination of the relations of producers to each other no longer rested with themselves; these relations developed independently of the wills of men; the social powers grew over their heads. To the simple intelligences of past centuries they seemed to be divine powers, and to later enlightened centuries they seemed to be the powers of Nature. https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1903/economic/ch01.htm Does it look like he is discussing a “primordial division of labour”? Maybe he remembered the first version of chapter one? Marx 1867 (Capital)The Commodity This is an English translation by Albert Dragstedt of the first chapter of the first German edition of Capital. Modern editions of Capitalhave a first chapter based on the second or subsequent editions. Actually, all use-values are only commodities because they are products of private labours which are independent of one anotherprivate labours which, however, depend materially upon one another as particular members (even though rendered self-sufficient) of the primordial system of division of labour.In this fashion, they hang together socially precisely through their differentiation,their particular usefulness.That is exactly the reason why they produce qualitatively differing use-values. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
I think the problem or controversy is more fundamental than this. It revolves around what was chapter one analysing or more to the point where did Karl start his analysis from. Whilst the Engels supplement to volume III quote is important in the controversy the most important Engels quote appears elsewhere. Thus; This makes clear, of course, why in the beginning of his first book Marx proceeds from the simple production of commodities as the historical premise, ultimately to arrive from this basis to capital — why he proceeds from the simple commodity instead of a logically and historically secondary form — from an already capitalistically modified commodity. To be sure, Fireman positively fails to see this. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/pref.htm What does that mean? Fred is I think saying that the opening chapter of volume capital and the ‘law of value’ that is entailed in it, is about or an analysis of simple commodity production and thus not capitalism. This is actually the root of the controversy; and all the other stuff flows from it. I agree with Fred’s analysis that that is what Karl did, and chapter one is NOT an analysis of capitalism. It is also my opinion that Kautksy and Deville (in 1883), when they did their own synopsis of Capital, that they thought that chapter one was about simple commodity production. And that there was thus no Fred bombshell in 1894 for them. In Fred’s; https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm I believe that because people think, correctly, that the exchange value of commodities ultimately and always depends on the amount of labour time embodied in them that there should always be a one to one ratio of the two. The one to one ratio IS the Law of Value, only and exclusively. But before we rush ahead into the transformation ‘problem’ etc etc and get our knickers in a twist re things not exchanging according to their value due to the organic composition of capital and equalisation of rate of profit and prices and costs of production blah blah. We need I think to attempt to understand what I think ‘Fred’ and Deville is on about with their ‘simple production of commodities’, ‘simple commodity’ and ‘simple circulation’ and etc. I think it is simple and is in fact demonstrated in much 19thcentury literature eg George Elliot. Silas Marner troddles of to a market with his Linen and sells it for gold. Whilst still in the market he exchanges the gold for a tailored coat which he intends to consume or which is ‘destined for his individual consumption’ and walks away from the market with it. How could you describe that in sort of algebraic like terms? Maybe ?; C(linen) – M(gold) – C(coat) Which would be the famous C-M-C formulae that is integral part of chapter one to three. Or if the law of value holds C(100) – M(100) – C(100). How does anyone get rich doing that kind of stuff? * Capitalism does it somehow with; M(100) – C(100) – M(150). Logically the law of value must seem to break down either with; M(100) – C(100) Or with; C(100) – M(150). Unless you have; C(100)- C(150). And thus; M(100) – C(100)….C(150) – M(150). At least in that hypothetical notation both ends of the equation don’t break the law of value. And all we have deal with is the conundrum of ; C(100)….C(150) ? Or one commodity, C(100), transforming itself in some way or another into C(150)? to be sold as M(150)? That would be a logical analysis based on the empirical observation of; M(100) – C(100) – M(150). Only If; you think that is a valid empirical observation and you insist on persisting and carrying over your ‘law of value’ predicate into capitalism. The deduced logical implications of; C(100)….C(150) As a kind of Fuerbachian scientific ‘object’ should be just for the moment be a subject of further investigation. Well bollocks to that! Did Karl as Fred says proceed from an analysis of simple commodity production, deduce from it a ‘law of value’ and ‘use it’ to analyse capitalism? I would say that theoretically the only commodity that formally exchanges at its value is labour power and everything else ‘drops out’ from that. A problem with chapter one is that it is riddled with this thing called ‘private labour’. In fact it isn’t in dispute that it is about private labour; but what is private labour? Mandel is, I think, quite orthodox, like Kautsky, in interpreting it as simple commodity production. Although I think Mandel was an idiot. Could a 100 hours of ‘SNLT’ in Brummie coloured glass exchange at its value for ‘SNLT’ beaver pelts?
What was communism and socialism?A dump1844 Letter from Engels to Marx in Paris The Teutons are all still very muddled about the practicability of communism; to dispose of this absurdity I intend to write a short pamphlet showing that communism has already been put into practice and describing in popular terms how this is at present being done in England and America. [12]The thing will take me three days or so, and should prove very enlightening for these fellows. I’ve already observed this when talking to people here. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_10_01.htm#n12 Eg. Frederick Engels Description of Recently Founded Communist Colonies Still in Existence; Written: in mid-October 1844 Amongst these people no one is obliged to work against his will, and no one seeks work in vain. They have no poor-houses and infirmaries, having not a single person poor and destitute, nor any abandoned widows and orphans; all their needs are met and they need fear no want. In their ten towns there is not a single gendarme or police officer, no judge, lawyer or soldier, no prison or penitentiary; and yet there is proper order in all their affairs. The laws of the land are not for them and as far as they are concerned could just as well be abolished and nobody would notice any difference for they are the most peaceable citizens and have never yielded a single criminal for the prisons. They enjoy, as we said, the most absolute community of goods and have no trade and no money among themselves. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm And from Lenin;V. I. Lenin, From the Destruction of the Old Social System, To the Creation of the New Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the term is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining a right to certain products, not according to previously established and legally fixed quotas, but voluntary labour, irrespective of quotas; it is labour performed without expectation of reward, without reward as a condition, labour performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, and because of a conscious realisation (that has become a habit) of the necessity of working for the common good—labour as the requirement of a healthy organism. It must be clear to everybody that we, i.e., our society, our social system, are still a very long way from the application of thisform of labour on a broad, really mass scale. But the very fact that this question has been raised, and raised both by the whole of the advanced proletariat (the Communist Party and the trade unions) and by the state authorities, is a step in this direction. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/11.htm Trotsky; Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 3, Socialism and the State The material premise of communism should be so high a development of the economic powers of man that productive labor, having ceased to be a burden, will not require any goad, and the distribution of life’s goods, existing in continual abundance, will not demand – as it does not now in any well-off family or “decent” boarding-house – any control except that of education, habit and social opinion. Speaking frankly, I think it would be pretty dull-witted to consider such a really modest perspective “utopian.” http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch03.htm Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism The Mensheviks are against this. This is quite comprehensible, because in reality they are against the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is to this, in the long run, that the whole question is reduced. The Kautskians are against the dictatorship of the proletariat, and are thereby against all its consequences. Both economic and political compulsion are only forms of the expression of the dictatorship of the working class in two closely connected regions. True, Abramovich demonstrated to us most learnedly that under Socialism there will be no compulsion, that the principle of compulsion contradicts Socialism, that under Socialism we shall be moved by the feeling of duty, the habit of working, the attractiveness of labor, etc., etc. This is unquestionable. Only this unquestionable truth must be a little extended. In point of fact, under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for it will have melted away entirely into a producing and consuming commune. None the less, the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State. And you and I are just passing through that period. Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction. Now just that insignificant little fact – that historical step of the State dictatorship – Abramovich, and in his person the whole of Menshevism, did not notice; and consequently, he has fallen over it. http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/ch08.htm Karl Kautsky IV. THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE FUTURE 9. Division of Products in the FutureState. We can conceive a time when science shall have raised industry to such a high level if productivity that everything wanted by man will be produced in great abundance. In such a case, the formula, “To each according to his needs,” would be applied as a matter of course and without difficulty. On the other hand, not even the profoundest conviction of the justice of this formula would be able to put it into practice if the productivity of labor remained so low that the proceeds of the most excessive toil could produce only the bare necessities………..http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1892/erfurt/ch04a.htm Kuatsky;Karl Kautsky The Labour Revolution III. The Economic Revolution X. MONEY Besides this rigid allocation of an equal measure of the necessaries and enjoyments of life to each individual, another form of Socialism without money is conceivable, the Leninite interpretation of what Marx described as the second phase of communism: each to produce of his own accord as much as he can, the productivity of labour being so high and the quantity and variety of products so immense that everyone may be trusted to take what he needs. For this purpose money would not be needed. We have not yet progressed so far as this. At present we are unable to divine whether we shall ever reach this state. But that Socialism with which we are alone concerned to-day, whose features we can discern with some precision from the indications that already exist, will unfortunately not have this enviable freedom and abundance at its disposal, and will therefore not be able to do without money. http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/ch03_j.htm#sb Hyndman; Henry Mayers Hyndman The Record of an Adventurous LifeChapter XV Start of Social Democracy “A much more serious objection to Kropotkin and other Anarchists is their wholly unscrupulous habit of reiterating statements that have been repeatedly proved to be incorrect, and even outrageous, by the men and women to whom they are attributed. Time after time I have told Kropotkin, time after time has he read it in print, that Social-Democrats work for the complete overthrow of the wages system. He has admitted this to be so. But a month or so afterwards the same old oft-refuted misrepresentation appears in the same old authoritative fashion, as if no refutation of the calumny, that we wish to maintain wage-slavery, had ever been made.” http://www.marxists.org/archive/hyndman/1911/adventure/chap15.html Peter Kropotkin 1920The Wage System http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1920/wage.htm J. V. Stalin ANARCHISM or SOCIALISM? 1906 Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed — there will be only free workers.Future society will be socialist society. This means, lastly, that in that society the abolition of wage-labour will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means of production; there will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists — there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals, all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways, etc. As you see, the main purpose of production in the future will be to satisfy the needs of society and not to produce goods for sale in order to increase the profits of the capitalists. Where there will be no room for commodity production, struggle for profits, etc. It is also clear that future production will be socialistically organised, highly developed production, which will take into account the needs of society and will produce as much as society needs. Here there will be no room whether for scattered production, competition, crises, or unemployment.Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is nopage 337 need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power. That is why Karl Marx said as far back as 1846: "The working class in the course of its development Will substitute for the old bourgeois society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called . . . " (see The Poverty of Philosophy).[89] That is why Engels said in 1884: "The state, then, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no conception of the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity. . . . We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes not only will have ceased to be a necessity, but will become a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they arose at an earlier stage. Along with them the state will inevitably fall. The society that will organise production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the Museum of Antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe" (see The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State).[ At the same time, it is self-evident that for the purpose of administering public affairs there will have to be in socialist society, in addition to local offices which page 338 will collect all sorts of information, a central statistical bureau, which will collect information about the needs of the whole of society, and then distribute the various kinds of work among the working people accordingly. It will also be necessary to hold conferences, and particularly congresses, the decisions of which will certainly be binding upon the comrades in the minority until the next congress is held. Lastly, it is obvious that free and comradely labour should result in an equally comradely, and complete, satisfaction of all needs in the future socialist society This means that if future society demands from each of its members as much labour as he can perform, it, in its turn, must provide each member with all the products he needs. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! — such is the basis upon which the future collectivist system must be created. It goes without saying that in the firststage of socialism, when elements who have not yet grown accustomed to work are being drawn into the new way of life, when the productive forces also will not yet have been sufficiently developed and there will still be "dirty" and "clean" work to do, the application of the principle: "to each according to his needs," will undoubtelly be greatly hindered and, as a consequence, society will be obliged temporarilyto take some other path, a middle path. But it is also clear that when future society runs into its groove, when the survivals of capitalism will have been eradicated, the only principle that will conform to socialist society will be the one pointed out above.That is why Marx said in 1875:page 339 "In a higher phase of communist (i.e., socialist) society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of livelihood but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual . . . only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be crossed in iis entirety and society inscribe on its banners: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'"(see Critique of the Gotha Programme).[91]. Such, in general, is the picture of future socialist society according to the theory of Marx. This is all very well. But is the achievement of socialism conceivable? Can we assume that man will rid himself of his "savage habits"? Or again: if everybody receives according to his needs, can we assume that the level of the productive forces of socialist society will be adequate for this?Socialist society presupposes an adequate development of productive forces and socialist consciousness among men, their socialist enlightenment. At the present time the development of productive forces is hindered by the existence of capitalist property, but if we bear in mind that this capitalist property will not exist in future society, it is self-evident that the productive forces will increase tenfold. Nor must it be forgotten that in future society the hundreds of thousands of present-day parasites, and also the unemployed, will set to work and augment the ranks of the working people; and this will greatly stimulate the development of the page 340 productive forces. As regards men's "savage" sentiments and opinions, these are not as eternal as some people imagine; there was a time, under primitive communism, when man did not recognise private property; there came a time, the time of individualistic production, when private property dominated the hearts and minds of men; a new time is coming, the time of socialist production — will it be surprising if the hearts and minds of men become imbued with socialist strivings? Does not being determine the "sentiments" and opinions of men? http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3 Nikolai Bukharin Programme of the World RevolutionChapter XV The End of the Power of Money.“State Finances” and Financial Economy in the SovietRepublicWe have seen, on the other hand, that when production and distribution are thoroughly organised, money will play no part whatever, and as a matter of course no kind of money dues will be demanded from anyone. Money will have generallybecome unnecessary. finance will become extinct. We repeat that that time is a long way off yet. There can be no talk of it in the near future. For the present we must findmeans for public finance. But we are already taking steps leading to the abolition of the money system. Society is being transformed into one huge labour organisation or company to produce and distribute what is already produced without the agency of gold coinage or paper money. The end of the power of money is imminent. http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1918/worldrev/ch15.html 20 Distribution in the communist systemThe communist method of production presupposes in addition that production is not for the market, but for use. Under communism, it is no longer the individual manufacturer or the individual peasant who produces; the work of production is effected by the gigantic cooperative as a whole. In consequence of this change, we no longer have commodities, but only products. These products are not exchanged one for another; they are neither bought nor sold. They are simply stored in the communal warehouses, and are subsequently delivered to those who need them. In such conditions, money will no longer be required. 'How can that be?' some of you will ask. 'In that case one person will get too much and another too little. What sense is there in such a method of distribution?' The answer is as follows. At first, doubtless, and perhaps for twenty or thirty years, it will be necessary to have various regulations. Maybe certain products will only be supplied to those persons who have a special entry in their work-book or on their work-card. Subsequently, when communist society has been consolidated and fully developed, no such regulations will be needed. There will be an ample quantity of all products, our present wounds will long since have been healed, and everyone will be able to get just as much as he needs. 'But will not people find it to their interest to take more than they need?' Certainly not. Today, for example, no one thinks it worth while when he wants one seat in a tram, to take three tickets and keep two places empty. It will be just the same in the case of all products. A person will take from the communal storehouse precisely as much as he needs, no more. No one will have any interest in taking more than he wants in order to sell the surplus to others, since all these others can satisfy their needs whenever they please. Money will then have no value. Our meaning is that at the outset, in the first days of communist society, products will probably be distributed in accordance with the amount of work done by the applicant; at a later stage, however, they will simply be supplied according to the needs of the comrades.It has often been contended that in the future society everyone will have the right to the full product of his labour. 'What you have made by your labour, that you will receive.' This is false. It would never be possible to realize it fully. Why not? For this reason, that if everyone were to receive the full product of his labour, there would never be any possibility of developing, expanding, and improving production. Part of the work done must always be devoted to the development and improvement of production. If we had to consume and to use up everything we have produced, then we could never produce machines, for these cannot be eaten or worn. But it is obvious that the bettering of life will go hand in hand with the extension and improvement of machinery. It is plain that more and more machines must continually be produced. Now this implies that part of the labour which has been incorporated in the machines will not be returned to the person who has done the work. It implies that no one can ever receive the full product of his labour. But nothing of the kind is necessary. With the aid of good machinery, production will be so arranged that all needs will be satisfied. To sum up, at the outset products will be distributed in proportion to the work done (which does not mean that the worker will receive 'the full product of his labour'); subsequently, products will be distributed according to need, for there will be an abundance of everything.§ 21 Administration in the communist system In a communist society there will be no classes. But if there will be no classes, this implies that in communist society there will likewise be no State.We have previously seen that the State is a class organization of the rulers. The State is always directed by one class against the other. A bourgeois State http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/03.htm The words Socialism and Communism have the same meaning. They indicate a condition of society in which the wealth of the community: the land and the means of production, distribution and transport are held in common, production being for use and not for profit.Socialism being an ideal towards which we are working, it is natural that there should be some differences of opinion in that future society. Since we are living under Capitalism it is natural that many people’s ideas of Socialism should be coloured by their experiences of life under the present system. We must not be surprised that some who recognise the present system is bad should yet lack the imagination to realise the possibility of abolishing all the institutions of Capitalist society. Nevertheless there can be no real advantage in setting up a half-way-house to socialism. A combination of Socialism and Capitalism would produce all sorts of injustice, difficulty and waste. Those who happen to suffer under the anomalies would continually struggle for a return to the old system.Full and complete Socialism entails the total abolition of money, buying and selling, and the wages system.It means the community must set itself the task of providing rather more than the people can use of all the things that the people need and desire, and of supplying these when and as the people require them. http://www.marxists.org/archive/pankhurst-sylvia/1923/future-society.htm mp.
"The argument was about whether an exchange economy where "all" the producers were "independent owners of their means of production" ever existed historically." I would like to say that all do not think that there was ever an exchange economy, before capitalism, where all things that were bought or sold were produced by simple commodity production. EG. The surplus product/surplus value of, or produced by, the feudal peasants which was sold by the feudal lord as commodities for silk, diamonds and body amour or whatever was not simple commodity production. The fact that the feudal peasants may have also been doing a bit of simple commodity production on the side during Monday to Thursday is another matter. The idealised model re feudal peasants would be that they did simple commodity production between themselves. Eg Christina as I seem to remember made beer to sell to her fellow peasants although one can’t exclude the possibility that the Lord of the manor might have popped in for a pint as well. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b6ksc Slave labour and corvee labour when its object is ‘to obtain exchange-value’ or to produce commodities is not simple commodity production either. That can go one before, during and after the emerging domination of capitalism. Hence in antiquity over-work becomes horrible only when the object is to obtain exchange-value in its specific independent money-form; in the production of gold and silver. Compulsory working to death is here the recognised form of over-work. Only read Diodorus Siculus. [9]Still these are exceptions in antiquity. But as soon as people, whose production still moves within the lower forms of slave-labour, corvée-labour,& c., are drawn into the whirlpool of an international market dominated by the capitalistic mode of production, the sale of their products for export becoming their principal interest, the civilised horrors of over-work are grafted on the barbaric horrors of slavery, serfdom, &c. Hence the negro labour in the Southern States of the American Union preserved something of a patriarchal character, so long as production was chiefly directed to immediate local consumption. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm The point or question that Adam raises or asks or whatever. Before capitalism took root, what % of commodities that were part of the exchange commodity (which is a tautology) were produced by simple commodity production? I think people like Adam Smith in deriving his model, a little bit like Karl, ignored commodity production that wasn’t simple commodity production; like one might ignore the falcon feather and hammer thing. Although Karl covered his arse by recognising it occasionally. On some of the people I have been quoting etc I think they were sloppy and a bit cavalier; and I have my critique of what they seem to say and imply. I suspect that some people might worry that the sky is going to fall in over this; which it doesn’t. On the M-C-M Lets suppose as a given that the Law of Value is true or at least as a predicate or premise or maybe theory. And lets suppose that a bod ( a capitalist acting as a capitalist rather than a consumer wanting bling) turns up with some money worth 100 hours of labour time or M(100). (This is my novel notation) And buys a commodity with it (to repeat in this case not for his own personal consumption). Then if the law of value holds all he can do is buy a commodity, C, worth a 100 hours of labour time. So we have; M(100) – C(100) How can he then make a profit? Only by selling C(100) for M(120). Or C(100) – M(120). And M(100) – C(100) – M(120) Or in other word he starts with M(100) and ends up with M(120). That is a profit theory that even Einstiens ‘Barmaid’ could understand. Yes, yes; but you have just broke the precious the law of (the conservation of) value! And you are not allowed to do that. Something as appalling as breaking the law of the conservation of mass or energy; absolutely not I think, something must be wrong!* Or ditch the premise.
But we really need to return to Devilles idealised model of buying something for 100 and selling it for 100 Or M(100) –C(100) –M(100). Gets you, outside capitalism, nowhere and is a waste of time. But despite that capitalist reality hits you in the face and; M(100) –M(120) A mathematician and scientist would automatically want to focus on the middle of M(100) – C(100) – M(120) Before questioning our hard earned premises. Just like scientists don’t believe that 100 Kg can transform itself into 120 Kg or 100 Kilo joules can transform themselves into 120 Kilo joules; without a bit of hanky panky that they haven’t fathomed yet. So what is peculiar about the C(100) in capitalism, as that seems to be the origin of the M(100) –M(120) problem? Maybe there is some new type of ‘C(100)’ in capitalism that wasn’t present in simple commodity production from which we faithfully derived our precious law of value? What if it is just a matter of the way we prejudicially normally look at C(100)? From our analysis of simple commodity production C(100) would be useful stuff ,a use value, that you or others would like to wear, eat, and live in or consume etc. What if there is a special use value and C(100) in capitalism that exchanges at its value? And dare I say it; labour power as a use value could ‘also’ be a C(100)? (The somewhat narrower idea of money being used to obtain a use value is no reflective break with the later part of the simple commodity production C-M -C model.) So the big question is could the C(100), the value of the labour power etc, as just a use value, transform itself in to C(120) which could be exchanged at its value for M(120)? What would that mean! We have had a volume 1, 2 and three quotes so far ( interesting volume 2 quotes a very difficult). So maybe now for a volume four one. It is Adam Smith’s great merit that it is just in the chapters of Book I (chapters VI, VII, VIII) where he passes from simple commodity exchange and its law of value to exchange between materialised and living labour, to exchange between capital and wage-labour, to the consideration of profit and rent in general—in short, to the origin of surplus-value—that he feels some flaw has emerged. He senses that somehow—whatever the cause may be, and he does not grasp what it is—in the actual result the law is suspended: more labour is exchanged for less labour (from the labourer’s standpoint), less labour is exchanged for more labour (from the capitalist’s standpoint). His merit is that he emphasises—and it obviously perplexes him—that with the accumulation of capital and the appearance of property in land—that is, when the conditions of labour assume an independent existence over against labour itself—something new occurs, apparently (and actually, in the result) the law of value changes into its opposite. It is his theoretical strength that he feels and stresses this contradiction, just as it is his theoretical weakness that the contradiction shakes his confidence in the general law, even for simple commodity exchange; that he does not perceive how this contradiction arises, through labour-power itself becoming a commodity, and that in the case of this specific commodity its use-value—which therefore has nothing to do with its exchange-value—is precisely the energy which creates exchange-value. Ricardo is ahead of Adam Smith in that these apparent contradictions—in their result real contradictions—do not confuse him. But he is behind Adam Smith in that he does not even suspect that this presents a problem, and therefore the specific development which the law of value undergoes with the formation of capital does not for a moment puzzle him or even attract his attention. We shall see later how what was a stroke of genius with Adam Smith becomes reactionary with Malthus as against Ricardo’s standpoint. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch03.htm *(Actually you can if the people you deal with are well unaware that they are buying 100 hours of stuff for 120 eg you might get north American ‘Indians’ running around gathering beaver pelts for Brummie bling etc etc.- it is another subject and part of the theory of the accumulation of merchant capital.)Here in Chapter Thirty-Two we find Karl returning to his old chapter one tricks again; and dreaming and theorising about something that never existed, or flourished for that matter Karl Marx. Capital Volume One Chapter Thirty-Two: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation Of course, this petty mode of production exists also under slavery, serfdom, and other states of dependence. But it flourishes, it lets loose its whole energy, it attains its adequate classical form, only where the labourer is the private owner of his own means of labour set in action by himself: the peasant of the land which he cultivates, the artisan of the tool which he handles as a virtuoso. This mode of production….. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm
Hilferding on simple commodity production?????? In addition, exchange must also provide the answer to another question : whether production is to be undertaken by the independent artisan or by the capitalist entrepreneur? The answer to this question is to be found in the change in the exchange relationship with the development from simple commodity production to capitalist production………… ………..The aggregate labour time for the total product, once given, must therefore find expression in exchange. In its simplest form, this happens when the quantitative ratios between goods exchanged correspond to the quantitative ratios of the socially necessary labour time expended in their production. Commodities would in that case exchange at their values. In fact, this can happen only when the conditions for commodity production and exchange are equal for all members of society; that is to say, when they are all independent owners of their means of production who use these means to fabricate the product and exchange it on the market. This is the most elementary relationship, and constitutes the starting point for a theoretical analysis. Only on this basis can later modifications be understood;………….. ………….A simple expression of value, e.g., one coat equals twenty metres of linen, already expresses a social relationship, but one which may he quite accidental or isolated. In order to be a genuine expression of a social reality, it must first lose its isolated character. When the production of commodities becomes the universal form of' production, the social circulation of goods, and hence the social interdependence among workers asserts itself in innumerable acts of exchange and value equations. The concerted action of commodities in exchange transforms private, individual and concrete labour time into the general, socially necessary and abstract labour time which is the essence of value. As the value of commodities comes to be measured in multifarious exchanges, so it comes to be measured increasingly in terms of a single commodity, and this needs only to become established as the standard of value in order to become money. The exchange of values is essential to production and reproduction in a commodity producing society. Only in this way is private labour socially recognized, and a relationship between things turned into a relationship between producers…….. https://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1910/finkap/ch01.htm Under simple commodity production – or more precisely, pre-capitalist commodity production…………. This transformation of products into commodities makes the producers dependent on the market, and turns the inherent irregularity of production, which already existed in simple commodity production because the private economic households……… https://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1910/finkap/ch16.htm Hoarding [….Silas….] can occur even in simple commodity circulation. All that is required is that in the sequence C – M – C, the second part, M – C, should fail to take place; that the seller of the commodity refrains from buying other commodities and hoards his money instead. But this kind of action seems quite accidental and arbitrary,…………… https://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1910/finkap/ch04.htm In simple commodity production the transfer of goods seems to be the essential thing, the incentive for transferring property; and the latter is only the means for accomplishing the former. The determining motive for production is still the creation of use value, the satisfaction of needs. [……….deville/…] But in capitalist commodity circulation the circulation of goods also involves the realization of the profit which arose in production, and this profit is the mainspring of economic activity. In capitalist society the transfer of labour power, as a commodity, to capitalists augments their property through the production of surplus value. https://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1910/finkap/ch08.htm flip back to chapter one volume one; 15.The reader must note that we are not speaking here of the wages or value that the labourer gets for a given labour time, but of the value of the commodity in which that labour time is materialised. Wages is a category that, as yet, has no existence at the present stage of our investigation.. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
To L Bird The alleged counter argument is simple enough. All the early Marxists from and including Fred and Gabrielle onwards misunderstood, deliberately or otherwise, Karl. They were in that respect all Engelists; I asked them the question as to whether Fred was a liar or a fool and they refused to give me an answer. So what we appear to have is Karl be praised as a genius by a host of people who didn’t understand him. One could ask who Karl would have ever been without this early pre modernist fan base. Then after almost one hundred years in the dark ages of Marxist theory we become enlightened by some ‘German professors’ from the bourgeois intelligentsia in the 1970’s’. YEAR 2001 MINI-CONFERENCE ON VALUE THEORY ANDTHE WORLD ECONOMYCrowne Plaza Hotel, Manhattan(sounds nice) February 23-25th 2001 The first confusion is that whereby a distinction is drawn between the theory of value and the theory of the capitalist mode of production, with a more comprehensive content being assigned to the former. According to this conception, value is not a constitutive category of the concept of a capitalist mode of production but rather points in principle to a (supposed) historical epoch of generalised simple commodityproduction preceding capitalism. http://users.ntua.gr/jmilios/IWGVT01.pdf http://www.cpmanhattantimessquare.com/
