| This question <613|616> overall <614|616> Hans: <604|2>. |
| Term Paper 299: Essay about Chapter Twenty-Five |
| [615] Hans: A few common mistakes in the termpapers Skyler's termpaper [566] is a good try to work through some complex material. Skyler went to the text, instead of relying on other sources. It is a honest effort, and if there are mistakes, this should not bother us too much, because it is the kind of mistakes we can learn from. Before explaining two of his mistakes to you, I want to remark that his paper has a correct definition of “organic composition”, |
| Organic composition is defined; “value-composition of capital in so far as it is determined by its technical composition and mirrors the changes of the latter.” Pg. 762 |
| I.e., if the value composition increases because the value of the materials used rises, without a change in the technology, Marx would not call it a rise in “organic composition.” On the other hand, organic composition is not the value composition in constant dollars, as some other papers said. |
| But now I have to be critical, and perhaps you may think I am splitting hairs. Please read the following passage for its logic: |
| Labor power is the main factor in allowing capital to grow. Businesses function because of the laborer doing the work. ... The reproduction of labour-power increases the amount of capitalists and wage-laborers. Accumulaton of capital is therefore a multiplication of the working class. |
| The last of these four sentences is a quote of Marx which is used in a wrong way. The “is” in this sentence, as Marx used it, means “entails”. To summarize the first three sentences, Marx would have said that the multiplication of the working class is (entails) accumulation of capital. But Marx argues in his Chapter exactly that it is the other way round. Although one should think capital depends so much on labor that the accumulation of capital depends on the growth of the working class, capital manages to overcome this dependency: capital controls the growth of the labor force and it makes sure that there is enough labor supply. This is the “general law of capitalist accumulation.” |
| Here is another point, which is not quite as subtle: |
| The laborer is dependant upon the product in the capitalist system. Becasue of this, workers place themselves in a state of easy and liberal dependance. |
| This sounds as if the capitalist system produces the goodies for the workers and keeps them dependent. Suddenly it's not only the welfare recipients, but all workers. You forget that in Marx's view the workers are producing all value. |
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