Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 13:19:26 -0800 From: jones/bhandari <djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu> Subject: Re: value constancy I may not understand Andrew's criticism (and I truly apologize for my inability to convey certain ideas clearly--it is more a reflection of my own limitations than scholaticism, as Louis has unfairly suggested: please do not prejudge Postone based on my incompetent summaries). But here is another passage from Grossmann who does show I believe how greater productivity does enable, albeit indirectly, the greater production of value. The crucial fact here is not the transfer of more constant capital per unit of labor time (as Andrew read my argument based on the vague passage which I quoted) but the absorption of new living labor into the system. "The expansion of the mass of use values in which a given sum of value is represented is of great *indirect insignificance* for the valorisation process. With an expanded sum mass of the elements of production, *even if their value is the same*, more workers can be introduced into the productive process and in the next cycle of production these workers will be producing more value. Marx writes that as a consequence of growing productivity: 'More products which may be converted into capital, whatever their exchange value, are created with the same capital and the same labor. These products may serve to absorb *additional labor*, hence also additional surplus labor, and therefore additional capital. The amount of labour which a capital can command does not depend on its value, but on the mass of raw and auxilliary materials, machinery and elements of fixed capital and necessities of life, all of which it comprises, whatever their value may be. As the mass of the labour employed, and thus of surplus labour increases, there is also growth in the value of the reproduced capital and in the surplus value newly added to it. (Marx, vol III)"[Grossmann, 1992:145, emphases mine] Andrew also notes: > >All this is very different from saying that, for the TOTAL social capital, the >NEW value CREATED can vary independently of the amount of socially necessary >labor extracted. This Marx denied, as do I. Yes I agree that the new value created on total social capital cannot so vary, but what Grossmann is arguing is that the amount of socially necessary labor extracted could itself be increased with greater use-value productivity (by the way, drawing from Grossmann, Roman Rosdolsky also makes this point, I believe, in his chapter on use value to which Steve K has often drawn our attention). The possibilities for the absorbtion of new labor, as well as the necessity therof as a countertendency to the fall in the average rate of profit, may well explain much of the expansionary nature of capital, not well captured in Postone's metaphor of the treadmill of production (By the way, I am so convinced of the utter brilliance of this book that I am struggling to find some criticism). Andrew concludes >(By the way, my view is not special in this regard. This is all the ABCs > of _Capital_.) > I have no fear saying that I may not understand the ABC's of Marxism. And as Andrew has argued in some of his papers, we should not assume that Marx's theory has been understood. This comes out in his critique of the dominant treatment of the transformation problem, Postone's critique of traditional Marxism, and Bellofiore's critique of the reduction of the law of value to an explanation of relative equilibrium prices. I would only like to conclude by saying that my point above was meant to be a quibble. What I wanted to highlight was Andrew's and Postone's understanding of the very first line of Capital, that wealth only appears as an immense collection of commodities--that such an immensity of commodities as use-values may not indeed constitute wealth in its bourgeois form: value. This interpretation is I believe crucial and put to extremely significant use in Andrew's critique of "intl competitiveness programmes" (some of which I quoted in my post on Ron Press' observation). I would like to shift the conversation to the arguments advanced in the passages I quoted from Andrew in that post. This time, forget my commentary. Rakesh --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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