Re: The market [Socialism Now}

["Greg Schofield" <g_schofield@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry Chris I should be clearer than this.

I am not saying that every kind of market is gone, classic markets exists albeit on a small scale. At one point or another profits must be realisied via exchange and that too is a market mechanism. However under classic capitalism the whole of the economy was animated by market exchanges (as per the nature of individual private capitals in intercourse).

Monopoly capital internalisied such market exchanges into internal transactions, which strengthen its control over actual exchanges taking place elsewhere. In turn this strengthened position gives such leavage over existing markets they soon cease to exist as markets - the monopolies merely determining the rate of exchange.

This has become so common that the real difficulty is seeing the market-governor determining the socially necessary labour in these exchanges - rather what we are seeing is the result of planning. The question posed by a particular rate of exchange dwell more on the plans of the major players (takeover as against out-sourcing, diversification as against core business, and risk management strategies), then the displine of market buying and selling.

In a sense some of this can be seen in the consumer market where labling and "services" almost become the commodity while the actual product seems to come a poor second.

The other more obvious attribute is the army of accountants needed to replace market operations, the immense amount of paper-work generated in order to keep track of all the elements and, of course, crisis appearing as a managerial attribute rather than direct market forces.

In this there is no turning back the clock as the neo-liberals pretend (invariably leading to an explosion in paper-work and accountants). The chaos of the market (its actual governance of production) is well and truely pushed into the background - which is the essence of my point. The chaos we now enjoy is a coporate bureacratic one.


Greg Schofield
Perth Australia



--- Message Received ---
From: Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 06:55:24 +0000
>Subject: [PEN-L:19692] The market [Socialism Now}

Greg, can you expand in what sense you mean this?

Certainly it is clear in Marx that he described an essentially social
process that appeared to be privately owned, and was treated legally as
privately owned, thereby permitting the extraction of surplus value and the
dynamics of uneven capitalist accumulation.

He is clear that commodities existed long before the capitalist mode of
production became dominant.

So in what sense has the market *now* become all but extinct? Do you just
mean that giant oligopolies have so much influence on demand and
distribution that they effectively control it?

Regards

Chris