From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Tue May 06 2003 - 09:15:04 EDT
Paul C wrote on 5/3:
> If one considers that value is labour, then the value of
> money is unproblematic.
And on 5/6, he wrote:
> What I am saying is that if one takes value either to be
> labour, or even Smith's command over labour, then the
> notion of a decline in the value of money is well founded.
Yet, value is no more labour then labour is labour-power.
To say that labour (of a particular form) creates value is
quite different from saying that value _is_ labour. Also,
to say that the magnitude of value is determined by
socially-necessary-labor-time is different from saying that
value _is_ labour.
[As far as Marx's take on this is concerned (happy b-day,
btw), note that Chris A took the late Ernest Mandel to task for
claiming that "For Marx *labour is value*". Chris argues that
this is "directly refuted by Marx's own text" (Volume 1 of _Capital_)
where M wrote that "labour is not itself value." Chris goes on
to claim that Mandel "overlooked the importance of the value
*form*" ("Value Labour and Negativity" in _Capital & Class_,
73, Spring 2001, p. 31). What is unclear to me, though, is
when Marx *first* expressed this proposition that labour is not
value. E.g. what did he write about this in the drafts of
_Capital_?]
> If one thinks that value is essentially something specific
> to exchange - rather than being founded on something
> prior to exchange - then the idea of a decline in the
> value of money is no longer well founded.
If one believes that there is a unity of the process of
capitalist production and circulation then value is something
specific to the nature of the commodity-form where there are
generalized capitalist relations. In other words, the issue
isn't whether value "is essentially specific to exchange" but
rather whether the generalized development of the commodity-
form requires specific productive and exchange relations.
We have to look then at the ontology of value relations within
the context of a fully-developed systematic reconstruction of
the subject matter in thought.
In solidarity, Jerry
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