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[i don't know if the following actually appeared on the list, if it did apologies for duplicating. i have been unusually incompetent with my emails of late. i will also forward the reply from hugo radice] hello hugo, a belated reply: Hugo Radice wrote: > In response to Angela: > > Marx's analysis of the joint-stock company outlines one way in which > this contradiction develops under capitalism, i.e. that the 'strictly > private' form of share ownership conceals a collective reality of > corporate ownership. The more recent development of institutional > shareholding by pension funds etc. takes this a step further, > especially since so many us have, willy-nilly, become 'capitalists' > at several removes because part of our pension contributions are > invested in shares. But as Hilferding argued in "Finance Capital", > what the JSC is really about is big capitalists swallowing up small > ones, who become passive 'savers', and who are ripped off by the > active founders and by big shareholders who have the insider > knowledge required to grab a disproportionate share of the total > realised surplus. i agree, the increasing use of - and expansion of other version of - savings does not make us all capitalists. but i wasn't actually thinking of this when i queried whether or not ownership constitutes the specificity of capitalism. maybe i wasn't putting this clealry enough. > In addition, the joint-stock company, despite its > really collective character, has the apparent form of a legal > individual, able to own property, sign contracts, etc., just like a > 'real individual'. yes, indeed, just like a real individual. but the legal character of ownership does not determine the actual content of that ownership - this may be filled by individuals, families, boards, job hire agencies, and - perhaps this is the point of contention - the state or its agencies. > So long as the dynamic of accumulation is worked > out through the process of competition, however, Marx's central > contradiction remains unchanged. first: there is nothing to suggest that state ownership does not take place within and through processes of competition - as the not-so-new enterpreneurialism of various states testifies - nor that the existence of monopolies entails the absence of capitalism and the working through of its central contradictions. perhaps we read those central contradictions differently: i do not think the contradiction between privatised and socialsied ownership is the decisive feature of capitalism; rather, i think that maybe the central contradiction is that between 'necessary' and surplus value - this continues despite the substantive content of ownership. this is not to suggest that there may not be profound implications that flow from the difference between such 'contents' - which is why i raised the passages in capital v3 as relevant to the issues at hand: marx's comment on the abolition of capitalsim within capitalism.... regards, angela %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%