| This question <55|69> overall <58|60> Hans: <34|62>. |
| Question 52: In [mecw29] 274 Marx writes “It is as if the different individuals had thrown their labor time together and allocated different portions of the labor time at their joint disposal to the various use values.” Why the formulation “It is as if?” Have they done it or haven't they? |
| [59] Hans: Incorrect assumptions In [55], answering 52, Wight wrote |
| The formulation “It is as if” is used by Marx to illustrate the sweeping generality of the entire statement. |
| This is a plausible interpretation, but in the present case the statement is not only too general but also in a very specific way incorrect. You write that too, two sentences later: |
| There are a few incorrect assumptions in this view of labor. First, it assumes that all laborers are willing participants, which we know they are not in the capitalist system. |
| This is tantalizingly close to the way I interpret this sentence, but it is not quite the same. You seem to say that Marx stated a “stylized fact” which made some simplifying assumptions about the world. One of them is that not everyone is a willing participant in the system. I think Marx wrote “it is as if” they had done it, because they did it but it was not their intention to do it. They did it so-to-say unconsciously. Whether willing or not, none of them was a conscious participant in this deed. Do you see the difference? |
| They interact on the market in order to get the best outcome for themselves. This competition has the same effect as if it had been their intention to do what Marx describes here. |
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