From: Steve.Keen-AT-unsw.EDU.AU Date: Thu, 21 Jul 1994 09:34:07 +1000 Subject: Re: Introductions--Steve Keen Wes writes: In rereading Marx's theory of value, what did you do with use value? I am interested in this because I am rereading the question of value through Deleuze/G. and Lacan where use value is generated as easily from the "imgaination" a from actual material. Any comments would be appreciate d. Briefly, the first thing I tried to "do with use-value" was to resurrect it as a fundamental part of Marx's logic. The conventional interpretation of Marx (that associated with Paul Sweezy, Maurice Dobb, and Ronald Meek) argued that use-value played no role in Marx's economics. I supported the arguments of Rosdolsky (_The Making of Marx's Capital_) and Groll (History of Political Economy, 1980, pp. 336-71) that this conventional view was erroneous, and that use-value was crucial to Marx's theory of value. The second thing I did was to sketch the historical development of this concept, which began in a footnote to the Grundrisse (Penguin edition, pp. 267-68). The third was to show how Marx employed the concepts of use-value and exchange-value to derive one pillar of the labor theory of value--that surplus is extracted from labor- power, despite the exchange that precedes the extraction being an exchange of equivalents. (the argument occupies several segments in pp. 154-188 of the Progress Press edition) The fourth was to argue that Marx "fudged" the other pillar of a LTV: that surplus cannot be extracted from machinery. The argument (pp. 193-199 of same) contradicts the logic developed in the section on labor-power. When properly applied, the logic gives the conclusion that machinery can also be a source of surplus-value. That's the argument, as briefly as I can manage. As for the notion of exploitation involved (Phil O'Hara's question), the proposition that all profit is derived from the exploitation of labor-power is replaced by the less didactic but still critical notion that, if labor- power is reduced to the level of a commodity (i.e., paid only a subsistence wage), then capitalists extract surplus, not just from labor-power, but from all productive inputs. The struggle to achieve better-than-subsistence wages then appears as a struggle over the apportioning of the surplus between the classes. Cheers, Steve Keen ------------------
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