From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@STANFORD.EDU)
Date: Wed Jun 23 2004 - 11:51:32 EDT
At 1:04 AM -0700 6/23/04, ajit sinha wrote: >Fred, Let's cut through the chase. According to you, >Marx's theory of value boils down to this: Marx >assumes that commodities have value. Values are >measured by socially necessary abstract labor. Though >socially necessary abstract labor cannot be measured >or observed, but still Marx assumes that it is a real >thing and commodities have them. And then Marx assumes >some arbitrary measure for the value of any commodity. Yes but this allows him to measure the effects of rising productivity growth over time. Do remember thatthis was Marx's project: a study of the effect of the growth of the productive forces on the relations of production. A measure that changes with each change in productivity would not allow him to measure what he was trying to measure. Marx's former measure is suited to a dynamic analysis; Sraffa's to a static distributional one. Even Ricardo would have had no interest in the standard commodity, as Peach shows. rb
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