Full text: Accumulation and Technology

3 
distribution, which concentrates interest on the conflicts 
in the workshop about hours, efficiency norms, discipline etc 
but the scales are turned also here against the worker 
only owing to the abundance of labour offered in the market. 
It is striking that Marx never hit on the important idea 
that monopoly in the widest sense of a barrier against 
free entry is inseparable from the conditions of 
capitalism because you need wealth in order to make use 
of the opportunities of efficient production opened up 
by new techniques since the industrial revolution. 
Free entry is denied in principle, and it is the more 
difficult the greater the capital necessary to exploit 
certain technological advantages. Restriction on free 
competition is therefore a general feature of capitalism 
capable of explaining profit and exploitation ( Joan 
Robinson spoke of the property qualification for entry 
into business ). This argument is persistently valid also 
in conditions of full employment ( pace Marx ) and 
in a stagnating economy ( Pace Schumpeter ). 
The contrast between competition and monopoly is to some 
extent linked to the choice between labour values and 
market prices. For Kalecki value is of no interest becuase 
he deals with a world of monopolies and therefore prefers 
to use market prices which are also the basis of 
statistical data available. I see no reason why the 
discussion of accumulation in chapter 23 should not 
be perfectly comprehensible in terms of market prices 
without any great danger of misunderstanding.
	        
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