Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
> *the logic of accumulation is contradictory (to
realize > surplus value capitalists have to reduce
unit values by > substituting dead labor for live
labor
I am wary of entering a discussion with you on these matters, since you are much more well-read than I am concerning these things, but isn't the above also the basis of relative surplus value? Marx still handles this as a contradiction in the Grundrisse, but by the time of volume one of Capital, it seems to have been resolved:
"The value of a commodity is, in itself, of no interest to the capitalist. What alone interests him, is the surplus-value that dwells in it, and is realisable by sale. Realisation of the surplus-value necessarily carries with it the refunding of the value that was advanced. Now, since relative surplus-value increases in direct proportion to the development of the productiveness of labour, while, on the other hand, the value of commodities diminishes in the same proportion; since one and the same process cheapens commodities, and augments the surplus-value contained in them; we have here the solution of the riddle: why does the capitalist, whose sole concern is the production of exchange-value, continually strive to depress the exchange-value of commodities?"
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch12.htm>
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