Great post. This has been a contentious debate in my Capital reading group. I have a question for you about some of the terms you used:
You say "The issue is that most people look for a physical surplus of goods, instead of what really matters, a monetary surplus (or as Marx notes in the general formula for capital M-C-M’)." But then later on you refer refer to the production of value. The latter to me is more consistent + how I would understand things. Wouldn't it be a *value* surplus rather than a monetary one? Maybe I'm confused here but it seems to me that there are unproductive industries that create a monetary surplus without creating a value surplus (e.g. finance, insurance, or to Marx, storage)
The problem comes down to what is "surplus". It cannot be simply that surplus imo is a physical phenomenon, but must refer to the fact that our capacities as both biological AND social individuals allows for us to in the literal sense produce more than is required to produce for our reproduction. Thus, I think that many 'services' that we don't see as value producing must be, but the nature of production of services is different due to the properties of the material content. This is something that isn't as directly theorized in my opinion, and I wish I had more time to think about it.
Might I say you do a terrible job at critiquing Polish cons, luckily your writing on political economy is much better.
What would you say your relationship with substack is? Is their model of allowing users to voluntarily pay you for your writing them facilitating mutual aid, or is this still a form of capitalists extracting value from your labor since they take 10% for distribution? If so, what about the people that don't get money from substack? Substack only makes money when writers make money and they don't run any ads. Is substack still exploitative for the people who don't get 'a wage' and don't pay anything to substack? What if substack was a non-profit?
Tag if you’re here because of CCK Philosophy.
Hell ya
Great post. This has been a contentious debate in my Capital reading group. I have a question for you about some of the terms you used:
You say "The issue is that most people look for a physical surplus of goods, instead of what really matters, a monetary surplus (or as Marx notes in the general formula for capital M-C-M’)." But then later on you refer refer to the production of value. The latter to me is more consistent + how I would understand things. Wouldn't it be a *value* surplus rather than a monetary one? Maybe I'm confused here but it seems to me that there are unproductive industries that create a monetary surplus without creating a value surplus (e.g. finance, insurance, or to Marx, storage)
The problem comes down to what is "surplus". It cannot be simply that surplus imo is a physical phenomenon, but must refer to the fact that our capacities as both biological AND social individuals allows for us to in the literal sense produce more than is required to produce for our reproduction. Thus, I think that many 'services' that we don't see as value producing must be, but the nature of production of services is different due to the properties of the material content. This is something that isn't as directly theorized in my opinion, and I wish I had more time to think about it.
Hi critiqueofpolecon,
Might I say you do a terrible job at critiquing Polish cons, luckily your writing on political economy is much better.
What would you say your relationship with substack is? Is their model of allowing users to voluntarily pay you for your writing them facilitating mutual aid, or is this still a form of capitalists extracting value from your labor since they take 10% for distribution? If so, what about the people that don't get money from substack? Substack only makes money when writers make money and they don't run any ads. Is substack still exploitative for the people who don't get 'a wage' and don't pay anything to substack? What if substack was a non-profit?