Re: Capital is wrong

The debate over whether "Capital is wrong" produced many thoughtful 
analyses of political economy, but I've been waiting for someone to 
point out what I think is pretty obvious.  Specifically, Marx is 
beginning his analysis of capital by pointing out the distinction 
between appearance and essence.  He is basically saying that capital 
appears to be an immense accumulation of commodities, but analysis 
demonstrates that its essence is an accumulation of capital.  And 
that is what Marx then sets out to show.

The notion that capital is an accumulation of commodities is a common 
misconception among my students.  Those who come from relatively 
affluent background experience capitalism mainly as businesses that 
sell commodities which they purchase.  Some of them have never 
thought about the labor power that produced those commodities.  Few 
have thought about how profit is extracted from labor power, rather 
than from charging high prices to consumers.  These students have 
been mistrained to look at appearances, rather than essences.

Marx was right to emphasize the contradiction between the appearance 
and essence of capital (and capitalism).  We should never be hesitant 
about acknowledging and correcting errors Marx or anyone else made, 
but the dialectic approach Marx devised to examining capital  was 
right.

Steve Rosenthal

> From:          "George Pennefather" <poseidon@eircom.net>
> To:            WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject:       Re: Capital is wrong
> Date:          Fri, 10 Mar 2000 19:06:13 -0000
> Reply-to:      poseidon@eircom.net

> Below is a brief response to the many responses to my very brief piece on 
>Marx's Capital.
> 
> I wrote:
> 
> "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 existing 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."
> 
> It is clear from many of the responses made in relation to my above 
>posting that there is
> a lot of ignorance, confusion and down right refusal to face facts.
> 
> To elaborate: The point is that the wealth of capitalist society does not 
>present itself
> "as an immense accumulation of commodities." Much of the wealth of 
>capitalist society is
> in the form of factories. Factories are forms of capital but not 
>commodities. The
> factories are a form of fixed capital. Fixed capital is not a commodity 
>form. Much wealth
> too assumes the form of use values. Capital assumes different forms. It 
>assumes the form
> of money, of circulating capital, of fixed capital. of variable capital. 
>Capital also
> assumes the form of the commodity.
> 
> The thousands of cars on the roads and televisions and computers in homes 
>are not
> commodities. They are use values. Concerning the consumer market once the 
>exchange process
> has been completed the commodities in question cease to be commodities 
>and are at most
> simple use values.
> 
> In short the wealth of capitalist society does not present itself as an 
>immense
> accumulation of commodities. That wealth presents itself as commodities; 
>as use values
> that are not commodities; as forms of capital that are not commodity 
>forms. The plain fact
> is that Marx in his opening statement was plain wrong.
> 
> Warm regards
> George Pennefather
> 
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> 
> Warm regards
> George Pennefather
> 
> Be free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site at
> http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/
> 
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