Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 15:41:25 +1000 From: Steve.Keen-AT-unsw.EDU.AU Subject: Re: value Dear Juan, I resent any implication that I have made my case by selective quotation, especially since you have not read my lished work on this subject. If you really wish to challenge me--rather than simply rile me--then I suggest you locate the JHET papers (1993, Vol. 15, Nos.1 & 2) and also avail yourself of the electronic form of my thesis (which is stored on the csd.colorado.edu ftp server under the directory econ/Authors/Keen.Steve). Otherwise, I am willing to send you offprints if you send me your snail mail address. As for whether "torturing Marx's quotations until breaking them down to confess what the torturer wants to have them saying is a current practice among some renowned Marxist", I would have to say that it WAS a past practice, and it is the one which gave us the dominant interpretation of Marx. As a sample, here is an unabridged quote for you from the opening of _The Contribution_ "To be a use-value is evidently a necessary pre-requisite of the commodity, but it is immaterial to the use-value whether it is a commodity. Use-value as such, since it is independent of the determinate economic form, lies outside the sphere of investigation of political economy. It belongs in this sphere only when it is itself a determinate form." (p. 28.) The final sentence of the above is the one which was dropped by Hilferding, Sweezy, Meek and Dobb in their discussions of the foundations of the LTV. Yet it contains the implication that use-value is, at some stage, a "determinate form" under capitalism. This is the lead I have followed, and in it I have been preceded by Rosdolsky and Groll in particular, but also by Nicolaus, Mandel, Desai, etc. I have been scrupulous in attempting NOT to do what the Sweezy/Meek/Dobb school itself did (I have argued that Sweezy was largely the one actively responsible, while Meek and Dobb were more passive; and that Hilferding was actually misinterpreted by Sweezy, but that Hilferding's pose was easily so treated). As for your arguments concerning the origin of surplus value, you present a "proof" of the LTV which incorporates the term use-value, but which I would argue is utterly different to the method in which Marx attempted to prove the LTV. Your argument: "Surplus-value is then the historically specific social relation into which the exchange-value of a quantity of any use-value produced in the labor-time that exceeds from the abstract labor represented as the exchange-value materialized in the mass of use-values that conform the means of living of the labor-power (thus determining a certain amount of labor-power's exchange value) develops." Marx's argument (with nothing omitted): "The past labour that is embodied in the labour-power, and the living labour that it can call into action; the daily cost of maintaining it, and its daily expenditure in work, are two totally different things. The former determines the exchange value of the labour-power, the latter is its use value. The fact that half a [working] day's labour is necessary to keep the labourer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him from working a whole day. Therefore, the value of labour-power, and the value which that labour-power creates in the labour process, are two entirely different magnitudes; and this difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in view, when he was purchasing the labour-power. The useful qualities that labor-power possesses, and by virtue of which it makes yarn or boots, were nothing more to him than a conditio sine qua non; for in order to create value, labor must be expended in a useful manner. What really influenced him was the specific use-value which this commodity possesses of being a source not only of value, but of more value than it has itself. This is the special service that the capitalist expects from labour-power, and in this transaction he acts in accordance with the 'eternal laws' of the exchange of commodities. The seller of labour-power, like the seller of any other commodity, realises its exchange-value, and parts with its use-value. He cannot take the one without giving the other. The use-value of labour-power, or in other words, labour, belongs just as little to the seller, as the use-value of oil after it has been sold belongs to the dealer who has sold it. The owner of the money has paid the value of a day's labour; his, therefore, is the use of it for a day; a day's labour belongs to him. The circumstance, that on the one hand the daily sustenance of labour-power costs only half a day's labour, while on the other hand the very same labour-power can work during a whole day, that consequently the value which its use during one day creates, is double what he pays for that use, this circumstance is, without doubt, a piece of good luck for the buyer, but by no means an injury to the seller." (Capital I, p. 188) As best as I can interpret your argument--and I find your manner of expression excessively convoluted--you appear to bring in the unique characteristics of labor-power as an integral part of your proof. In the above, I argue, Marx grounds the source of surplus value in the attributes which labor-power shares with other commodities, not those which set it apart: "in this transaction he acts in accordance with the 'eternal laws' of the exchange of commodities. The seller of labour-power, like the seller of any other commodity, realises its exchange-value, and parts with its use-value." It is this logic of Marx which I have explored at great length, and which you in your posts effectively refuse to acknowledge. I would contrast this with my exchanges with Chris, where he has seriously considered whether my arguments accurately reflect how Marx devised his theory. Instead, what I get from our debate is how Juan Inigo establishes the LTV. With respect, I am no more interested in that than I am in, for example, how Steve Keen establishes the LTV (if that were my purpose). I AM interested in how Marx attempted to establish it, and I argue that his underlying logic--what I have called the use-value/exchange-value dialectic--was impeccable, but that his application of it was flawed. As for your point (a): When I said that I could find no question in your point (a), that was a statement concerning grammar, not logic. I generally find your postings very convoluted and difficult to read, with the final sentence in that paragraph being an excellent example: to the best of my knowledge, it was ungrammatical. Now that I have been told which phrase in it was the question, "which is the general regulation of present-day social metabolism process", as you've elucidated it, I could attempt an answer. I am not particularly interested in doing so, for the reason stated above. However, I will refer you to the statement of Marx's I quoted at the beginning of this post, where he says that use value "belongs in this sphere only when it is itself a determinate form." Clearly then, Marx believed that use-value did become a determinate issue in capitalism. I suggest you consider both the original references and the work of Rosdolsky, Groll and myself to see how that occurred. Steve Keen ------------------
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005