Third and final question: If exploitation in the cases considered previously did not in fact require formal subsumption in either Marx's or Jim's sense of the term, did they instead require the existence of monopoly power in a sense distinct from Roemer's? In particular, did exploitation in these cases require *individual* market (i.e, price-setting) power, as opposed to *class* monopolization of productive assets, as in Roemer's account? Jim insists that it did: > As Marx notes above, in Ch. 36 [on usury capital] he's talking > about an era when commodity production was incompletely > developed...That is, markets, including money markets, are > incompletely developed--so the usurer is likely a monopolist unlike > the money-lender in the "credit system." *This gives the usurer > power over the borrower that the Roemerian rentier lacks*.... > In all of these cases, there's a kind of "precapitalist subjection > of labor"....This seems a likely substitute for formal subjection of >labor by capital as a way of getting peasants to produce a surplus- > product and to share it with the money-lender. *It is _not_ an > example of the Roemerian rentier*. [Emphases added] Putting aside the historical basis for Jim's claims, which I challenge in my Econ & Phil paper, is there a basis in Marx for these conclusions? I agree here with Jim that Marx offers some leeway for interpretation in Jim's direction; see in particular the passage on p. 510 of the GRUNDRISSE. However, in *no* case do we find Marx insisting on the necessity of monopoly power in Jim's more exacting sense of individual monopoly or monopsony (i.e., price-setting) power. To the contrary, Marx can at least as easily be read as presuming only the same sort of conditions as Roemer--i.e., class monopolization of a relatively scarce productive asset. Furthermore, Jim's new definition of "subjection" here is yet another departure from Marx's usage--Marx doesn't employ the term in this sense. Finally--and this is the kicker--monopoly power in Jim's sense *can't* be coherently understood as a substitute for formal subsumption in Marx's sense of the term, because this sort of market power is not strategically responsive to the sorts of asymmetric- information based market failures which make formal subsumption (in Marx's sense) relevant. Jim's articles with Gary Dymski show that he is well aware of the strategic nature of these imperfections. Thus Jim's argument here faces a rather severe dilemma--either class monopolization in Roemer's sense is sufficient for exploiting labor (which I believe to be the most accurate reading of Marx's position on exploitation in the era prior to capitalist production), contradicting Jim's claim, or else mere price-setting power is insufficient to yield such exploitation--again contradicting Jim's claim. But now to the main point. Does Marx ever insist on the necessity of individual monopoly power, understood in Jim's sense, for the existence of pre-capitalist exploitation? I don't see where he does. Indeed, Marx begins Chapter 36 with the statement that "Usurer's capital requires nothing more for its existence that that at least a portion of the products is transformed into commodities and that money in its various functions develops concurrently with trade in commodities." [p. 728] Where Marx does mention monopoly in the chapter, he refers to the monopoly of "usury", i.e a class monopoly, not a monopoly of usur*ers*. (p. 737) Parallel readings for the conditions of exploitation via ground-rent can be found in Vol. III, pp. 762-63, 772. But this interpretation is equivalent to Roemer's understanding of the basis for exploitation in his "Capital Market Island" scenario. Moreover, in none of the passages I cite in my previous post does Marx insist on the necessity of monopoly in Jim's sense. Let's take this a step further. How could it possibly be the case the class monopolization of a relatively scarce productive resource, as in Roemer's analysis, is *not* sufficient for expropriating surplus value? The only answer (since Roemer's results are consistent with rational optimizing behavior in complete markets) is that markets are somehow incomplete, e.g., characterized by asymmetric information about production and labor effort, so that the labor-labor power distinction matters in a strategic sense. First, as I argue in my article, such incompleteness does not generally render class monopolization powerless to yield surplus value. But if it did (an extreme case of informational problems), mere monopoly power in Jim's sense in insufficient to solve the problem if class monopolization is; I know of no models which prove the contrary. Thus I don't see a basis in Marx, or in modern theory, or in the historical record, for Jim's conclusion on this score. That's all, folks. Gil Skillman
