File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0004, message 80


From: Howard Engelskirchen <howarde-AT-wsulaw.edu>
Subject: RE: BHA: Radical Chains Indeed
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 11:06:46 -0700


Tobin and Colin --

No, markets don't imply capitalism -- there are precapitalist markets and
postcapitalist markets.  Markets do imply commodity production and Marx does
give a real definition of commodity production -- commodity production
occurs whenever separate entities produce things useless to them which they
exchange in independent transactions with other separate entities.  (The
difficulty of the definition is in saying "separate" or "private" or
"autonomous" simply.)  Where this exists you unleash the tendential forces
which generate markets and money and, in the end, capital.  Of course, as
Colin sugests there have historically been markets without money (though not
without commodities), but no one is suggesting that socialist emancipation
will lead to a bartar economy.  

As for your definition of markets, Colin, "a
system which facilitates the exchange of objects (which are different from
commodities)," everybody is entitled to their own opinion, as they say, but
this sounds more like a pomo axiom than a scientific one.  It is certain
that you could not present a scientific analysis of capitalism making use of
the category markets as you have defined it without ptolemaic contortions
that in the end would come down to something like the definition I gave
above.

By the way, the quote Colin gives from MOM seems to me altogether accurate:
"Emancipatory socialist action will involve transforming the market - more
precisely, abolishing some markets,
socialising and democratising others." (p.30).  It is certain that the
transition to socialism involves exactly this.  But that doesn't mean
markets are forever or that they would be part of a communist society.

Howard




-----Original Message-----
From: Tobin Nellhaus [mailto:nellhaus-AT-gis.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2000 5:12 AM
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: BHA: Radical Chains Indeed


Hi all--

I'm not sure what is desired as a sustained critique of Hume, but there do
seem to be some fair passages in both RTS and SRHE.

Re markets, I'm a little puzzled by the discussion, especially Howard's
position, which seems to say that markets imply capitalism.  My
understanding was always that the mode of production conditions the mode of
distribution (not vice versa), and that there are and have been plenty of
markets in non-capitalist societies (e.g. in classical Athens, where the
dominant mode of production was slavery).  Money may be necessary in
capitalism, but it's used elsewhere and a society is only capitalist if
*labor power* is commodified, no?

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005