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From: owner-ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu on behalf of aramos@aramos.bo
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 1998 12:17 PM
To: Francisco P. Cipolla
Cc: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [OPE-L] Re: Historical, real and current costs
Yes, my comment that the wet widgets/chunches have a value at 5 pm (which
differs from their value at 9 pm, however) goes back to the surfboard and
planted cornfield examples Duncan and I discussed. I do happen to agree with
him about this. As Ale noted, rightly I think,
"the wet chunche has not use-value as a means of
subsistence (final product) but it''s a means of production (raw
material). Another capitalist can buy it before it is completely dry
(a speculative purchasing?) Cuban rhum must be aged 15 years, but it
could be bought before, let''s say at year 7, for less value than
that it will pressumably have at year 15."
If, however, one wishes to say that the chunches have no value, or have zero
value, until they're dry at 9 pm, then the time delay issue is still present.
100 labor-hours are incorporated in the chunches by 5 pm. But they have no
value, or zero value, until they are dry at 9 pm. Thus, either (a) solar
power creates their value, between 5 pm and 9 pm, or (b) living labor creates
their value, but with a "time delay," so to speak. I don't think (a) is
consistent with Marx. I think (b) is.
The alternative is to say that the value of the chunches at 9 pm is no greater
than their value at 5 pm, when the workers stop working. But that runs into
the problem noted above: when then accounts for the fact that people (and
capital) will pay more for them at 9 pm than at 5 pm?
It might seem that we could explain this in terms of the redistribution of
value across industries. Yet even if we had two industries, say, the second
could conceivably have the same pattern of time delays, and the same organic
composition, as the chunche industry. So the problem would remain. Therefore
I say, "Hic Rhodus! Hic Salta!"
Andrew Kliman