The true situation is indicated, not by taking the historic prices paid for inputs, and comparing them with the value of output, but taking the value of output, and, then, looking at how that value resolves into the reproduction of the capital, so that production continues on the same scale. In other words, the capital gain appears to create a higher mass and rate of profit, but, strip out the capital gain, and the mass of profit is unchanged, whilst, to reproduce the capital on the same scale, involves a portion of that profit, now, being tied up for that purpose, whereas, previously, it could have been consumed unproductively or accumulated. The true situation is, then, not a rise, but a fall in the rate of profit.
I have discussed this, elsewhere, in relation to the release and tie-up of capital, and in relation to the TSSI and historic prices.
“Motion itself is a contradiction: even simple mechanical change of place can only come about through a body being both in one place and in another place at the same moment of time, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continual assertion and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is.” (p 152)
It is this contradiction, and simultaneity, of inputs being simultaneously outputs, and vice versa, that the TSSI, like Duhring, rejects as being “contra-sense”. Engels quotes Duhring's statement that,
“up to the present there has been “no bridge” whatever “in rational mechanics from the strictly static to the dynamic”. (p 152)
and notes,
“The reader can now at last see what is hidden behind this favourite phrase of Herr Dühring’s — it is nothing but this: the mind which thinks metaphysically is absolutely unable to pass from the idea of rest to the idea of motion, because the contradiction pointed out above blocks its path. To it, motion is simply inconceivable because it is a contradiction. And in asserting the inconceivability of motion, it admits against its will the existence of this contradiction, and thus admits that there is a contradiction objectively present in things and processes themselves a contradiction which is moreover an actual force.” (p 152-3)
As noted earlier, this mechanical motion of objects is observable, but everything that exists is itself subject to change/motion, internally. Matter is comprised of molecules, and those molecules are constantly moving, manifest as heat. A rock is visibly subject to change, as a result of erosion. But, most notably, all organic matter is subject to change within itself. It goes through various stages of growth, and ultimately death.
“We saw above that life consists precisely and primarily in this — that a living thing is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly asserts and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to an end, and death steps in.” (p 153)
Even in death, this does not end, because the corpse goes through a process of decomposition. And, it is not just in relation to the material world that this movement and contradiction takes place. So too it arises in the realm of ideas. Ideas are, themselves, a reflection of that material world, and observation of it by the human mind. As the material world changes, so too its reflection in the realm of ideas also changes. But, even where no significant material change occurs, ideas change, because the observation and analysis of that material world continually expands and develops.
“... the contradiction between man's intrinsically unlimited cognitive faculty and its actual presence in men who are all extrinsically limited and possess limited knowledge finds its solution in what is practically — at least for us — an endless succession of generations, in infinite progress.” (p 153)
No comments:
Post a Comment