That was a great read. I’m working my way through vol 2 of Capital. In it, Marx talks about how it’s in the sphere of production only where value is created. Distribution, beyond what is technically necessary, does not add value. I think this is particularly relevant for the non-financial sector of the US economy - Apple, Nike, Gap, even Amazon and Walmart to an extent. For the most part, these firms are not creating surplus value, they are extracting surplus value from, for example, contracting factories in the global south. That strikes me as inherently unstable: all it takes for much of the surplus value in the non-financial sector to just evaporate is for imperialism to be severed.
Incidentally, this is a fantastic read on the subject https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/08/the-value-of-nothing-capital-versus-growth/
That was a great read. I’m working my way through vol 2 of Capital. In it, Marx talks about how it’s in the sphere of production only where value is created. Distribution, beyond what is technically necessary, does not add value. I think this is particularly relevant for the non-financial sector of the US economy - Apple, Nike, Gap, even Amazon and Walmart to an extent. For the most part, these firms are not creating surplus value, they are extracting surplus value from, for example, contracting factories in the global south. That strikes me as inherently unstable: all it takes for much of the surplus value in the non-financial sector to just evaporate is for imperialism to be severed.
Oh yeah, very much agree with all that. And I’ve only got through the fist volume myself so far, really gotta read the rest. 😅