[PEN-L:27320] LTV and income disparity

["Justin Schwartz" <jkschw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > You are absolutely right in your fundamental perception that the
> > distribution of exchange value is a zero sum game.

By this do you mean that Marx thought that value is not created in
"distribution" of exchange values, i.e., in what he calls circulation? So
that if one exchanger gains value, another loses?

> >
>
> > Furthermore, there is no link between
> > capitalist productivity and the increase of "use values", ie., goods like
> > clothing, food, etc, detached from their role as commodities.

No link at all? So the general rise in living standards in the industerial
nation is due to what?

> > In fact, the
> > rise of capitalism is linked to a decrease in use values in most of Latin
> > America, Asia and Africa.

This would be a big surprise to the citizens of Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore, Thailand, increasingly China, or to those of Argentina (despite
the recent implosion), Chile, Brazil. Africa's another story.

> >
> There was no unemployment before capitalism.

Absolutely false. In England, for example, in the 14th and 15th centuries,
vagabondage--landless migrant would-be workers--was a huge social problem.
In ancient Rome, there was the proletariat--a term that meant "those whose
only function is to breed."

jks

_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com