WTO and value

[George Pennefather]

The World Trade Organisation negotiations with China is clear evidence that the law of
value does not operate in an unadulterated fashion. It is evidence that there is no such
thing as free trade in any comprehensive sense. It would appear that there never has been
a
free exchange of commodities in any enduring sense. The law of value and the specific laws
of capital operate in an significantly adulterated way. The state has always played an
historically significant role in relation to the circulation of both commodities and
capital. Consequently to try to apply Capital to the contemporary world economic situation
in any pure way will simply produce conceptual abstraction. Marx's Capital cannot be used
as a naive model that can be naively used to provide a comprehensive understanding of the
capitalist economic system. Capital is a work of abstraction. This may explains how much
of Marx's political work even after he written Capital are in at least many cases free
from the form presented in Capital.

Warm regards
George Pennefather

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