Rebecca: Hi Andy!
Andy: I think you first need to ask yourself these two empirical questions:
(1)
Do merchants appear in precapitalism? And, if so, (2) do merchants down
through history, in general, profit from their activities?
Rebecca: How amusing! I put to you some straigth questions and you answer me
with questions.
Andy: A related question that may come up in your puzzling over the matter
is
this: Whence the source of surplus labor? You will find, I think, that
surplus labor exists down through history; and, further, you will find that
there is surplus labor that exists in the capitalist world market that does
not find its origin in industrial wage-labor.
Rebecca: Surplus labour is not at issue. Clearly surplus labour has existed
through may different social formations. This is not under question here.
I am talking about the accumulation of capital which is an entirely
differrnt thing to surplus labour as such. It is a specific historical form
of the accumulation of surplus labour. I simply wooooould like you to
offer a valid explanation, if one is possible, as to how capital was
accumulated by merhcnat capital in the era that preceded given that exchange
of equal value was necessary for the existence and development of commodity
circulation in the absence of industrial capital.
Instead of anwering such a questions you make all kinds of extraordinary
assumptions abot my straigth questions.
Perhaps someone else would like ot offer an anwer on this list that is
dedicated to these issues.
Warm regards
Rebecca