On Dec 10, 2006, at 11:19 PM, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> Isn't "parasitism" the whole point of the "vulgar"
> labor theory of value, that value is exhaustively
> constituted by accumulated labor? And isn't the charge
> of parasitism the real point of value theory, not in a
> moralistic sense, although also) in an ethical one --
> that, as a matter of scientific fact, capitalists qua
> capitalists contribute nothing essential to the
> economy, and thus are parasites?And hence they have no
> claim of right to any property rights to capital or
> from income deriving from its use?
Yup, which is why I object to the moralizing tone of Patrick's (and David Harvey's) comments on finance - it starts to sound populist/ Veblenesque in opposing virtuous industry to evil finance, when the whole point of the capitalist set up is to suck value out of workers, either very directly (e.g. a NYC cab driver, who starts his day about $100 in the hole and has to work for 8 hours just to break even), or very indirectly (a portfolio manager cashing a $2m bonus check).
> And at the risk of opening a firestorm about value
> theory that I really don't want to participate in, I
> am surprised to hear you, Doug, asking rhetorical
> questions suggesting an uncritical (or even a
> critical) acceptance of the notion that it is absurd
> to suggest that profits might have an origin in
> something other than something that happens at "the
> point of production."
I don't think the attempt to put numbers on value theory makes any sense, but as an abstract model of the organization of capitalist society, it can't be beat. So yes there are profits made in finance, but they do not originate in finance. They come from interest and other payments by participants in production - workers paying off their mortgages, or shareholders collecting their dividend checks. Profit, interest, rent = the phenomenal forms that value takes in a world where there really is only money.
Doug