>Yeah, I know there's a diff between profits and SV,
>profits being realized monetary form of SV.
>
>As for the corporate abstitence stuff, I am not stuck
>on the notion, but isn't the ol' Protestant Ethic
>point about the abstitent that they get back their
>sacrifices in the form of greater wealh, the
>grasshopper and the and, etc? Corporations who invest
>in R&D, hwo's that diff?
>
>T Fast, yes I know that if you stipulate that all
>value is measured by embodied labor amd there is no
>other source of value than labor (you need both
>assumptions), then the Differential Rent examples turn
>out, definitionally, to be about the redistribution of
>SV. Howevber, and this is the point, they show that
>there is a non-labor source of profit -- e.g.,
>monopoly power.
But monopoly power is about the distribution of SV in the form of profits, not about the source.
This is important politically for trying to deal with American populists like Nader, who are only interested in state subsidies and monopoly power, and not at all in the source of profit in exploitation. They have some lovely idea of "normal" competition and "fair" profit that completely ignores the issue of uncompensated labor, and live in some idealized nineteenth century world before the fall into big business.
Doug