George Pennefather is right

[Hinrich Kuhls <kls@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George Pennefather is right to point to a major problem in the history of
Marxist theory.

He quotes:

"The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production
prevails,
presents itself as "an immense accumulation of commodities," its unit being
a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the
analysis of a commodity."

Ok, this is well known.

The conclusion of this post reads like this:

>>>>
To say that the "wealth of those societies presents itself as an immense
accumulation of commodities" is not true. Much of the wealth is in the form
of industrial capital which is not capital in the form of the commodity.
This mistaken premise renders the validity of making the commodity a
starting point questionable on that basis.
>>>>

To put it in other words: The fixed constant capital of modern society -
first and foremost machines of all kind and factory buildings - is that
large that it outnumbers the circulating constant capital in the form of
commodities to be consumed by revenues or by capital - which coincides with
reality ("just-in-time", "lean production", "vitual warehouses").

But why does George oppose the simplest form of capital - a single
commodity - to a more complex economic form of capital and urges to start
the analysis (respectively the presentation) of the capitalist mode of
production with a complex economic form of this historically specific
social relation?

It's because of the conclusion which he draws from the first paragraph of
Capital:

>So the capitalist mode of production can prevail in more than one society.

And I bet you anything that 90 percent of all you list fellows agree with
George on this sentence in the sense that historically there was a
so-called "society of simple production of commodities" which preceded the
modern society, "the society of capitalist production of commodities", and
that the commodity is a original economic form of that society which
preceded the modern capitalist society. What do you bet - having the
backing of Lenin ....?

However it may be: In presenting his system of critique of political
economy Marx is unambiguous:

"The basis of the production of commodities can admit of production on a
large scale in the capitalistic form alone" (Capital, vol. 1, p. 585)
That's not two or many societies, that's only one society.

Hence George Pennefather is right in stating a problem, but quite in
another sense than he himself is thinking of it.

A lot of Marxists of outstanding merit would awake from their
Alice-in-Wonderland-attitude if they would seriously rethink the
implications of the theoretically wrong concept of a "society of simple
production of commodities preceding the society of capitalistic production
of commodities." It is one of most stubborn and the most commonly held
prejudice within the struggle for the reconstruction of scientific socialism.

Thanks, George, for rasing the question.

Hinrich Kuhls