Dear Ian:
Thank you very much for your clarifications in OPE-L 3727!!
I also have severe time constraints at the moment and I
realized that our "readings" of Marx are so different that
to use OPE-L as means of clarification would be, as Andrew
says, "less than helpful".
By miracle, I have a copy of your article in RRPP (1982).
So, I will see it. In any case, after your clarification I
am understanding better the "clues" you are following.
Only one thing for the moment:
You say:
> Well, part of what I meant was spelled out by saying
> that the value conservation principle did not look very
> plausible given that value can disappear because of
> competition or lack of demand.
I think that what you call the "conservation principle" as
it is presented in Vol III, Ch. 9 (so the "framework" of
the debate) involves the "socially necessary labor-time",
not "labor-time" ("effort") in general. So, what we have
there is labor-time that is effectively represented by
money, not any "effort".
How this "conservation principle" is "imposed" in more
concrete situations (e.g. oscillations in demand; Vol. III,
Ch. 10; FRP, Vol III, Section 3) is out the specific limits
of the debate as it was set by Tugan, Bort. etc. The
problem is that these authors challenge the "conservation
principle" even in this very abstract situation.
Alejandro Ramos M.
29.11.96