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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