File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/marxism.Jul12-Aug17.94, message 152


Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 11:46:12 +1000
From: Steve.Keen-AT-unsw.EDU.AU
Subject: Re: reduction of skilled labor


Harvey (RRPE, Vol. 17 No. 1/2, pp. 83-102) made the case that the
conventional Marxian treatment of the reduction of skilled labor
to unskilled paralleled Marx's treatment of capital: that skilled 
labor merely preserves value, but does not add to it: "It would be 
more correct to say that it attributes a value-preserving capacity 
to skilled labor such as the means of production possess" 
(p. 87). 

Harvey attributed this approach to Hilferding, but in fact--as I
show in JHET Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 293-97--Hilferding in fact
explained that skilled labor could be a source of new value,
using the dialectic between use-value and exchange-value. The
far less sophisticated value-preserving case was in fact
promulgated by Sweezy (_The Theory of Capitalist Development,
1942, p. 43) and Meek (_Studies in the Labor Theory of Value,
2nd edition, 1973, p. 172).

I have not read Jim's paper; I will correct that oversight
shortly.

A quick comment on Chris and Paul's exchange. Meek (1973)
gives a very good presentation of the centuries-long
dispute over whether value should be subjective (the
neoclassical and Austrian positions--though the latter,
as Chris makes clear, is far richer than the former)
or objective (Marx's position). One essential element
of Marx's interpretation (inherited largely from the
Canonist tradition) is that unique works *cannot* be
valued in this sense: i.e., the creative works of
a [Ford/Einstein/Lennon] cannot be ranked against the
output of an assembly line; they are qualitatively
different. They instead enter in as part of the
(essential) dynamic of the system, changing the relations
of production and culture, and in the process, earning
for their producers a slice of the economic action that
simply can't be understood in a general price system,
be it subjectively based, or objectively.

Cheers,
Steve Keen


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