tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post5322340880863595156..comments2024-03-23T04:01:39.348-04:00Comments on Understanding Society: Ordinary and theoretical knowledge of capitalismDan Littlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15953897221283103880noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-63387622102198350772012-03-04T13:08:28.650-05:002012-03-04T13:08:28.650-05:00Another example from Marx would be chapters 23-24 ...Another example from Marx would be chapters 23-24 of Capital Vol I.<br /><br />From the perspective of the individual worker, it may seem that the capitalist exchanges value in the form of a wage for her labor time. <br /><br />But once we look at this exchange as a collective process over time, it becomes clear that the capitalists are withholding value that workers have themselves already produced and need for subsistence until they pledge to perform the number of labor hours required for the on-going appropriation of surplus value. <br /><br />In other words, from the perspective of the totality over time, it becomes clear that capitalists are strictly speaking exchanging value for the labor time, but withholding value that workers already produced until they consent to on-going exploitation.<br /><br />Marx does not think that this point of view is readily available to the workers but only comes into view through structural analysis. <br /><br />R BhandariAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-12121729022373904532012-03-04T13:01:02.931-05:002012-03-04T13:01:02.931-05:00Thank you yet again for another stimulating blog e...Thank you yet again for another stimulating blog entry. <br /><br /> Here is (as far as I know) Marx's clearest statement about the limits of the point of view of any individual capitalist and the need for theory. <br /><br />Marx, Capital, vol 3.<br /><br />The theoretical conception concerning the first transformation of surplus-value into profit, that every partof a capital yields a uniform profit, expresses a practical fact. Whatever the composition of an industrialcapital, whether it sets in motion one quarter of congealed labour and three-quarters of living labour, orthree-quarters of congealed labour and one-quarter of living labour, whether in one case it absorbs threetimes as much surplus-labour, or produces three times as much surplus-value than in another -- in eithercase it yields the same profit, given the same degree of labour exploitation and leaving aside individualdifferences, which, incidentally, disappear because we are dealing in both cases with the averagecomposition of the entire sphere of production. The individual capitalist (or all the capitalists in eachindividual sphere of production), whose outlook is limited, rightly believes that his profit is not derivedsolely from the labour employed by him, or in his line of production. This is quite true, as far as hisaverage profit is concerned. To what extent this profit is due to the aggregate exploitation of labour onthe part of the total social capital, i.e., by all his capitalist colleagues -- this interrelation is a completemystery to the individual capitalist; all the more so, since no bourgeois theorists, the political economists,have so far revealed it. A saving of labour -- not only labour necessary to produce a certain product, butalso the number of employed labourers -- and the employment of more congealed labour (constantcapital), appear to be very sound operations from the economic standpoint and do not seem to exert theleast influence on the general rate of profit and the average profit. How could living labour be the solesource of profit, in view of the fact that a reduction in the quantity of labour required for productionappears not to exert any influence on profit? Moreover, it even seems in certain circumstances to be thenearest source of an increase of profits, at least for the individual capitalist"<br /><br />Rakesh BhandariAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com