On Tue, 5 Nov 1996, Ajit Sinha wrote: > I did not explain exploitation FROM competition. My point was that > REPRODUCTION of exploitation by individual capitalists comes about due to > the pressure of competition, which is a structural aspect of capitalism. In > other words, even if all capitalists were good guys, they will be forced to > produce surplus value and push for more and more surplus value. To quote > Marx: "By looking at these things as a whole, it is evident that this > [capitalists attempt to maximize surplus value production] does not depend > on the will, either good or bad, of the individual capitalist. Under free > competition, the immanent laws of capitalist production confront the > individual capitalist as a coercive force external to him." (Capital I, p. > 381). The logic I'm using is structural, which I think Marx also used in the > name of dialectics, and not linear. The Structural logic does not start from > A point but has various points to begin with and it works through the > relations of these points. By the way, all my quotes are from volume one of > Capital. So competition is not completely abstracted from volume one. What > is abstracted is the certain 'distortions' caused by comptition at the level > of appearance. As I said, the "law" of value, which is assumed all through > the volume one, will not make much sense without the notion of competition. I believe, from your reaction, Ajit, that we are closer in understanding than I had originally thought, but I will still put competition at a somewhat lower level of abstraction in understanding the capitalist mode of production than you seem to do. This is the sense it which I referred to competition as a SUPPORT for exploitation. Regarding the law of value you seem pretty close to equating competition with commodity production itself. Am I correct? Paul Z.
