Grundrisse, p. 602-635

Here is my outline of the reading

1. Critique of Malthus, on three grounds (p. 605-607).
- First, an analysis should be historical, i.e. phenomena that can seem ahistorical (overpopulation, in case of Malthus) do have a specificity given to them by a particular mode of production of which they are an element. They are “historically determined relations”.
- Second, the role of social mediations: population needs to be analyzed in its relationship to employment, not agricultural products.
- Third, theory of rent (not discussed).
He also seems to argue (as a part of the 1st argument), that human phenomena are socially determined, hence, have only immanent, inner barriers, whereas natural phenomena have a social, i.e. outer, determination (p. 607).
Q: Is it convincing?

2. Smith’s concept of “work as sacrifice” (p. 610-614).
- Smith correctly captures only a specific historical form of the relationship (that of wage labour, slavery, etc.), but not the property of labour in general. For Marx, the latter is “self-realization, objectification of the subject, hence real freedom”, although at the same time “the most damned seriousness, the most intense exertion” (p. 611).
- He also correctly captures worker’s subjective attitude to work, in this sense, it is a psychological theory.
- For Marx, Smith’s concept of labour is negative, whereas it is indeed “a positive, creative activity”. To create value, labour should be more than just a sacrifice – it requires social mediation (subject-subject relationship) and worker’s relationship to his product (subject-object relationship). Determination of value by labour time can be done only based on the second approach.

3. Role of additional demand (from J. St. Mill): it increases output by 1) realizing the value of inventories that can be reinvested; 2) creating conditions for reconversion of financial assets into productive capital, hence, raising profit mass by the difference between the profit rate and the interest rate, times the volume of capital invested; 3) expanded accumulation by means of borrowing, with the same additional profit (p. 618). Notice, expanded reproduction based on rechanneling own funds and borrowing results in the same increase of profit, i.e. Mill is aware of the cost of capital idea.
Q: Mill implicitly assumes that the return on production is higher than the interest rate, otherwise his second argument would not hold. Does it always have to be the case though?

4. Circulation (p. 624-635).
- Does not create value, hence, circulation costs – costs of realization of value – are a deduction from the created value. Hence, costs of circulation are faux frais.
- Costs of circulation arise not from division of labour and necessity of exchange in general, but from their capitalist form. They stem from a necessary change in form of capital.
- In socialism, communal consumption replaces exchange.
- Circulation is a limit of production, in that sense, “circulation time becomes a determinant moment for labour time, for the creation of value. The independence of labour time is thereby negated, and the production process is itself posited as determined by exchange” (p. 628).
- “Magnitude of the capital can be replaced by the velocity of turnover” (p. 630). An n-time increase in the volume of capital generates the same mass of profit as capital turning over n times faster during the same time period. Nevertheless, if one accounts for a possibility of reinvestment after each turnover period, the smaller capital with higher turnover rate will produce more profit.
- Q1: If circulation is socially necessary, a necessary condition for capital’s reproduction, on what grounds does Marx argue that it does not create value? Can his argument about specificity of use-value of commodity labour power be such a criterion? What is the difference between being socially necessary and value positing? Is his argument convincing?
- Q2: Marx’s criterion of value creation is not whether activity is performed in the sphere of production or exchange, but whether it affects use-value of commodity (e.g., transportation, storage, etc.). Where is the boundary between activities affecting use-value in circulation (hence, productive of value) and those not affecting it? Is there such a boundary?

A few smaller points.

1. One of the reasons making the emergence of credit necessary is a difference in reproduction time of different individual capitals (p. 603). Hodgskin mistakenly takes this condition as a prerequisite for money. But it should be credit, not money.
2. Marx seems to argue that any theory is always written from a class perspective, consciously or not (p. 605).
3. An interesting observation that a mode of suspension of some barriers is their generalization (e.g., money, credit) (p. 623).