me: >> The essence of the argument that Gary Dymski and I launch against John >> Roemer's theory of exploitation under capitalism is that he sees >> "surplus-value" (a.k.a. property income) as merely scarcity rent. I'm >> not going to repeat that argument here. Our papers appear in >> _Economics and Philosophy_, 7(2), October 1991: pp. 235-275 and >> _Review of Radical Political Economics_, 21(3), 1989: pp. 13-17.
John V. writes: > Sorry, cannot comment; I live too far away from a univ. library to read them > and they're not available to me online. Sorry. I'll have to put them online. In a nutshell: Roemer's assumption was that capital goods are scarce, so that their owners receive scarcity rents. They are able to get these because of unequal exchange from workers. Our view, on the other hand, is that surplus-value arises in production, a venue that Roemer does not examine, not via redistribution in exchange. (It's only after it's produced that it can be redistributed.) Second, it's not the scarcity of means of production (capital goods) that's crucial, as much as the non-scarcity of labor-power (the reserve army of labor), which motivates workers to produce surplus-value. Roemer, following the mislead of General Equilibrium Theory, assumes that labor-power is never scarce. All unemployment is voluntary for him, so he can apply Say's Law without making that assumption clear. (So much for mathematical rigor!) Third, it's not the scarcity of means of production that's crucial, but instead the capitalist control over the accumulation process, which keeps labor-power abundant. (Following GET, Roemer does not seriously consider the role of time.) Fourth, the capitalist exploitation process assumes that state coercion enforces capitalist property accumulation rights and that workers are disorganized and not class conscious. That condition may not apply forever. Obviously, there's more, but I can't stuff it in a nutshell. John V. had asked: >> > ... Is there anybody on this list who doesn't equate capitalism with >> > free-enterprise? me: >> To my mind, "free enterprise" is only a slogan, essentially the same >> as "laissez-faire." It means "allow profit-seeking businesses to do >> what they want." In practice, it involves subsidies when businesses >> get themselves into trouble. (This is especially true when the >> businesses have good political connections.) This is not the same as >> capitalism _per se_, which might be state-managed instead, as in >> Japan. In that case, businesses have to follow a lot of rules and >> regulations, while (of course) they usually receive subsidies when >> they get into trouble. John: > To my mind, "free enterprise" is much more than a slogan. It defines > enterprise to be operating, free from artificially induced powerful forces > that can inhibit a clearing of the market and reproduction in full. aren't enterprises artificial creations? what would they do without corporate law? without police protection? without the armed forces? so you define "free enterprise" as market-clearing? A better term would be "unfettered markets." So are you saying that a country that doesn't let prices adjust to clear the market isn't capitalist? The US wasn't capitalist when Nixon imposed wage and price controls in 1971? I don't know what "reproduction in full" refers to. I presume you're referring to Marx's schemes describing simple and expanded reproduction of capitalism. The full expanded reproduction and even the full simple reproduction is often blocked under capitalism, as when we have recessions. That doesn't make the economy non-capitalist. John had written: >> > Capitalists are as much the enemy of entrepreneurs as they >> > are of workers. The overwhelming majority of start-ups fail, causing >> > many of >> > them [entrepreneurs?] to lose their home and more; all due to the evil >> > tactics of >> > capitalists, extracting purchasing power far beyond their own embezzled >> > lifestyle. me: >> I don't get the distinction. I follow Schumpeter to see entrepreneurs >> as a species of "capitalist," i.e., those who introduce some new >> product or process. John: > Capitalists make use of the license, given to them by conventional > economics, to extract income from what is deemed to be the positively valued > entity called capital. It's not conventional economic theory or economists who give them that license. It's really the system of capitalism as a whole -- backed by the coercive state -- that gives individual capitalists a return simply from owning property. Most of them aren't pure _rentiers_ by the way (especially because they can pick the jobs they want). They add high salaries and benefits to the return on ownership. > Entrepreneurs understand that in order to extract > such income, they will have to go into debt first. They are a different > species operating in the same economic theater.... That doesn't conflict with Schumpeter, though (like him) I'd add the role of innovation. me: >> That new product or process may not be a good >> thing: whoever introduced "crack" cocaine was an entrepreneur. John: > That's one reason why there are laws against such entrepreneurship. It's > high time for electronic money to replace cash, and that type of enterprise > could thus be extinguished. You think? no-one ever manipulates electronic money in an illicit way? what about Enron? In any event, laws are often broken, often even by the folks who are supposed to be following and enforcing them. The CIA, for example, has been involved in illegal drug smuggling. > Entrepreneurs are gatherers of skills required to produce output, in the > attempt to ultimately augment society's standard of living... their goal is not to augment society's standard of living, except of course, their small piece of that society. That's what's called the profit motive. Whether or not the benefits trickle down to the rest of us depends on the political economy (the country and the era). Nowadays, the trickle-down in the US seems to have been stopped completely. BTW, I should mention that there are other kinds of entrepreneurship besides capitalist entrepreneurship. The brilliant sociologist C. Wright Mills pointed to the "new entrepreneurs" who rise to the top by jumping between the corporate and government bureaucratic ladders. (Henry Kissinger is an example here.) We can also point to entrepreneurs in labor unions, such as Andy Stern. Genghis Khan was an entrepreneur among conquerors (and brilliant too). Talk about creative destruction! -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
