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Jairus Banaji, some of Mandel’s two volume book on Capital and also some of the proto industrialisation stuff is also of interest regarding subsumption – by showing how it relies very much on the social power of money to dominate – and isn’t just about changes in the production process. Hence (IMO), Marx’s line about ‘capitalist exploitation without the capitalist mode of production’ in the Results. Also, in the chapters on relative and absolute in vol. I, he treats hybrid subsumption, referencing domestic industry I think, synchronically with the factory system. In other words, in a completely non-stagist way as per your above point. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Louis Proyect Sent: 25 January 2016 17:39 To: marinercarpen...@gmail.com; Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition Subject: Re: [Marxism] For Karl Marx, writers of romance novels areproductiveworkers On 1/25/16 12:30 PM, jamie pitman via Marxism wrote: > Dobb, for my money, completely misinterprets subsumption (or > ‘subordination’ in his Studies), putting it in a historicist, stagist > frame. I would argue its precisely not this (i.e. a periodisation), > which is what most Marxist schools of thought have traditionally > argued. If you read the Results carefully, Marx claims that real > subsumption in one place/ sector will inaugurate formal subsumption > elsewhere. Massimiliano Tomba writes well about this in his book, the > name of which escapes me for now. But if you reject the > methodological nationalism of Brenner then this is the way forward > when thinking through subsumption – formal and real (hybrid and ideal > are further sub-categories, btw) in a complex interplay at the level > of a global pool of surplus value. As I stated in my article, this was pretty much Marx's view: I think that Marx probably understood that there is no Chinese wall between the creation of absolute and relative surplus value as he pointed out in chapter 16 of V. 1 of Capital that is titled “Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value”: From one standpoint, any distinction between absolute and relative surplus-value appears illusory. Relative surplus-value is absolute, since it compels the absolute prolongation of the working-day beyond the labour-time necessary to the existence of the labourer himself. Absolute surplus-value is relative, since it makes necessary such a development of the productiveness of labour, as will allow of the necessary labour-time being confined to a portion of the working-day. But if we keep in mind the behaviour of surplus-value, this appearance of identity vanishes. Once the capitalist mode of production is established and become general, the difference between absolute and relative surplus-value makes itself felt, whenever there is a question of raising the rate of surplus-value. Assuming that labour-power is paid for at its value, we are confronted by this alternative: given the productiveness of labour and its normal intensity, the rate of surplus-value can be raised only by the actual prolongation of the working-day; on the other hand, given the length of the working-day, that rise can be effected only by a change in the relative magnitudes of the components of the working-day, viz., necessary labour and surplus-labour; a change which, if the wages are not to fall below the value of labour-power, presupposes a change either in the productiveness or in the intensity of the labour. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
