Rooster
15th February 2012, 15:19
Came across this:
The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers — a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity — which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of the state. This does not prevent the same economic basis — the same from the standpoint of its main conditions — due to innumerable different empirical circumstances, natural environment, racial relations, external historical influences, etc. from showing infinite variations and gradations in appearance, which can be ascertained only by analysis of the empirically given circumstances.
from http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch47.htm
I found it interesting that Marx seems to say (I'm trying my best to read this but I'm suffering from the flu) that to determine the economic mode, we have to look at how surplus value is extracted from the direct producers. I like how this makes it simple to see what production processes are capitalist; the main way that surplus value is extracted from the direct producers is through wage labour which means their detachment from the means of production, but that this way of extracting surplus value can appear different due to different circumstances. I might have gotten the wrong impression from this. What does everyone else think?
The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers — a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity — which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of the state. This does not prevent the same economic basis — the same from the standpoint of its main conditions — due to innumerable different empirical circumstances, natural environment, racial relations, external historical influences, etc. from showing infinite variations and gradations in appearance, which can be ascertained only by analysis of the empirically given circumstances.
from http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch47.htm
I found it interesting that Marx seems to say (I'm trying my best to read this but I'm suffering from the flu) that to determine the economic mode, we have to look at how surplus value is extracted from the direct producers. I like how this makes it simple to see what production processes are capitalist; the main way that surplus value is extracted from the direct producers is through wage labour which means their detachment from the means of production, but that this way of extracting surplus value can appear different due to different circumstances. I might have gotten the wrong impression from this. What does everyone else think?