a recent posting purported to introduce us to "social capital", which seems to suggest that capitalism can be separated from its exploitative nature. capital is NOT something which remains unused in production as someone would have us believe, but a form of production, and not the only possible one at that. capital is ACCUMMULATED, as the title of Luxemburgs book makes clear.
nothing is further from the truth. it is the process of capital;isation that ultimately produces the effects of capitalism, which of course we can see in various aspects on most of the news items featuring on IMC.
it may seem a little arcane to copy out chunks of Marx at the present time, but while of course events are in full flow, analysis must still occupy an important place; we have to know what capitalism is before we can respond to it. here at any rate is a selection from Marx's "Theories of Surplus Value". fans of the earlier "philosophical" Marx will note how the following, far from being dull economics, is imbued with the notion that perception generally lags behind reality
XXI- 1317 Productivity of capital as the capitalist expression of the power of social labour
we have seen not only how capital produces, but how it is itself produced, and how, as an essentially altered relation, it emerges from the process of production and how it is developed in it. on the one hand capital transforms the mode of production; on the other hand this changed form of the mode of production and a particular stage in thge development in the development of the material forces of production are the basis and precondition- the premise for its own formation.
since living labour- through the exchange between capital and labourer- is encorporated in capital, and appears as an activity belonging to capital from the moment that the labour- process begins, all the productive powers of social labour appear as the productive powers of capital, just as the general social form of labour appears in money as the property of a thing.thus the productive power of social labour and its special forms now appear as productive powers and forms of capital, of MATERIALISED labour, of the material conditions of labour- which having assumed this independent form, are personified by the capitalist in relation to living labour. here we have once more the perversion of the relationship, which we have already, in dealing with money, called FETISHISM. [oo-er. i blame the public schools myself!]
the capitalist himself only holds power as the personification of capital... the PRODUCTIVITY of capital consists in the first instance- even if one only considers the FORMAL subsumption of labour under capital- in the COMPULSION TO PERFORM SURPLUS- LABOUR, labour beyond the immediate need; a compulsion which the capitalist mode of production shares with previous modes, but which it exercises and carries into effect in a manner more favourable to production...
the relation grows still more complicated and apparently still more mysterios because, with the development of the specifically capitalist mode of production, it is not only these directly material things that get up to the labourer and confront him as "capital", but also the forms of socially developed labour- co-operation, manufacture (as a form of division of labour), the factory, (as a form of social labour organised on machinery as its material base) - all these appear as the FORMS OF DEVELOMENT OF CAPITAL...
Capital itself has a double character, since it consists of commodities:
1 Exchange value (money)
2 use value; and here it shows itself through its specific relations in the labour process...
thus capital becomes a very mysterious being.
The question arises, how or for what reason does labour as opposed to capital appear productive or as PRODUCTIVE LABOUR. since the productive power of labour are transposed into capital, and the same productive power cannot be counted twice, once as the productive power of labour and the second time as the productive power of capital ?
it may seem a little arcane to copy out chunks of Marx at the present time, but while of course events are in full flow, analysis must still occupy an important place; we have to know what capitalism is before we can respond to it. here at any rate is a selection from Marx's "Theories of Surplus Value". fans of the earlier "philosophical" Marx will note how the following, far from being dull economics, is imbued with the notion that perception generally lags behind reality
XXI- 1317 Productivity of capital as the capitalist expression of the power of social labour
we have seen not only how capital produces, but how it is itself produced, and how, as an essentially altered relation, it emerges from the process of production and how it is developed in it. on the one hand capital transforms the mode of production; on the other hand this changed form of the mode of production and a particular stage in thge development in the development of the material forces of production are the basis and precondition- the premise for its own formation.
since living labour- through the exchange between capital and labourer- is encorporated in capital, and appears as an activity belonging to capital from the moment that the labour- process begins, all the productive powers of social labour appear as the productive powers of capital, just as the general social form of labour appears in money as the property of a thing.thus the productive power of social labour and its special forms now appear as productive powers and forms of capital, of MATERIALISED labour, of the material conditions of labour- which having assumed this independent form, are personified by the capitalist in relation to living labour. here we have once more the perversion of the relationship, which we have already, in dealing with money, called FETISHISM. [oo-er. i blame the public schools myself!]
the capitalist himself only holds power as the personification of capital... the PRODUCTIVITY of capital consists in the first instance- even if one only considers the FORMAL subsumption of labour under capital- in the COMPULSION TO PERFORM SURPLUS- LABOUR, labour beyond the immediate need; a compulsion which the capitalist mode of production shares with previous modes, but which it exercises and carries into effect in a manner more favourable to production...
the relation grows still more complicated and apparently still more mysterios because, with the development of the specifically capitalist mode of production, it is not only these directly material things that get up to the labourer and confront him as "capital", but also the forms of socially developed labour- co-operation, manufacture (as a form of division of labour), the factory, (as a form of social labour organised on machinery as its material base) - all these appear as the FORMS OF DEVELOMENT OF CAPITAL...
Capital itself has a double character, since it consists of commodities:
1 Exchange value (money)
2 use value; and here it shows itself through its specific relations in the labour process...
thus capital becomes a very mysterious being.
The question arises, how or for what reason does labour as opposed to capital appear productive or as PRODUCTIVE LABOUR. since the productive power of labour are transposed into capital, and the same productive power cannot be counted twice, once as the productive power of labour and the second time as the productive power of capital ?
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