Talk:Reproduction (economics)

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Untitled][edit]

I have started to add the notes this article, and aim to complete that in the next few months. User:Jurriaan 1 October 2011 23:45 (UTC)

"There were nine main factors which Marx largely ignored in his construction of reproduction schemes when he modelled the circulation of capital (through the constant transformations of money-capital into production-capital and commodity-capital and vice versa). These omissions have been noted by various Marxist and non-Marxist authors"

It is incorrect to state that Marx "ignored" most of the nine factors listed below this subject heading, if by this is meant that he was *unaware* of these factor as component parts of the subject matter of political economy. Even a cursory look at the whole corpus of Marx's work on political economy will show that this characterization to be false, for example in the very first line of the 1859 Preface.

It would be more accurate to state that Marx deliberately *abstracted* from most of these factors in the construction of much of the theory of capital, and not merely here with regard to the theorization of reproduction schemes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.102.199 (talk) 01:23, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know who this unsigned commentator is, but in the article I refer to "9 factors not theorized by Marx." I do not make any judgement about why he did not theorize them, I just state the fact that they are not included in his theory of economic reproduction. To accommodate the criticism, I have changed "ignored" to "disregarded", making it more neutral. However I am not really interested in puerile apologisms for Marx, but in the meaning of his substantive ideas. User:Jurriaan 20 January 2013 20:25 (UTC)

"economic reproduction"?[edit]

you cannot separate the economic from the political just like you cannot separate the political from the economic hence the term political economy. Also both cannot be considered without sociology (society) hence the close relationship between the three disciplines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.88.181 (talk) 06:07, 13 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Yes, everything is connected to everything else, and therefore inseparable from everything else. My writing is inseparable from oxygen. Why? Because I need oxygen to breathe while I am writing. My writing is also inseparable from gravity, because gravity keeps me in my seat. Naturally my writing is also inseparable from electric power, since without it my laptop on which I write does not work. In this way, it is easy to see that everything is connected to everything else. But if that is the case, how can we understand the connections between phenomena? That is the question. We are forced to separate out particular interconnections and disregard others for the time being, because otherwise there would be too much complexity to deal with. As explained in the article, Marx is primarily concerned with what is required for the enlarged reproduction of capital, and how the life of society as a whole must be reorganized and modified in order to make this possible. Certainly, politics, culture, ideology etc. play a role in that. These can be integrated into the analysis as it proceeds, but the analysis has to start off with questions such as "what is capital", "how does capital reproduce itself"", and "what is required for the reproduction of capital." This is a prerequisite for understanding the role of politics, culture, ideology etc.Cambridge Optic (talk) 09:14, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Theoretical Approach[edit]

In the "Theoretical Approach" section, one of the features of economic reproduction is described as "the reproduction, enforcement, and maintenance of social relations, in particular the relations of production that characterize the social hierarchy, and property rights[10]." The citation refers to Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 23. I read that chapter and saw no mention of any of this. I think this bullet point should be deleted unless it can be substantiated with a legitimate reference to Marx's writing.