Hi Sabri, I know the following questions weren't addressed to me, but what the hey. Let me again start with your last question (putting Hammurabi aside):
--Does the land add to "value" in any way? Well, that depends on your notion of what constitutes "value". According to Marx's labor-based theory of value, the use of land *by definition* cannot convey value to the products grown on or extracted from the land, because land qua land does not involve the expenditure of labor. The Physiocrats, in contrast, thought that land was the *only* source of value, so that for example manufacturing was "sterile" (merely redistributing existing values rather than creating new values). Now back to the first question: ---Let us go back to Mesopotamia of 4000 to 5000 years ago. There was the palace, the temple (temples and palaces, as Michael Hudson says), the agricultural production (ignoring other things) and the land. The palace and the temple were the financiers, agricultural workers were the producers and I am not so sure who owned the land then (most likely the palace and the temple, not the agricultural workers). How does this set up differ from a capitalist economy? Marx talks about pre-capitalist exploitation of labor in various places in Capital, including V. I Chapter I. His general point is that the basis of those forms of exploitation was pretty obvious: direct coercion based on political or military (or religious?) power. From this perspective, the puzzle to be addressed is how exploitation can also emerge from nominally voluntary exchange relations, in which the only coercion is contingent and indirect: that is, the fist of the state doesn't come down on you unless you fail to respect others' private property. Now for the middle question: --Where is the rent and where is the profit (surplus value) (which anticipates the question in your more recent post to me)? Depends on the context. For example, if the "financiers" in your example allowed agricultural workers the use of their land for the purpose of producing commodities, the market sales of which are used to pay for the land rent, then the rent would constitute surplus value, no matter whether you chose to call it "profit" or "rent". There is at least one reason to keep the terms distinct, however: arguably the social conditions necessary to assure the persistent extraction of land rents are not the same as the social conditions necessary to assure the persistent extraction of capitalist profit, which is why (for example) Progress and Poverty was not simply a rehearsal of Capital V. I. Gil >Thanks Jim. > >I would like to continue further though, because I am very confused >about this topic. Put differently, I am still unclear about what value >is and I know that I am not alone as the history attests. > >Let us go back to Mesopotamia of 4000 to 5000 years ago. There was the >palace, the temple (temples and palaces, as Michael Hudson says), the >agricultural production (ignoring other things) and the land. The >palace and the temple were the financiers, agricultural workers were >the producers and I am not so sure who owened the land then (most >likely the palace and the temple, not the agricultural workers). > >How does this set up differ from a capitalist economy? > > > >Why was Hammurapi so much worried about the debts becoming unpayable? > > > >Best, >Sabi >_______________________________________________ >pen-l mailing list >[email protected] >https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
