Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:33:33 +0100
From: Hugh-AT-pseud.pseud
Subject: Re: M-INTRO: value in different countries


 Jayce writes:

>How does this contradict Marx?  He uses use and exchange values to
>explain why the values are different in different countries.  The value
>is based on social values and he freely admits that.  They are ever
>changing by what society values and what their uses are for those items.
>
>Jennifer-AT-pseud.pseud wrote:
>>
>> In my opinion, even Marx, he couldn't decide the value of commodity.The
>> value was xpressed by the all social processing not by indivdual. For
>> example, A=10B in one country, but A=15B in the other country. Then we'll
>> know the different value of B against A in different countries. The reason
>> is that depend on the needs in the different country, social factors.

The social factor involved is the socially necessary labour time for
producing a commodity. This affects the exchange value. The use value will
differ (or not) between countries depending on whether people want to buy
(and are in a position t buy) the commodity in question.

Nowadays, and even to a great extent in Marx's time, it is the world market
that determines the socially necessary time, that is to say, the "social
processing" is measured internationally. If productivity is low in one
country and high  in another, the high productivity will put great pressure
on the low productivity by offering its commodities for sale much cheaper
(each individual commodity contains less socially necessary labour time,
therefore less value, therefore it's cheaper. Different values can only be
kept up between countries if demand is purely local or if there are social
and political barriers protecting locally produced goods (customs duties
etc making import prices artificially high, so people won't buy them in
preference to local goods).

The pressure being exerted by the big multinationals today (as always) for
the removal of trade barriers is  an attempt to allow them to monopolize
the market everywhere, because under capitalism free trade works to destroy
smaller, less efficient capitals and boost bigger, more efficient capitals,
centralizing and concentrating capital into monopoly companies.

Protectionism -- the resistance on the  part of national, small,
inefficient capital to this free trade drive -- is purely a question of
which capitals are to be allowed to dominate the workers and markets of
particular political regions.

The differences between value in different countries are revealed most
clearly in crises such as the present one building up in Asia and set to
overflow into the world market (it's already hitting Brazil and Russia, for
instance).

When Jennifer says that even Marx couldn't decide the value of a commodity,
the question is whether he was interested in determining the value of a
single commodity. The greatest impact of value theory is in the field of
competition, the compulsion to invest in newer and more efficient
technology, the impossibility of planning production to avoid crises such
as the current Asian crisis and the impossibility of understanding how the
economy works without understanding the operations of value in relation to
crises etc (the economic mandarins gathered in their annual
self-congratulatory farce at Davos admitted that they have no idea why the
crisis broke out -- only last year they were saying the Asian miracle could
go on for many more years).

Marx used economic theory to understand the workings of society and its
development as a whole. Bourgeois economists try to use economics as a
cookbook for enhancing the profits of an individual firm (and as voodoo
incantations to embellish government measures benefiting one group or other
of capitalists). So if you're after a quick buck for yourself you'd be
better off ignoring Marx -- the risk is that if you try to use him to help
you make your buck (which is quite possible) he might make you change your
ideas about what you're doing in the first place.

Cheers,

Hugh




     --- from list marxism-intro-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---