Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 14:47:07 +0100 (BST)
From: D Hugh-Jones <dash2-AT-hermes.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: wealth


On Fri, 31 May 1996, Flannon wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> Now I'm not an economist, and its been awhile since I battered around the 
> idea of the ltv, but on the face of things your formulation seems 
> incorrect.  Its not that a commodities exchange value is determined by 
> labor time, rather its use value is determined by quantity of labor 
> required to produce it.  When the dominant value of a commodity becomes 
> exchange value the commodity becomes fetishized, i.e. the commodity 
> becomes alienated form its use value, that is, labor time has no 
> connection with market price.  This situation is not one which will 
> either confirm or deny the ltv, rather the ltv is a mechanism for 
> examining this situation.

I don't want to engage in one-upmanship because I don't know enough Marx 
(especially considering I have an exam on the guy in about 10 days). But 
I think he says that exchange value, not use value, is determined by 
market price. I _think_ this was prevalent economic orthodoxy at the time 
- certainly Ricardo developed the idea of the falling rate of profit.
 
> But like I say, I'm no economist.  And the reason I'm not an economist is 
> because I take Althusser a bit to seriously.  "The lonely hour of the 
> final instance will never arrive."  If such a determinant teleology will 
> not occure then why, I might ask, are we talking about economics here?  
> If you're really interested in the ltv then why not take a look at the 
> marxism archive, where there was a ritch discussion of just this topic 
> some time back.

 
> 
> Flannon
> 

Dave Hugh-Jones
A Rush and a Push and the Land is ours
dash2-AT-cam.ac.uk