Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 22:48:20 -0500 (EST)
From: Siddharth Chatterjee <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Cc: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Metaphysics of Value




On Tue, 26 Mar 1996, Rahul Mahajan wrote:

> I generally don't like to talk about metaphysical quantities like value,
> Rahul
> 

This is exactly the same argument made earlier by Joan Robinson of the
Cambridge school according to whom the concept of "value" falls in the
realm of metaphysics. This was taken further by Ian Steedman in his
book who gives an example of how prices can be calculated directly
without going through the "value" route. The disciples of this school
of thought then advocate to junk the labor theory of value in order to
place things on more "scientific" footing.

However, according to the Old Man (borrowing the terminology of Mr.
Doug Henwood), the essence of science is to penetrate the appearance
of things or the surface superficialities. So if "value" is metaphysical,
what about the "price of production"? Should not that be considered as
a metaphysical quantity since what one can actually see are market prices?
Also what are "market prices", after all they are just numbers, so where
do they come from? They are not like the force of gravity or a
sea breeze that can be physically measured and also experienced. Hence,
what is the true origin of "market" prices?

To cite some examples from engineering, rocket scienists do all kinds
of calculations of trajectories using the Newtonian Laws of motion. One
does not have to know the reason or the source of the gravitational
force to do this. Simlarly, in the field of heat transfer, heat balances
say of a room or a chemical reactor can be routinely done. However, just
because one can do these calculations, does it mean that one understands
the nature of gravity or heat energy?

Finally, in the testing of hydraulic systems, say a pipe network, usually
a slightly higher fluid pressure than the design pressure (for which the
pipe network was designed) is used to test for leaks. These leaks, if they
exist, indicate the fault or failure lines of the system. Similarly, what
has been going on in this forum over the past several days has been a
massive expose of the intellectuals.





     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---