david ricardo, on the principles of political economy and taxation

(xxxv-xxxvi): key--Ricardo correcting Smith's 'original error respecting value'. for Ricardo, the value of a thing was regulated by the quantity of labour required for its production -- not by the remuneration of that labour (this was Smith's 'adding up' wages, profits and rent, and saying all enter as component parts). Smith, Ricardo argued, limited his theory to the 'early and rude state of society', before capital had accumulated and private property appeared. This was wrong.

(11): definition--value of a commodity depends on the relative quantity of labour that is necessary for its production (not, as Smith argued, on the greater or less compensation paid for its labour).

(11): all he's adding, about use-value, is that use-value is a prerequisite for something to have an exchange-value.

(12): commodities derive their exchange value from two sources:

1. scarcity (some commodities get their value from scarcity alone: rare statues, scarce books, wines, etc. -- their value is independent of the quantity of labour required to produce them; nonetheless this is a very small part of the mass of commodities daily exchanged in the market)
   
2. quantity of labour required to obtain them
   

(14): Smith's confusion--his first standard (which Ricardo shares) is invariable; but the second (what it will fetch) varies with fluctuations in the exchange-value of the commodities to which it's being compared.

(22): constant capital--not only the labour being applied immediately affects commodities value, but also labour in the form of implements/tools/buildings (like Smith, understands it as 'past labour')

(24, 27): for relative prices, Ricardo is arguing, it doesn't matter whether profits are high or low, or whether wages are high or low, since this operates equally on both employments [this, of course, is modified when we consider the impact of K-L ratios]

(30): introducing the question of machinery and other fixed capital -- now introducing different K-L ratios, which becomes another cause for variations in relative prices.

(31): fixed/circulating distinction, for Ricardo, is all about durability

(32-35): key--a rise in wages (i.e., declining profit rates) will affect two employments with different K-L ratios differently. the relative value of those employments with lower K-L ratios will rise (so, in the example here, corn vs. cloth/cotton goods). in other words, commodities produced by very valuable machinery would fall in relative value, whereas commodities chiefly produced by labour would rise in relative value.

(36): this effect, though, is comparatively 'slight'

(38): what follows from the above, of course, is the recognition that durability and rapidity with which fixed capital is worked up matters also--the closer something gets to being circulating capital, the more its price will rise relative to commodities produced in manufactures involving fixed capital.

(43-44): an invariant measure of value -- closest thing to this is relative labor costs, but this, of course, is subject to variations on account of different proportions of K-L ratio (and the impact of rising/falling prices, then)

(46): so, unlike Smith, a rise in the price of labour is not uniformly supposed to lead to a rise in prices. relative prices will depend on K-L ratios

(48): rise/fall in the price of money should not be treated as affecting the value of other commodities; should be understood as a rise/fall in the value of money

(49): similarly, we should not judge the share going to rent/profit/wages in money, since money is variable--we should have some sense of the real quantities going to each.

(67): rent as that portion which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil [Smith, Ricardo will add, despite having this kind of a definition, will often confound rent with profit (example of the forests in Norway; Smith thinks rent is involved, whereas it is clearly profit)--pg 68]

(69): if there is bountiful land, there will be no rent (this is why there is rent on land, and not air/water, etc.)

(70): key--differential fertility begets rent (it is when land of inferior quality is called into cultivation)

(71): rent is the difference between the produce obtained by the employment of two equal quantities of capital and labour

(74) : imp--a progressive rise in prices is the effect of the fact that more labour is employed in the production of the last portion obtained (not because a rent is paid to the landlord). the value of corn is regulated by the quantity of labour bestowed on its production. 'corn is not high because a rent is paid, but a rent is paid because corn is high'

(75): Ricardo solely sees natural factors

(77): imp--the rise of rent is the effect of the increasing wealth of the country (i.e., via increassing pressures on the land); a symptom but never a cause of wealth.

(79): Ricardo does acknowledge that productivity gains can offset the rise in rents (because less fertile land can be called back from cultivation. but this takes two forms: (1) increase in prod. of land, and increase in (2) prod. of labour. the former allows us to cultivate less land; the latter matters, but only if it narrows the difference between the least and most productive. [confusing, though, because wouldn't absolute gains in the productivity of labour go some way towards calling back land from cultivation, thus decreasing rent in this way, too?]

(83): the landlord gets a double benefit: (1) a greater share, due to increasing differentials between lands in cultivation; (2) commodity he's getting is of greater value.

(88, 91): the equalization of profit rates (i.e., competition) is critical in ensuring balance\

(93): natural price of labour is the subsistence price (needed to perpetuate their race without increase or diminuation

(93): with the progress of society ,there is a tendency for the natural price of labour to rise, because the principal commodities by which its natural price is regulated has a tendency to become more expensive

(94): when mkt price is above nat price, workers are flourishing; when market price is below natural price, condition of labourers is wretched.

(95): capital can increase in quantity when:

1. value of capital is rising (because of additional quanity required to produce food/clothing), so wages will rise, but the condition will not be improved dramatically because of greater costs
2. value of capital is stagnant, so wages will rise, and condition of the labourer will be greatly improved.
   

(96): imp--in other words, the permancence of the rise of wages will depend on whether the natural price of labour has also risen.

(97): natural price also depends on habits and customs (a 'moral' component)

(97): rise/fall of wages have two causes:

1. supply/deman of labour
2. natural price of labour (price of the commodities on which the wages of labour are expended)

(98-99): enter Malthus -- power of production will soon be superseded by the power of population, which means that the tendency to an increase of capital diminishes (only remedies are reduction of people, or a more rapid accumulation of capital--the latter is difficult in rich countries, where fertile land is already cultivated)

(101): thus, natural advance of society displays tendency for wages to fall -- for the supply of labourers will continue to increase, while demand will increase at a slower rate.

(102, 112): important--the advance of society will also tend to raise wages, of course, because the costs of reproduction are higher as productivity in wage goods declines due to pressures on the land. this is true of rent too, Ricardo's noting. but rent and wages are also different. landlords will be gaining real advantages, because it is not just money rent that is increasing--they're also getting more stuff. wherease workers are getting higher money wages, but not more stuff (nominal rise)

(106): against the poor laws, of course

(107): but in favor of population control

(111): discussion of why a capitalist farmer's profits would be affected by the gradual rise in the value of raw produce--the explanation is that the possible gains in his profits (because of a higher price, despite higher wages) would be captured by an increasing rent burden. this, of course, is the result of the equalization of profit rates: farmers on lands of lower fertility are paying the high wages that have resulted from bringing new land into cultivation. the farmers can't make more profit than this new competitor, of course. [sharpen with the shaikh email]

(114): the real value of the farmer's share is stagnant -- and then, of course, he has to pay an increasing sum to his labourers. this is the crux of the falling rate of profit argument in Ricardo -- a secular rise in the price of raw produce.

(124): this doesn't mean that the total social product is decreasing--in fact it is increaseing even if profits are declining.

(126): the laws of nature are the ultimate arbiter, insofar as the argument hinges, in the last instance, on the limits to the productive powers of the land.

(289-290, 296): imp--responding to Adam Smith's argument re: the falling rate of profit, Ricardo is clear that the mechanism is actually the rising price of raw produce due to pressures on the land. Smith has an argument rooted in increasing competition, etc., but Ricardo uses Say's law to dispute this.

(388): machinery can actually be injurious to the interests of w-class (not for capitalists, not for landlords. seems like the argument depends on the degree of productivity that comes from implementation of machinery--Ricardo's concern is that the 'boost' might not be enough to compensate for the diversion of capital into machine-production/constant capital [I think this is the argument]

(400): rent is a creation of value, not wealth (as in, when it gets more difficult to produce raw produce, you have an increase in the value of raw produce, but not an increase in actual wealth)

(404): against Malthus, who thinks rent rises and falls with absolute fertility; Ricardo has an argument about relative fertility

(418): Corn Laws debate with Malthus

notes on capital
chapter 25: the general law of capitalist accumulation

(763-764): a passage critically important to the question of marx's position on absolute immiseration. ceteris paribus, marx is suggesting that periods of buyoant capitalist growth will lead to increased wages, precisely because growth in capitalist demand for labor-power will outstrip the natural growth of its supply. KEY, again, to note that this explains the narrative of the apologists, without becoming it. for first, this eventuality is highly contingent, and can be combated by variegated tactics on the part of capital (in particular, agitating for artificial growth in labor supply through immigration). secondly, it is periodic--in other words, prone to the contradictions of capitalism, more generally. (note, it may make less sense to separate these two points theoretically, than it does in terms of the presentation. that question, perhaps, depends on how one wants to understand the relation of systemic ebbs and flows to class agency). perhaps most importantly, marx is also calling attention to the contradictions immanent in expansive capitalism--namely, that it cements more widely labor's "enslavement to capital... accumulation of capital is therefore multiplication of the proletariat" as oppressed soul.

(766): in passing, it needs to be made explicit that this discussion for the need of an ever-larger permanent "underclass" is a direct response to malthus' "principle of population." (see FN 6)

(769): on the golden chain in the golden age: "a rise in the price of labor, as a consequence of the accumulation of capital, only means in fact that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-laborer has already forged for himself [sic] is loosened somewhat."

(769): in essence, marx is demanding that we orient our analysis around "the absolute law" of capitalist production: the production of surplus-value. in this sense, the imperfections of the apologists' narrative can themselves be systematized and made coherent. the abiding question, of course, is how we retain this analysis in the face of the alleged success of Capital in the golden age. in other words, that question, again, of whether capitalism has proved more resilient than marx imagined. though i think 1968 often puts paid to those questions, no?

(770): constructing the rate of accumulation as always the independent variable--in this sense, while exploding malthus' principle, marx is, more generally, endeavoring to demonstrate the contingency of all dynamics putatively "natural."

(771): lambasting the currency school, but revealing, in the process, the contingency of his own analysis. for it is certain that monetary phenomenon have become more central to the dynamics of 21st century capitalism--how do we integrate that fact into his argument here? and still, i am tempted to suggest that his scorn here can show the way toward more holistic analyses of the monetary world.

(771-772): the critical passage: roughly, marx is suggesting that the process of capital accumulation, and the process of the growth of the working-class, cannot be theorized independently. rather, the latter follows the ebbs and flows of the former. in the sense that, if capital accumulation proceeds swimmingly, capital requires (by demanding) more laborers at factories (more hands needed to utilize additional capacity, to valorize the additional capital). if, however, profits are low and accumulation is stop-start or stagnant, capitalism corrects itself--a comparatively smaller amount of "paid" labor is needed as a consequence of the slow-down, and wages fall (because labor supply now exceeds demand). [reminder: this is all a "special case", in that marx has not introduced the notion of the decline in the composition of capital]

(772): "just as man is governed, in religion, by the products of his own brain, so, in capitalist production, he is governed by the products of his own hand."

(773): this commitment to complicate the relationship between the extent of the means of production and the increasing productivity of labor--this assertion that the decreasing organic composition of capital is both the cause of as well as the consequence of the increasing productivity of labor--affirms harvey's attempts to foreground marx' refusal to theorize these dynamics in strictly causal terms. the dynamism of a dialectical framework, if invigorated by history and science, refutes the tired positivism of the liberals.

(776): the endlessness, the limitlessness: "every accumulation becomes the means of new accumulation."

(776-777): here, an exposition of the contingent relationship between the proccesses of accumulation and concentration. concentration, marx is arguing, is not a necessary result of the process of accumulation; rather, it can be interrupted and repelled by the intervention of alternative dynamics. though he admits the tendency to concentration (in the sense that these increases in individual capitals are the very bases of the corresponding capitalist enterprises), they meet with limits. here he names two: (1) "the degree of increase of [presumambly others'] social wealth," which i interpret to refer to the competition of other capitalists as well as, perhaps, the increasing demands made by a progressively better-fed, clamoring under-class. and (2) "the part of the social capital domiciled in each particular sphere of production"--in other words, the impact of laws of inheritance and intra-familial competition on individual capitals. none of this, it must be said, contradicts the general readiness to associate accumulation with concentration (see the succeeding paragraph), but, again, it opens up the general theoretical framework to challenges by specific histories (and, in a sense, immunizes it from the entrepreneurial sorts who, while seizing on these various opportunities (or 'moments), inveigh against the "awful universalisms" of marx' analysis). NB: it would be important, i think, to assess all this with more recent theories of monopoly capitalism in mind.

(777): in fact, here marx seems to suggest an alternative term, centralization, in order to refer to the "transformation of many small into few large capitals." while i have always understood this as concentration, this passage defines concentration, instead, as something akin to the consolidation of capitalist relations--i.e., the concentration of the means of production, which begin as scattered in a medley of capitalist and pre-capitalist relations of production (the intermediate forms, let's say), in the hands of individual capitalists. centralization refers to "the next stage", in a very definite sense, where "capital grows to a huge mass in a single hand in one place, because it has been lost by many in another place." needless to say, this triplet of accumulation, concentration, and centralization is critical (but also confusing, given the tendency to use the second to signify the third). (see 779, where engels clarifies the definitions: centralization as concentration in fewer hands, concentration as "another name for reproduction on an extended scale")

(777): barriers to entry, economies of scale--it's all here.

(778-779): further discussion of the triplet. important to complicate my primitive observations above.

(780): centralization as pooling of capitals, not simply cannibalization: "the world would still be without railways if it had had to wait until accumulation had got a few individual capitals far enough to be adequate for the construction of a railway"

(781-782): the dynamics underlying the creation of a "relatively redundant working population"--have to better understand what is necessary and what is contingent in this process. but it is all here, of course.

(782-783): marx here highlights how the pejorative consequences of capitalism's dynamism--the "violent fluctuations"--conspire to produce, "temporarily", a surplus population. importantly, though each of these moments is individually fleeting, their systemic origins means that the assemblage of redundancies they represent is emphatically permanent. it is in the failure to substantively theorize the latter fact, i think, that lies the rub.

(783): the tragedy of simple reproduction: "the working population therefore produces both the accumulation of capital and the means by which it is itself made relatively superfluous; and it does this to an extent which is always increasing"

(784): repudiating, again, malthusian attempts to pinpoint a 'natural' law of population increase. this is, of course, monumentally obvious--one cannot understand the relationship of man to nature (or, rather, humans to their reproduction) without history. but critical to re-assert against the population planners.

(784): the latent question, i suppose, remains: how does one understand the fact of this necessity of an industrial reserve army while also appreciating the fervent honesty of these ideologues fixated on population control? as always, i suspect this is not really a question for the economists, but rather a topic to be tackled by the theorists of conscoiusness. why do well-meaning people hold--really hold--patently mistaken beliefs?

(785-786): here marx mentions the relationship between the formation of this reserve army and the industrial cycle, but not in much detail. there is some confusion, i think, over what he identifies as the independent variable--though perhaps we're moving past causal-talk, in general? (there is much to close-read here, i think--especially in conjunction with volume III)

(786): clearly, these pages lay the groundwork for theorizing emigration in capitalism: while a source of bolstering this reserve army, of course, it interacts in complicated ways with the sanctitiy of identities which sustain capitalist hegemony by feeding forms of false-consciousness. indeed, in the latter dynamic, contradictory forces are at play: on the one hand, the immigration of non-nationals threatens the stability of that national identity (through diffusion, assimilation, cross-national solidarity)--this may be a boon for workers, in a long-term sense, but in the short-term it surely appears as any number of individual injustices ("they're stealing our jobs!"). in this way, it helps divide and rule. on the other hand, the restriction of immigration, marx is pointing out, threatens the very fabric of capitalist production--the existence of a reserve army is foundational to the healthy functioning of the system. this bewildering skein of competing considerations (along with whatever i have ommitted), of course, implies a masterful agency, the likes of which it would impossible to track, i suspect (this, in a sense, is the abiding impression of this section--there is an overriding logic to the system's operation which is at once rational and efficient yet also decidedly destructive and violent (NB: even the former is not at all the neoclassical narrative)).

(788): under capitalism's watch, the 'natural' limits to population growth are malleable, moulded to its aims.

(789-790): overwork and enforced idleness as twin symptoms of the same systemic patterns.

(791-792): an explicit critique of bourgeois analysis, arguing that the ideologues extrapolate from a local rise in wages to claim the infallibility of capitalist production, whereas the pattern really needs to be theorized and understood in the context of its place in the overall assemblage (i.e., its definitively local origins and ramifications--which sphere of production, etc.). in other words, "local oscillations" are mistaken for universal, timeless trends.

(793-794): there are here some interesting (though fragmentary) observations on the process of working-class 'awakening'--not chronologically, exactly, but more systemically. marx speaks also of the role that the iron, objective laws of capital play in stifling this tendency to subjective organization. and where these alliances can't be stifled objectively (and this industrial reserve army formed naturally), he alludes, Capital calls summons the Iron Fist ("forcible means"). (see also 808)

(796): Marx deploys these concepts in order to theorize the migration of masses from rural to urban areas, as "capitalist agriculture takes possession of agriculture." Needless to say, this is immensely relevant to the present plight of the Third World--in fact, the whole dialectics of technology (as presented in this and earlier chapters) presage the approach most suited to tackling the corporatization of rural areas today. We simply must be directly concerned with labor absorption.

(797): "along with the surplus population, pauperism forms a condition of capitalist production, and of the capitalist development of wealth"--it is important to note here that Marx's theory of modern poverty (pauperism under capitalism) is inextricably linked to this fact of the necessity of a relative surplus population. Can our classless neoclassicals even compete?!

(798): a summary of "the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation"

(798): underlying all this is the uneasy question of what an "actually-existing" socialist society might do with the question of population.

(799): an explicit normative appraisal of the situation of the worker in capitalist society: "it follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse." the objections to this claim seem obvious. yet, in marx's defense, one has to (a) situate this in the context of the importance of dialectics to his general argument, and (b) clarify that he is here employing a much more holistic normative measures than GDP/capita allows. Yet perhaps it is important to complicate his observation, not simply empirically but also theoretically?

(799, FN 23): this prefigures the implications of development-of-underdevelopment analyses, insofar as Marx is here emphasizing the 'modernity' of misery and poverty--it is not that these are symptoms of backwardness waiting to be swept away, but rather that they are emphatically 'modern' phenomenon which are indelible features of a modern capitalist economy.

(800): some words from an apologist, who celebrates the parasitism of his ilk: "'it seems to be a law of Nature that the poor should be to a certain degree improvident... that there may always be some to fulfil the most servile, the most sordid, and the most ignoble offices in the community. The stock of human happiness is thereby much increased, whilst the more delicate are not only relieved from drudgery... but are left at liberty without interruption to pursue those callings which are suited to their various dispositions" (Rev. J. Townsend, A Dissertation on the Poor Laws. By a Well-Wisher of Mankind).

(812): prefiguring, in fragmentary form, the relationship between capital accumulation and space--between development and slum-dwelling. the "developing" city has no place for its poor. (in the pages that follow, he explores this in depth--needless to say, on the "planet of slums," the underlying theoretical framework and consequent empirical investigation are both immensely relevant.)

(815): this continues, as Marx substantiates again the claim that the liberal doctrine of equal rights masks the deep asymmetries at the heart of capitalist society: while the rich displaced by railways and industry receive comfort and compensation, the poor working-classes are indicted for crowding in alternate locations as a result!

(822): lest anyone need be reminded, Marx is under no illusions that the industrial working-class is uniform; here he speaks explicitly of an "aristocracy" of the working-class. though this isn't exactly the michael albert objection, this observation suffices, i think, to show that albert battles a straw-man.

(827): whole working families live worse than sailors, soldiers, and even prisoners (this is Belgium, where the State has not yet interfered with the freedom of Capital).

(833): important section for exploring Marx and the agrarian question--other than the fact that he explicitly complicates the narrative of linear progress (not just by highlighting its non-linearity but also by demonstrating its space-less-ness), he here very directly excoriates the effects of 'labor-saving' technologies on the agricultural populations of 18th and 19th century England. (see particularly 848-849, where all this is tied directly to the concept of the relative surplus population--"there are always too many agricultural labourers for the ordinary needs of cultivation, and too few for exceptional and temporary requirements")

(840): reminder that the study of migration is not as simple as the study of the exodus from country to city, but also must theorize the changes occuring within rural areas (be it intra-rural migration or reconfiguration of rural areas)--again, this only re-emphasizes, against the lie of the modernists, the fact that everything is "modern" (backwardness, rurality, etc.).

(861-862): all this is applied specifically to Ireland and the mass emigrations of the mid-19th century--Marx is tracking the growth of the relative surplus population, and the consequences of this process for the average Irish laborer (much of this is the story of the transition, in Ireland, from arable to pasture land--to a less labor-intensive method of production. as Marx puts it, "the revolution in agriculture has kept pace with emigration").

(866): the comparative argument here (between the distinct roles of the surplus agricultural populations in industrial England and agricultural Ireland) begets a further comparison, for the contemporary third world. in Ireland, Marx argues, though the relative surplus population accumulates in the towns, it is constantly needed in the fields (at harvest time or boom time). crudely put, the story of the contemporary third world is not too distinct, with one exception--the agricultural revolution having proceeded farther (the corporatization of farming, etc.) in this day and age, we see instead a burgeoning informal sector (and mass under and un-employment). the similarities are striking, of course: as in 19th century ireland, the relative surplus population in towns across the third world plays a dual role, depresing urban wages while also filling shortages at harvest time (having said that, one needs to think about where, specifically, this labor comes from at harvest time--this can further complicate the schema, requiring a distinct appraisal of emigration to larger and smaller cities). in sum, i suppose, one again needs--as Marx has demonstrated throughout this chapter--a concrete assessment of hard data pertaining to a particular place and time.