me:> Sure, wages and many prices were sticky at the time of the price
revolution after Columbus invaded America. But a lot of this stickiness was solved by force (since the "market system" and capitalist-style property rights had not been well established). More crucially, I don't think that the magnitude of the stickiness was enough to explain much of the rise of capitalism in England. Most importantly, it seemed to me that Charles was suffering from money illusion.
CB:> Do you think Marx is suffering from money illusion in his chapter on the
genesis of the industrial capiatlist ?
maybe. What kinds of specifics are you thinking of? Marx can be wrong, after all. In general, he ignored general price changes in volume I of CAPITAL, holding the value of money (the amount of labor needed to produce a unit of money) constant. Then, price changes are due to changes in labor productivity and generally downward. me:
Now, there was a role for the gold in changing W. Europe. Whoever got the gold first was most likely to benefit. But in most cases, they didn't.
CB:>This seems a self-contradictory claim. no, it says that the guys who got the gold got the potential to win, but were most often unable to realize that potential, because the purchasing power of gold fell. me: > At the time of the 1849 gold rush in California, it usually
wasn't the miners who won (unless they found _a lot_ of gold). Rather, it was the merchants who controlled scarce goods who won, as prices rose skyward.
CB> So,in the origin of capitalism was it the merchants or the agricultural
capitalists leading ?
I didn't say that the merchants were "leading." Merchant capital makes its profit (according to Karlos) simply by buying low in one place and selling high in another. (This is _pure_ merchant capital, not a mixed variety.) The trouble with inflation from a merchant's perspective is that it raises both the buying price and the selling price, so that profits stay constant relative to costs. CB: > Isn't Brenner's thesis specifically opposed to the
merchantile origin thesis ?
yes, as were Smith's and Marx's. me: > Similarly, the direct beneficiaries of the gold (Spain) often didn't
gain much at all. Rather, it was the English, Dutch, and French merchants who won.
CB; Merchants or aggie-capitalists ?
those who had scarce goods. me: > And they had to buy products from the manufacturers
(which truly meant "hand work" at the time). Even they had to pay rising prices to suppliers of raw materials, who had to pay more for food. Gains from inflation tend to be transitory.
CB: Who were the suppliers of raw materials ?
in Europe, mine-owners and farmers. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
