Title: ‘OWNERSHIP IN CAPITAL’ IN MARXIAN ECONOMICS
Abstract: In the domain of economic theory, what does it really mean to take up 'private property' as a question? In the economic theory of Marx's who considered his task to 'lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society', what significance was to be found in the recognition of the ownership in capital? I would like to ask this question once again. This paper, after explaining such points of interest in Section I, characterizes Marx's way of grasping the capital, in Section II, in comparison with that of the Classical school represented by Adam Smith. Smith's way of grasping the capital more than anything else as the stock useful in carrying out the production process, even though not denying the fact that capital is owned by private persons, essentially arrived at what may be called an 'ownership veil' view which asserts that the private nature of the capital does not affect economy. However, in Marx's view of capital that focusses attention on the point that the processes of production and distribution are controlled by the circulatory movement of the money capitals which aim at profit -making, such an optimism as mentioned above cannot arise. Even when the capital is performing its functions in the production and distribution processes, the capital, if looked upon as 'property', is being evaluated in terms of monetary value and, actually reverts constantly to money form. Such a duality shows the channel through which the interest of capital owners gets into the capital movement. However, the image of a 'capitalist' which is described in Vol. I of The Capital as an incarnation of accumulation is an extremely simple one and disregards the fact that the question of 'the transformation of money into capital' is constantly being reproduced (Section III). In order to remedy this defect, it is necessary to focus on the interest and actions of the 'money hoarders' and take into view the 'financial circulation' that develops there (Section IV). The 'dream of the hoarders' to make profits while maintaining their property in a safe form will be brought into reality in the process of the actual dualization of the capital that is born out of the rotation movement of the capital (separation of the capital of circulation from the money capital) and the ideal dualization of the capital ownership that goes on in parallel with the actual dualization. In order to discuss the modus operandi of the capitalist economy, it will be necessary to grasp the development of the ownership in capital as mentioned above. (Section V) * Associate Professor, Faculty of Economics, Kyoto University. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.45 on Wed, 05 Oct 2016 05:20:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 'OWNERSHIP IN CAPITAL' IN MARXIAN ECONOMICS 51
Publication Year: 1986
Publication Date: 1986-09-30
Language: en
Type: article
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