[OPE-L:1132] Re: LVB3:What Money is Worth

Paul_Cockshott (wpc@cs.strath.ac.uk)
Tue, 20 Feb 1996 03:43:54 -0800

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Alan
----
The first casualty is money. Even though price-value
differences exist, nevertheless the value of *money* retains
its Ricardian definition; it is the labour embodied in a
pound which determines its value to the capitalist (and to
everyone), not its capacity for purchasing the products of
society. But as a consequence, price-value differences
cannot even be conceptualised, let alone measured. For, a
price-value difference is, in the last analysis, the
difference between the *money* price of a commodity and its
*money* value.

Paul
----
What Marx was insistent on in the Contribution and
elsewhere was that the value of money was determined
by the labour content of gold.

This is not inconsistent with recognising price/value
disparities for individual commodities. It is merely
inconsistent with there being a change in the
general price level without there being a change
in the relative values of gold and all other
commodities in aggregate.