OPE-L message, Re: [OPE-L] interpretations of capital and Marx

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What I was suggesting was very simple: capital, as you say,

includes both c and v. If capital is defined in such a way that

it is money that makes more money then it is equivalent to saying

that c is not capital.

It is not so. It means that the portion of money which represents 'c' does not make more money but remains the same even after the end of production process.

If you say instead that capital is the

productive investment of surplus value (as distinct from the

unproductive consumption of surplus value), then capital includes

both c and v.

You are talking of the productive investment of surplus value. But the question is about the stage that precedes production of surplus value. In other words, we are talking of the very first stage when certain amount of money is invested in two ways: one portion on means of production etc and another portion on the wages of the workers. Only at a later stage, the production of surplus value takes place.

Once surplus value is produced, then the question of productive investment of that surplus value arises. In fact, if we take simple reproduction in its pure form, the question of productive investment of 'surplus value' does not arise. Whatever surplus value is produced will be consumed wholly by the capitalist in simple reproduction.

It follows, therefore, that capital includes both 'c' and 'v' even before the production process starts or even before the productive investment of surplus value takes place.

[I am not sure whether I was able to communicate Ranganayakamma's observations as clearly as she told me. The problem is with my south Indian variety of Asian English. Afterall, there is not one English but many Englishes, as some of our Sociolinguists argue.]

Bapuji