File spoon-archives/marxism-psych.archive/marxism-psych_1997/97-03-06.061, message 30


Date: 15 Jan 97 03:16:47 EST
From: Chris Burford <100423.2040-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: M-PSY: Subjective value


I was very impressed by Russell's post. Not only wearing 
Ray-Bans several years before Tom Cruise but with a sound
dialectical materialist reason for doing so!

But furthermore for the reply on subjective value which certainly
helped me take a step forward. Asssuming Russell's description of 
the subjective theory of marginal cost neo-classical economists is
correct, they are muddling up two aspects of the marxist theory of 
value which both have a subjective component, and they are doing it
in a superficial, vulgar way.

It is true that society tries various activities, and shifts in its
taste for different commodities as a result of a total of subjective
estimates of what people want as a use value. That may be 
influenced by all sorts of things including advertising. Or the 
experience say of a friend who has spent a significant amount of 
her income for two years on psychotherapy and has found it valuable
(as a use value).

But the core of the marxist theory of exchange value, is that 
it exists not as a material entity but within the interactions of 
the whole society, of course mediated by people's psychological 
interactions, and related to the total distribution of the labour
power of that society among the various commodity producing 
activities of that society. It is therefore a psycho-social 
emergent property of commodity exchange. It really exists, but 
not materially.

That should not be confused with the subjective social fashions
that shape relative shifts in the perception of the use-value of
various commodities or services.

Sorry, have not been able to digest your post yet, Ilan, will 
probably comment later.

Chris Burford
London.


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