“Capital … consists of wealth saved from revenue, and used with a view to profit” (p. 16).” (p 420)
This conflates capital with means of production, because, in all modes of production, a portion of revenue can be, and is, saved as additional means of production, and the purpose of this accumulation is to enhance productive capacity, and thereby increase the size of the surplus product, and other manifestations of surplus value.
““The possible sources of capital […] are obviously, all the revenues of all the individuals composing a community, from which revenues it is possible that any saving can be made. The particular classes of income which yield the most abundantly to the progress of national capital, change at different stages of their progress, and are therefore found entirely different in nations occupying different positions in that progress” (p. 16).” (p 420)
It is, of course, true, as Jones says here, that, in previous modes of production, the direct producer, be it a peasant farmer or artisan handicraft worker, can save a portion of their revenue – surplus value – and utilise it to acquire additional means of production, but this does not constitute capital. The direct producer acquires additional means of production so as to expand their production primarily so as to expand their own potential consumption, not to be able to expand their surplus value as profit. The basis of their production, even of commodities that they exchange for other commodities, is their own consumption, not the production of profit. This condition whereby direct producers engage in commodity production to meet their own consumption needs, first as petty commodity production, and then as generalised commodity production, leads inexorably towards a process whereby, once markets are large and concentrated enough, some of these producers, via a process of differentiation, do begin to produce for profit rather than to meet their own consumption needs. But, the first steps on that road, should not be confused with the destination.
Moreover, Jones is wrong to describe this as saving from their wages. Firstly, they are not wage labourers, but, even setting that aside, this accumulation does not arise as saving out of the labour fund, but out of the surplus labour undertaken by the labourer, i.e. it is surplus labour, or surplus value. The peasant farmer who must work six hours of necessary labour to reproduce their labour-power, does not accumulate additional means of production by saving out of the product of this six hours. If they undertake ten hours of labour, they may need to hand over the product of two hours labour as rent and taxes, but then still have the product of two hours of surplus labour to accumulate. As Marx says, in Capital III, in such a mode of production, it is thereby the extent of rent/taxes which limits the amount of profit, as opposed to the situation under capitalism, whereby rent is limited to only the surplus profit in excess of the average profit.
“Profit is therefore by no means the only source from which capital is formed or augmented: it is even an unimportant source of accumulation, compared with wages and rents, in the earlier stages of society (p. 20).
“… when a considerable advance in the powers of national industry has actually taken place, profits rise into comparative importance as a source of accumulation” (p. 21).” (p 420)
As Marx describes, in Capital III, also, capital is not accumulated profit. Profit is the form of surplus value first obtained by capital, when commodity-capital is metamorphosed into money, i.e. when commodities are sold, and the profit is realised. But this profit is then divided into rent, interest, taxes and profit of enterprise. A portion of the profit of enterprise is required to cover the unproductive consumption of the capitalist. Only what is left over after that is available for them to accumulate. The revenues paid out as rent, interest and taxes may also go to finance unproductive consumption, though some of those revenues may also find their way, via the money market, into financing capital accumulation. Indeed, as Marx sets out, in Capital III, once savings banks are established, even the small scattered savings of workers, from their wages, can be pooled by the banks so as to finance capital accumulation. But, the real basis of capital accumulation is not these revenues, but the existence of the surplus social product, physically available for the purpose of such accumulation.
Profit is a specific form of surplus value, which assumes the existence of capital. If the existence of capital is assumed, then Jones' argument is correct, but that assumes what has to be explained, i.e. what gives rise to the accumulation of capital in the first place.
“To a certain extent accumulation of wealth takes place in all stages of economic development, that is, partly an expansion of the scale of production and partly, the accumulation of treasure, etc. As long as wages and rents predominate—that is, according to what was said earlier, as long as the greater part of the surplus labour and surplus product which does not accrue to the worker himself, goes to the landowner (the State in Asia) and, on the other hand, the worker reproduces his labour fund himself, i.e., he not only produces his own wages himself, but pays them to himself, usually, moreover, (almost always in that state of society) he is also able to appropriate at least a part of his surplus labour and his surplus product—in this state of society, wages and rent are the main sources of accumulation as well.” (p 420)
The surplus product of the direct producer, here, does not take the form of profit, but of an increase in their means of production, designed to increase their own domestic productive capacity. Profit is mainly restricted to merchant's profit, in these conditions. The other antediluvian form of capital, in such societies, is usurer's capital, which obtains not profit but interest.
“Only when the capitalist mode of production has become predominant, when it does not merely exist sporadically, but has subordinated to itself the mode of production of society; when in fact the capitalist directly appropriates the whole surplus labour and surplus product in the first instance, although he has to hand over portions of it to the landowner, etc.—only then does profit become the principal source of capital, of accumulation, of wealth saved from revenue and used with a view to profit. This at the same time presupposes (as is implicit in the domination of the capitalist mode of production) that “a considerable advance in the power of national industry has actually taken place”.” (p 420-1)
No comments:
Post a Comment