From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Sat Aug 25 2007 - 11:03:23 EDT
Jurrian, please top calling me Prof Cockshott, it is inappropriate and inaccurate Paul Cockshott www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L on behalf of Jurriaan Bendien Sent: Sat 8/25/2007 3:11 PM To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: [OPE-L] A startling quotation from Engels For the record, I agree completely with Prof. Cockshott that: 1 - abstract social labour is a feature of all modes of production in which there is some form of social cooperation. 2 - Marx distinguishes sharply between value and its historical form of expression, exchange value. 3 - The social cost of production under both capitalism and socialism is 'value', not just because it represents a quantity of social labour, but because the meaning of "social cost" cannot even be specified without reference to "value". As regards the above three propositions, a) There is very strong textual evidence that Marx and Engels believed this themselves, in their published and unpublished writings, b) There is also very strong historical-anthropological evidence for it. c) There is very strong logical evidence for these distinctions, since Marxian value theory becomes incoherent if they are rejected. However, 1) I deny being a Marxist, or an accredited Professor. 2) I think Marx regarded labour-value and abstract labour as "transhistorically evolving" categories, i.e. the social meaning of the fact, that a product had value which represented a quantity of social labour, was subject to both continuities and discontinuities through history. 3) I reject the Marxist distinctions between historical and transhistorical categories, because they are not based on any historical and scientific-empirical research, it is just metaphysical generalities. 4) If abstract labour is regarded by Marxists, like commercial economists do (unit labour costs etc.), only as an effect of market-exchange (Rubin's third dimension of abstract labour), far too much importance is given to markets as the cause for thinking abstractly about human labour, and treating it in an abstract way. 5) In the typical Marxist way, through falsifying Marx, much more power is given to markets to accomplish all kinds of things than are really due to markets themselves, which could not exist at all without a large amount of non-market cooperation. Scientifically and practically speaking, "the market" does not create everything that its Marxist supporters claim it does. Jurriaan
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