Re: Capital is wrong (fwd)

"Capital is wrong" is a very mainstream claim, George. I do *not* think
that it is wrong if you mean by this Marx's CAPITAL. You are under
obligation to substantiate why you think so.

Mine
 

>George also needs to examine what a commodity is.

>Andy

>On Thu, 9 Mar 2000 md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu wrote:

>
>>George, is this a response to Marx? I could not get it..
>
>>btw: Marx gives a critique of the "wealth" approach to capitalism in the
>>Gotha program. He criticizes the social democratic party priciple that
>>"labor is the source of all wealth and all culture". With that said, he
>>smartly says the following:
>
>" labor is not the source of wealth. Nature is just as much the source
>of used values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists) as
>labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a forces of nature,
>human labor power. The above phrase is to be found in all children's
>primers and is correct in so far as it is implied that labour is performed
>with the appurtenant subjects and instruments.But a socialist programme
>cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions
>that alone give them meaning.And is so far as man from the begining
>behaves toward nature, the primary sources of all instruments and subjects
>of labour, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labour becomes
>the source of use-values"
>
>
>Mine
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 18:37:57 +0000
>From: George Pennefather <poseidon@eircom.net>
>To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
>Subject: Capital is wrong
>
>
>In the opening paragraph of Capital Marx proclaims:
>
>The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production 
>prevails,
>presents itself as "an immense accumulation of commodities," its unit 
>being a single
>commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a 
>commodity.
>So the capitalist mode of production can prevail in more than one society.
>
>To say that the "wealth of those societies presents itself as an immense 
>accumulation of
>commodities" is not true. Much of the wealth is in the form of industrial 
>capital which is
>not capital in the form of the commodity. This mistaken premise renders 
>the validity of
>making the commodity a starting point questionable on that basis.
>
>Warm regards
>George Pennefather
>
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