Commercial capital and merchants capital, are also different things. He deals with commercial capital in vol 2, the difference lies in that commercial capital is subsumed under the law of value, merchants are not, this is what I meant when I said they are different things. It is ridiculous to claim they are the same

The words “subsumed” “subsumed” “subsumption” don’t appear in volume 2, but if you could provide me with chapters and page numbers I’d be happy to be proven wrong. As far as the substance of this argument, I’d advise re-reading chapter 10 of volume two and noting that he constantly refers to the merchant as possessing capital, holding capital, using capital (i.e. as a capitalist.) I could be wrong on the definition of commercial capitalist, but that isn’t a key foundation of my argument so I’ll accept that merchant-capital and commercial-capital are different for purposes of this discussion. I’m also unsure what subsumption would mean in relation to the law of value; when Marx uses the term in volume one, it’s with regards to the subsumption of labour into capitalist production.

What I meant by “merchants are not capitalist” is that as a part of feudal society, their prices do not fall under the law of value, rate of profit cannot equalize, since capital does not move between the different sectors, because they do not control production

Rate of profit isn’t equalised in the industrial capitalist production of England that Marx was examining in Capital — what makes you think the rate of profit would need to be equal for a ‘feudal society’’s merchants to be capitalists? If the rate of profit were equal, it would be impossible to generate relative surplus value; the drive of capitalist production towards increasing the share of constant capital in production to the detriment of the rate of profit would not exist; the entire tendency of the rate of profit to fall rests on there being differing rates of profit both between and within industries.

Nope, it’s not, it’s a reflection of its price of production under equalized rate of profit, which did not exist under feudal societies

See above, not sure why you think rate of profit is equal, if it were the mode of production would stop functioning.

Vol 3 actually, it is mentioned a couple of times, you should know this if you have read it. Also nowhere did I talk about how things should progress, just how they tended to in the past, the exact phrasing misses me at the moment, but it is along the lines that the expansion of commerce tended to create slave societies in ancient times, and capitalism in modern societies

I started vol3, but the incompleteness of it made me take a break that I haven’t returned from yet. Anyway, I searched vol3 and I think this is what you are talking about: “Merchant’s capital, when it holds a position of dominance, stands for a system of robbery, so that its development among the trading nations of old and modern times is always directly connected with plundering, piracy, kidnapping slaves, and colonial conquest; as in Carthage, Rome, and later among the Ventians, Portuguese, Dutch, etc.” This is more absolute than I thought it would be (which i will justify to myself with this being a rough draft written relatively early compared to the other parts of Capital), but I’d note the phrase “when it holds a position of dominance.” This isn’t a statement about the nature of merchant capital generally, it is a statement about the nature of merchant capital (all capital in my view, but the statement is specifically merchant capital) when it holds a position of dominance (i.e. not in Medieval England, etc, (although slavery very much was an institution at the time, not the dominant one tho)).

it is a prerequisite, but the dominance of merchant capital over the government, the original point I was making, does not capitalism make. All of the spanish american colonies were dominated by merchant’s capital early on, this did not make them capitalist, since they were trading stolen gold from indigenous people, and did not actually take over production

Friend, I’ve talked extensively about why you shouldn’t be using the term ‘capitalism’ in a serious theoretical discussion. I haven’t studied the history of the Colonisation of South America to respond to the specifics, but do you have any books I could read on the topic? (Not Open Veins of Latin America, I’ve already read that). If/when I get around to reading it and it shows you’re correct, I’ll try to remember to update you. The original point you were making (in the comment i was responding to) with regards to merchant capitalists was “a merchant is a different thing than a capitalist, merchants don’t produce anything for once[sic]...” You seem to be lying about what you said. This isn’t comradely behaviour, this doesn’t bring us closer to an understanding of the existing conditions— it obfuscates them. Ignorance helps nobody.

They had merchant’s capital, but you are avoiding the question, the original person claimed that once “capitalist”, even in the sense of merchants, dominated government the society became capitalist, which is ridiculous because as stated, ancient arabia was dominated by merchants, and their society looks nothing like the capitalism we know, in any shape or form

As I said, I don’t know enough about Arabia to respond to specifics. Do you have anything you’d recommend reading on the topic of ‘Ancient Arabia’ (this seems awfully vague, but i’m assuming its jargon specific to the field.)? I’m always looking to learn more. I don’t particularly care to discuss what this other person was saying; I have enough to discuss with what you’ve said. I would note though, that ‘capitalism’ 200-300 years ago looked incredibly different from ‘capitalism’ today, just as, if we define these older societies dominated by capitalist modes of circulation as ‘capitalism’ (we define the abstractions, they aren’t god-given), we would expect them to look very different, only keeping in common the laws(tendencies) of capitalist circulation/production/etc.

No, cite where " Other societies have had other laws of value" , also " there have been variations in capitalist laws of value" where it isn’t just different levels of adoption of the law of value

Vol 1 ch.19 “Apart from these contradictions, a direct exchange of money, i.e., of realized labour, with living labour would either do away with the law of value which **only begins to develop itself freely on the basis of capitalist production…” This means that, before the capitalist law of value developed on the basis of capitalist production there were other means of determining values, unless you’re assuming no values at all existed prior to the development of capitalist production (in which case capitalist production couldn’t develop, because without capitalist circulation wage labourers cannot find their means of sustenance at market and pay for them, i.e. wage labour isn’t possible (and that’s why people lose their land slowly, often even after they work for wages for the majority of their food, you still see people gathering stuff from forests, growing stuff in gardens, until they lose that too). Capitalist law of value has changed over time imo, though I could be misunderstanding what the term means. As I was using it here, by variation in laws of value I was thinking most concretely of the (slow, too slow, insufficient) increase in the value of women’s labour. I don’t care much about the definitional battle, so if that’s called something different, I don’t really care much.