carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (05/18/85)
JoSH writes: >I think that the major difference between our conceptions of capital >stands in the relation of the owner (capitalist) to capital. You are >right in saying that I consider a workingman's tools to be capital. >A point worth asking is, do you consider someone not to be a capitalist >if he owns the capital? Or is something not capital if it is used by >the person who owns it? I would not agree to such a definition. Capital, according to the Marxian definition, is exchange value that is exchanged for the purpose of increasing the amount of exchange value possessed by its owner. For example, a capitalist uses a quantity of money to purchase raw materials, machinery, and labor-power, and sets in motion a process that produces a commodity which he intends to sell for a profit. His immediate purpose in doing so is to make a profit, that is, to increase the amount of exchange-value in his possession. Hence the money he originally laid out is capital, and the machinery he purchased is capital in a derivative sense. But when he goes home and works in his garden for his own consumption, the tools he uses are not capital by this definition, since he is not aiming at making a profit. There is no point in disputing which is the better definition, JoSH's or mine; the important point is that the term is used in different senses and we shouldn't get them confused. The term "productive forces" in the context of historical materialism means about the same thing as "capital" in JoSH's sense. Richard Carnes