Charles Brown wrote:
>
>
> CB: These universally developed individuals will not be totally
> economically self-sufficient, will they ? An individual won't
produce
> every use-value they use. There will be economic exchange between
> these universally developed individuals.
Charles, you are falling victim to the most serious of all errors in reading Marx: You are universalizing (or attempting to universalize) categories which in Marx APPLY ONLY TO CAPITALISM.
^^^ CB: Some of Marx's categories ( value, wage-labor, capital) only apply to capitalism, but many of Marx's categories apply to other modes of production besides capitalism. Some of Marx's categories apply to communism. Divison of labor applies to all modes of production. Divison of labor between predominantly mental and predominantly physical labor applies in all class divided societies, but not ancient of future communism.
There was a division of labor in hunting and gathering society. I'm not universalizing. I'm pointing the historic _fact_ that there is always a division of labor in human society. Division of labor is one of the defining characteristics of the human species.
Actually, what I am saying is as much based in anthropology as Marx.
There's no reason to aim to do away with a division of labor in the higher form of communism, anymore than in the lower form of communism.
Anyway, no, the division of labor category doesn't only apply in capitalism.
^^^^
They do not apply to any pre-, post-. or hypothetical non-capitalist economy. "Exchange," as Marx uses it in his crucial works, means a relationship created by and internal to capitalism.
^^^^ CB: No, that would be "exchange-value". Exchange occurs in all societies with commodities. Commodity exchange predates capitalism by many millenia. There was also gift exchange before commodity exchange ( See _ Stone Age Economics_ by Marshall Sahlins)
(((((
Your posts on this would be allowable were you glssing the OED, but not if you are talking about _Capital_.
Carrol
^^^^^ CB: I'm not just talking about _Capital_ . Also, Marx on precapitalist formastion and _ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_
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