Tuesday 29 June 2021

A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism, Chapter 1 - Part 13

The revenues are certainly capable of providing the demand for the supply of final output, i.e. the value of bread, and so Sismondi's statement “what is produced by all is consumed by all”, is met, provided, as Marx sets out in Theories of Surplus Value, you only mean that what is produced for consumption, is consumed by all. Its quite clear that the £1,000 value of seeds that is replaced out of the farmer's output is not consumed by all. For one thing, as constant capital, it is not something that can be consumed directly. But, more importantly, none of this £1,000 of seeds goes anywhere near the production of society for consumption. It cannot do so, because it must remain solely to replace, on a like for like basis, the seed consumed in production. 

If we were to take the society as a whole, then its output divides into £1,000 of capital, and £600 of revenue, even though, if we look at the means of production (constant capital) of the miller and baker, it looks as though they also use £400 of capital, in addition to the £1,000 of capital used by the farmer. Indeed, in terms of use value, they do.  But, the value of this capital, of the miller and baker, in fact, amounts only to the value of the revenues, the new value created by the farmer and miller. This £400 of “intermediate production” appears as constant capital, but is only revenue, i.e. v + s. 

As Marx sets out, this component of output, represented by c, continually expands, because of expanded reproduction. A proportion of this year's revenue, is not, in fact, consumed as revenue, but is set aside, and converted into capital. Moreover, as capital accumulates, even the division of labour results in rising social productivity, so that a given amount of labour processes a greater quantity of material. That means that c rises relative to v + s, and this is the basis of Marx's explanation of The Law of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall. But, again, because the GDP data does not include this element of the constant capital, any measurement of the rate of profit, and movements in it, must be wrong, and represent only a measurement of the rate of surplus value

Another measure of output has been proposed which is total output, so that the £200 of output of the farmer, the £400 of output of the miller, and £600 of output of the baker are all added together, giving a total output figure of £1,200, but that simply amounts to double counting the intermediate production, and still does not give the correct value of total output, which is £1,600. If the value of intermediate production of £400 is deducted that gives a figure of only £800, which is half the actual value of total output. 

And, as Marx sets out, at length, in Capital II, and Theories of Surplus Value, trying to resolve this by arguing that all those in the position of the farmer, here, actually replace their constant capital by purchasing from other producers, so that their own sales are recorded, does not work either. As Marx describes, if Department I is considered as one single business, all of these internal transactions are netted off as purchases and sales, so that they cancel out. The fact remains that all of this £1,000 of seed constitutes revenue for no one, and is simply reproduced out of capital. It cannot then form part of National Income or GDP.


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