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I don't agree with Mandel on this one.
There's no reason to suppose that the flow of capital in and out of gold
production won't tendentially lead to the equalization of the profit rate
in gold production to the average rate of profit, just as in any other
sector. I also don't see why this would contradict Marx's theory of money
and price.
What is different about gold in a system where gold is the money commodity
is that it doesn't have to be realized by exchanging on the market against
the money commodity, since it is already money.
Duncan
>You write:
>>
>>What you have described there is not the value of a commodity but what marx
>>represents as its price, its exchange value in terms of the universal
>>equivalent gold.
>
>So does gold itself have a price of production, or only a value ? What is
>your opinion ? For convenience, I will quote Prof. Mandel's argument (which
>is different from Prof. Itoh's):
>
>"...if commodity-producting labour needs a general equivalent, a 'thing' in
>which the social character of its labour is immediately recognised, money
>can play that role only because it is itself a commodity. Money is itself
>the product of abstract human labour, of a fragment of the total labour
>potential at the disposal of a given society. Otherwise, money and all
>commodities would in turn remain incommensurable. The money-commodity gold
>is therefore the one commodity hich enters the circulation process with its
>value and not with a price. When Marx states that all commodities can enter
>the circulation process only price-determined (preisbestimmt), this implies
>that their price is the expression of their value in the value of the
>money-commodity. Any other conclusion would be based upon circular
>reasoning. One cannot presuppose the existence of a price determinaton of
>commodities without explaining what determines their prices. One cannot
>suppose that these prices depend upon the money-commodity without
>determining what determines the value of gold. One cannot determine the
>value of gold without determining the nature of all value, or upon the
>tacit assumption of incommensurability of commodities on the one hand -
>prices not determined by value - and of gold on the other hand. Either gold
>has a value, or it has a 'price' determined by 'something' else than value,
>different and apart from the price of all other commodities. Hence it would
>be incommensurable with all other commodities. Only because gold has a
>value can all other commodities have prices. But only because the prices of
>all other commodities are based upon value, can the value of gold determine
>the prices of commodities" (E. Mandel, Gold, money and the transformation
>problem, p. 143-144).
>
>In solidarity
>
>Jurriaan Bendien
Duncan K. Foley
Department of Economics
Graduate Faculty
New School University
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