From: Paul Zarembka (zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU)
Date: Wed Jun 23 2004 - 23:47:55 EDT
Howard, My prior reply today covered only about a 1/4 of what you wrote today. I cannot really get into much of the other 3/4's before I leave. However, there is a subjective message that I shouldn't leave unanswered. Specifically, my saying that you are falling back on 'authority' and, as such, this is unworthy of OPE-L leads you to suggest that an apology be forthcoming from me to you. I would and will apologize should I become convinced that you were not in fact falling back on the 'authority' of Marx. Absent that at this juncture, let me just say that I am only one person and that is how I have read you when I made that remark. Outside the history of the use of 'authority', the deeper issue here is whether you have been presuming your conclusion that everywhere there is exchange value there is 'value'. For this, the whole discussion of theoretical object and real object is no tangent and *perhaps* is critical. I note your saying (8c) that a demonstration that exchange value is everywhere 'value' "could be pretty readily done". Perhaps I could remark that even within the capitalist mode of production we don't usually claim that as true for all exchange values. The great van Gogh paintings never represented abstract labor and their exchange values are in another orbit. Ricardo, for what it is worth, delimits his discussion to easily reproducible commodities and Marx followed him in this regard, at least in the *Contribution*. Many great cultural objects, now exchanged, were produced with *no* concern for the market, indeed in some cases with a contempt for the market even for personal well-being (Marx himself). I don't think this point is very controversial, but does impact your intended project. I'll leave enough time tomorrow for at least some reaction to anything you may offer in reply. Paul Z. ************************************************************************* Vol.21-Neoliberalism in Crisis, Accumulation, and Rosa Luxemburg's Legacy RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Zarembka/Soederberg, eds, Elsevier Science ********************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
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