Date: 	Sat, 22 Nov 1997 13:31:16 -0800
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: bhandari-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari)
Subject: Re: BHA: real def!



>I think I would argue similarly about "weight," which is our way of
>measuring something that's real--mass--under earth gravity, with some
>socially-accepted measurement standard.  "Weight" can vary all over the
>place, even to "zero," just by taking the mass someplace where the force of
>gravity is different; but the mass remains the same.

The value of a commodity can vary all over the place, just by dis-placing
it to where  the general level of productivity is lower than where it was
produced. The clocktime it took to produce the commodity would be the same
in both places but since it takes on average more social labor time to
produce the commodity in the less productive nation, it would have a
greater value there. Indeed, aside from the advantages of scale--reduced
unit costs and higher profitability-- enabled by a larger market,
globalisation nowadays seems to be in the interest of the advanced
capitalist countries for it enables commodities to be sold above the value
they would have otherwise had in a closed economy. Oops, is the law of
modified then in an open system?

Rakesh




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