>
> 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.
585 BC:
"The philosopher and the physicist of today share another common link:
the same man, Thales of
Miletus, is claimed by each as the FATHER of his profession. His
biographer, Diogenes Laertius,
narrated anecdotes about him which are worthy of mention for the sake of
tradition rather than
fact. Two of these anecdotes are quite famous, namely, that he fell into
a well or irrigation ditch
while star-gazing, and that, predicting a scarcity of olives, he
cornered the olive market"
"One time when Thales was still poor, Thales was talking to a friend who
was
just as poor as he. His friend moaned and groaned about how hard it was
to
be poor and how he'd be poor the rest of his life. Thales said it would
be easy
to become rich. He told his friend to come back and visit him in six
months.
In six months when his friend returned he was astonished to see Thales
the
richest man in town. Thales told his friend how he foresaw a bumper crop
and bought all the olive presses. He rented them back to the same people
that sold them to him and made a fortune. More interested in the science
than the money he sold them all back eventually"
Well, I have heard more versions of the history, for instance one in
which he
only buys the rights to use the presses that year.