Paul D. on unemployment

[ECAS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx id <01HPLJEQ0GCG8X9U7E@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Fri, 21 Apr 1995 10:58:04 +1000]

Paul Davidson writes:

I just do not understand your claim that unemployment (involuntary
or leisure?)can occur in a cowrie shell primitive economy with no
formal mechanism of legal contracts.  What distinguishes a self-
employed artisan from any other entrepreneur. Why can't the
unemployed become a self-employed artisan? Why does he have to
borrow cowrie shells to become an entrepreneur? Why can't the
unemployed merely go to the beach and become self-employed and
search for cowrie shells? And you think my theorizing is too
narrowly applied? Come on Barkley who are you kidding?
________________________

I simply fail to understand on what ground Paul D. argues that unemployment can
only exist in a monetary economy with money defined as "short & long-run medium
of NON-NEUTRAL contractual settlement". In my opinion, Marx's theory of the
'reserve army of labor' clearly does not depend on the idea of capitalism being
a monetary economy--and certainly not on the notion of money as defined by Paul
D. Is Marx completely wrong? And if so, how and why?

Cheers, ajit sinha