===================== HES POSTING =====================
[NOTE: The editorial to which Tony refers will be available next Monday,
September 6. Links to the "Marx, subsistence and surplus" conversation
thread will be provided from the editorial's web site. -- RBE]
Michael Williams' careful and thorough comment on my previous remarks
deserves a reply. I have an editorial coming out on this list soon
which will deal with some of the issues and I don't want to anticipate
what I will say then, so I will (with difficulty) confine myself to some
brief comments.
First, it is important to distinguish between (a) what Marx said and
(b) what we might now think is the truth. Michael is careful about
that, but his post seems to move from (a) to (b). The issues involved
overlap, in this case, but it is still an important principle that we
should keep the two apart.
Second, there is an important analytical difference between (c) the
claim that wages are determined by subsistence, including a historical
and moral element, *prior to* the determination of profit (or surplus
value) etc. and (d) wages are determined by some dynamic interaction
involving accumulation, technical change, bargaining power, and so on,
so that they are determined simultaneously with profits etc.
Michael writes:
>Anyway, the difficulty is not obvious: if one wanted to deploy
>orthodox economic models (that I would not necessarily recommend),
>then the cyclical course of capital accumulation (itself a complexly
>determined outcome of the imperatives of capitalism, technical
>change, the balance of class forces, etc) can be modelled on the
>demand side of the market for labour power, and the 'historical and
>moral elements' appear as part of the determination of the
>'supply-price'. Alternatively such determinations can be seen as
>constraints that have to be met if the system is to successfully
>reproduce itself, modelled as determinants of cyclical downturns
>after overheated accumulation.
I have no serious problems with this (though I would probably not
formulate it quite that way), but it is an answer to (b) not (a), and
fits (d) not (c) above, where (c) seems to me to be what is required
for one to call it s surplus theory. Any modern mainstream labour
economist would probably feel happy enough with Michael's list of
relevant factors, rephrased a little. (c) seems to be what Marx claimed
in the bulk of his discussion of surplus value in volume I of Capital,
whereas Ch. 25 fits (d). Hence my claim that Marx was confused.
Tony
----------------------
Tony Brewer ([log in to unmask])
University of Bristol, Department of Economics
8 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TN, England
Phone (+44/0)117 928 8428
Fax (+44/0)117 928 8577
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]
|
