From: Fred B. Moseley (fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 03 2002 - 21:47:09 EST
This is a couple of brief replies to Nicky's (8058) which unfortunately I deleted by mistake. (Hi, Nicky) Nicky said: "... all that matters (to the production of surplus-value) is that the wage-bill ... does not exhaust value added. Magnitude is therefore not terribly interesting." My reply: Nicky, how could one explain why "the wage bill does not exhaust value added" unless one has a quantitative theory of value added? Value added and the wage bill are both quantities, and the difference between them - surplus-value - is also a quantity. Therefore, the explanation of why value added is greater than the wage-bill requires a quantitative theory of value added. I argue that Marx took the wage-bill (i.e. variable capital) as given, and then assumed that the quantity of value added (VA) produced is determined by the product of the quantity of socially necessary labor-time (L) and money-value produced per hour (m); i.e. VA = m L >From this basic assumption, the quantity of surplus-value is explained, as follows: S = VA - V V is variable capital = mL - V = m (L - Ln) where Ln = V / m This theory explains why value added is greater than variable capital - because in only takes workers a part of the working day to produce value-added equal to variable capital. But without the assumption that VA = mL, there would be no explanation. Nicky, how else could one explain why "the wage bill does not exhaust value added;" (i.e. why value added is greater than the wage-bill) except by providing an quantitative theory of value added? Nicky also said: Marx, imho, makes the mistake of developing form and content together and in the process gets stuck in a Ricardian muddle. My reply: I argue that Marx did not muddle form and content together. Rather, Marx clearly derived the form of value - money - as the necessary form of appearance of the content (or substance) of value - abstract labor. This is clear from the overall logic of Chapter 1 - abstract labor is derived in Section 1 as the substance of value and then money is derived in Section 3 as the necessary form of appearance of abstract labor. It is also clear from the following key methodological remarks in Section 1 of Chapter 1: "Let us now look at the residue of the products of labor. There is nothing left of them in each case but the same phantom-like objectivity; they are merely congealed quantities of homogeneous human labor ... As crystals of the SOCIAL SUBSTANCE, which is common to them all, they are values - commodity values. ... The common factor in the exchange relation, or in the exchange-value of the commodity, is therefore its value. The progress of our investigation will lead us back to exchange-value as the NECESSARY MODE OF EXPRESSION, OR FORM OF APPEARANCE, OF VALUE. For the present, however, we must consider the nature of value independently of its form of appearance." (C.I. 128; emphasis added) "Now we know the SUBSTANCE of value. It is LABOUR. We know the MEASURE OF ITS MAGNITUDE. It is LABOUR-TIME. The FORM, which stamps VALUE as EXCHANGE-VALUE, remains to be analyzed. But before this we need to develop the characteristics we have already found somewhat more fully." (C.I. 131; emphasis in the original) Comradely, Fred
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