From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Tue Mar 04 2003 - 15:16:46 EST
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ian Wright" <ian_paul_wright@hotmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 1:35 PM Subject: Re: 'Simulating the Law of Value' by Ian Wright Dear Jerry, Thanks for forwarding my messages to OPE-L. I'd be grateful if you could forward the following in response to Rakesh. All the best, -Ian. ------------------------------------------------- Dear Rakesh, >Let me ask first how you are defining a simple commodity economy. I've had to elaborate the definition of a SCE in order to apply a computational modelling approach. There are four parts to this: (i) examining what Marx wrote about simple circulation prior to the appearance of workers and capitalists in volume 1 of Capital, and some remarks in volume 3; (ii) examining Rubin's account, which I think correctly emphasises the reallocation of social labour-time; and (iii) developing an abstract specification of a set of computational rules sufficiently precise to build a runnable simulation, and (iv) building the simulation itself, which is a computer program. The movement from (i) to (iv) represents an increase in specification detail (although the model is essentially abstract throughout). I'd suggest that Marx's and Rubin's comments, written in natural language rather than a more precise language, represent incomplete and variously interpretable specifications of the SCE. This is to be expected. The definition of the SCE I'm working with is best considered at the computational rule level, because that is sufficiently precise to be reproducible by others who may wish to replicate and extend the computational experiment. So to answer your question: my definition of the SCE is the set of rules that I outline. Given this, it follows that the SCE as I define it is not the only possible (computatational) realisation of the simple commodity economy. In fact, there are a family of "nearby" models that are undoubtedly worth investigating. Of course I would argue that I've made a reasonable set of decisions in moving from (i) to (iv) so that the SCE I present is pretty much canonical. You'll notice there isn't a lot of history here. I view this approach to modelling the SCE as separable from the debate about whether the SCE was realized by a productive community in the past. However, determining precise sufficient conditions for the law of value to operate could help those interested in the history of economics to make educated guesses about whether past communities satisfied those conditions and therefore instantiated it. Therefore the question of the relation between the abstract model of the SCE and patriarchal agrarian households is very interesting. You've provided some detail on how such communities operated, so I can begin to think about the relationship, and I ask for your patience. I hope you can agree that a computational modelling approach can contribute to deciding these issues, even if it turns out that my particular model does not decide this particular issue. -Ian. >From: "gerald_a_levy" <gerald_a_levy@msn.com> >To: "Ian Wright" <ian_paul_wright@hotmail.com> >Subject: Re: 'Simulating the Law of Value' by Ian Wright >Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 13:18:13 -0500 > >Dear Ian: thank you for your reply. I have forwarded >it to OPE-L. I'll give your reply some thought and may >respond again. Keep in touch. >Comradely, Jerry
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