Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Surplus value, Marx and science
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 97 23:28:31 -0000
From: Bill Cochrane <bc1961-AT-xtra.co.nz>


Thaxians
 Hugh,James and Rob all posted regarding the monetary interpretations of the LTV ( I have an odd feeling that, unless Jerry is on holiday, he is lurking like a cloaked Romulan warbird off the bow of this particular exchange).
Hugh writes
>As for Foley, Moseley and Mohun, perhaps you could explain whether or not
>they try to get behind the facade of  money as Marx does, and how similar
>or different to Marx their approach is. The question is what do they take
>for granted? I mean, if they assume that labour is the source of value, as
>Marx does, and money is a form of expression of this value, and then they
>build on Marx's axiomatic foundations without further ado using money
>values as an aid to calculation etc, there's no great problem. But this
>isn't what you wrote, because it would be based on the "embodied labour"
>approach in the last analysis anyway, as this was Marx's fundamental
>approach, and this isn't what it sounds like.
To me this seems to indicate a certain confusion as to what the 'monetary interpretation of the LTV entails'.It is quite clear from the work of Foley, Moseley and Mohun et al that they hold the veiw that all new value is the product of human labour and that, to reiterate my Moseley quote;
>Of course, according to Marx=B9s theory, all money represents abstract 
>labortime, and so do these quantities of money capital.
In the interests of promoting clarity let me refer to Mohuns 'Productive and Unproductive Labour in the Labour theory of value' Review of Radical Political Economics Vol 28(4) 1996 in which he summerizes Foley's (It should be noted that considerable differences exist between the various proponents of monetary interpretations) position in a handy six points which I reproduce below without the accompanying discussion.
1) Aggregate labour time is the source of aggregate value added.
2) A unit of money is the way in which a society measures value when its separated from particular commodities. 
3) The stocks of value in their various forms, and the flows of value connecting them are schematically represented by the circuit of capital.
4) This point merely reiterates the productive/unproductive distinction
5) The hourly wage (w) is equivalent to the value of labour power per hour of labour hired (VLP), the equivalence being expressed by the value of money (VM)
ie w = VLP/VM (VLP = w*VM) where VM = LVA/MVA
LVA being equal to the labour value added, measured in hours of value creating labour
MVA being equal to the money value added, measured in monetary units
6) As LVA, by definition, equals V + S and MVA, again by definition, equals the sum of aggregate wages of productive labour(ELP) and aggregate profits (EAP)
Then EAP = S/VM
and 
e, the rate of surplus value, = S/V = EAP/ELP = (1 -VLP)/VLP

Please note  that some of the symbols have been changed to accommadate the vagurities of e-mail
On the above view the labour theory of value, to paraphrase Mohun, asserts that the labour time worked by productive labour is the source of all money value added, whatever the prices happen to be; that the value of money relates the wage rate per hour and the value of labour power per hour of labour hired,whatever the prices happen to be, and that aggregate profits are an exact representation of aggregate surplus value, whatever the prices happen to be.
What the LTV is not however is a theory of price, as in Ricardo's Principles (unfortunately I dont have Principles) that asserts that embodied labor ratios determine price ratios.It is in fact independent of any particular price assumptions or system of price formation.
I would suggest reading any or all of the following for far more erudite and comprehensive accounts of 'monetary interpretations' than I have offered.
 	Dumenil, G. (1983). Beyond the Transformation Riddle: A Labor Theory of Value. Science and Society, 47(4), 427-50.
	Foley, D. (1982). The Value of Money, the Value of Labor Power, and the Marxian transformation Problem. Review of Radical Political Economics, 14, 37-46.
	Foley, D. (1986). Understanding Capital:  Marx's Economic Theory.
	Foley, D. (1986). Money, Accumulation and Crisis. London, Paris New York: Harwood Academic.
	Foley, D. (1997,  April 3-6, 1997). Recent Developments in the Labor Theory of Value. Paper presented at the Fourth Mini-Conference on Value Theory / Eastern Economics Association,  Washington.
	Lipietz, A. (1982). The So-Called 'Transformation Problem' Revisited. Journal of Economic Theory, 26, 59-88.
	Moseley, F. e. (1993). Marx's Method in Capital: A Reexamination. N.J: Atlantic Highlands.
	Moseley, F. (1993). Marx's Logical Method and the Transformation Problem. In F. Moseley (Ed.), Marx's Method in 'Capital':  A Reexamination, . Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press.
	Moseley, F. (1997,  April 3-6, 1997). The =B3New Solution=B2 to the Transformation Problem:  A Sympathetic Critique. Paper presented at the Fourth Mini-Conference on Value Theory / Eastern Economics Association,  Washington.
Engelbert R Stockhammer Different Theories of Value and Different Solutions: A
Comparison of Three Solutions to the Transformation Problem from the IWGVT web site (http://www.gre.ac.uk/~fa03/iwgvt) A number of other goodies are to be found there as well.
Cheers

Bill Cochrane
Ngaruawahia
New Zealand



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