Sandwichman wrote: > I would challenge the implicit assumption that surplus value is first > produced and then redistributed. It might seem "intuitively obvious" that > you can't redistribute something that doesn't exist yet but of course you > can. You just distribute claims on future wealth creation. That's what > capitalization is about.
but distributions of claims on future wealth creation is simply a matter of promises. Not all promises are lived up to or enforced. If more wealth is promised than is created and those promises are actually followed through on, what results is inflation (to reconcile promises with reality). > So I have in mind a model where profit, interest and rent come first and > then the imperative is to extract the surplus value corresponding with those > claims. yes, it's likely that part of the dynamic is that individuals fight to make sure that the promises to them are fulfilled, even if it's at the expense of others. But the actual amount of surplus-value produced depends not only on what the capitalists want but also the resistance of workers. > Of course the process is circular, so it would be difficult to point > to a specific unit of surplus value going to a specific rent, interest or > profit claim. yes, the link between specific units of surplus-value produced and rent, interest, and profit claims is on the macroeconomic level, not the micro level. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
