Jim.+297-320

16 May 2011

Grundrisse 297-320

Enjoyable read, more spontaneous stream of consciousness version of labor theory of value.

//Labor process absorbed into capital (Capital and capitalist)//

Doesn’t say “labor power”, but explains the concept.

298: “Labor is the yeast thrown into it, which starts it fermenting.”

“process of production”

distinction between “products” which are consumed by laborers, instruments of production and raw materials. They are all “material”, “objective” forms of capital.

Some difficult discussion, where Marx makes distinctions that are not clear to me

303: labor as worker, capital as capitalist; can we separate capital from the capitalist?

“Thus capital is indeed separable from an individual capitalist, but not from the capitalist, who, as such, confronts the worker. Thus also the individual worker can cease to be the being-for-itself of labor; he may inherit or steal money etc. But then he ceases to be a worker.”

//Production process as content of capital...//

305: “verwertet” as “realizes”, this is the problem Arthur talks about with the translation

footnote: productive vs unproductive labor/worker;

“productive labor is only that which produces capital... The piano maker reproduces capital; the pianist only exchanges his labor for revenue... Other economists therefore allow the so-called unproductive worker to be productive indirectly. For example, the pianist stimulates production.”

306: “A use value for capital, labor is a mere exchange value for the worker.”

realization in the strict sense:

“The exchange value of labor, the realization of which takes place in the process of exchange with the capitalist, is therefore presupposed, predetermined, and only undergoes the formal modification which every only ideally posited price takes on when it is realized.”

The creative power of labor confronts the worker as an alien power

Key ideas borrowed from political economists:

307: “Sismondi says that the workers exchange their labor for grain, which they consume, while their labor ‘has become capital for its master.’... By selling his labor to the capitalist, the worker obtains a right only to the price of labor, not to the product of this labor, not to the value which his labor has added to it (Cherbuliez).”

“progress of civilization” belongs to capitalist

//Realization process [Verwertungsprozess]//

should probably have been translated “valorization process”

Marx starts with a hypothetical case where capital merely changes form with not change in value. Original capital = 100 thalers. Capitalist buys 50 t wool, 40 t wages, 10 t spinning machine. The result is cotton yard worth 100 thalers. The capital has changed form, has preserved itself in the production process, but no change in value.

No greater exchange value has been created, but possibly greater use value has been created. Hmm. Quantifying use value? I guess if you need yard and don’t need raw wool.

“...merely a material but not an economic change...”

value could fail to be reproduced in production process capitalist has to eat and drink

//Capital enters the cost of production as capital//

Interest presupposes surplus value. Capital doesn’t add value to the end product. It’s about paying the capitalist in advance for surplus value.

capital as a special commodity. Not exchanged as equivalent like other commodities. The use value of capital is its ability to grow.

319: mention of “original accumulation (ursprüngliche Akkumulation)”, often translated as “primitive accumulation”

“This accumulation, necessary for capital to come into being, which is therefore already included in its concept as presupposition -- as a moment -- is to be distinguished essentially from the accumulation of capital which has already become capital, where there must already be //capitals//.”