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----- Original Message -----
From: C. J. Arthur <cjarthur@pavilion.co.uk>
To: <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2000 12:14 AM
Subject: [OPE-L:2074] Re: Re: value-form theories
>
> I see two problems with this. You have ignored the other two factors, land
> and machinery, one of these is a value and the other has a value form (the
> rent). True the machinery is produced by capital as a value but land is
not.
In the pages of 'Value-form & the State' referred to in my message, you will
find that we do not 'ignore' land and machinery, but differentiate Labour
from each of them. like 'Land', Labour is created outside capitalist
production, but unlike it it is not grasped by the Value-form (rent is a
residue). Capital goods have value, because they are produced in a
capitalist production process.
> Conversely labour, while a factor, does *not* have a value form, it is
> rightly defined by Marx in the Grundrisse as 'not-value'. It is labour
> power that has a value form although not a produced commodity.
This is entirely congruent with VFS: Labour Power is grasped by the
value-form. And (as from his work I think he agrees) it is the incorporation
of labour-power into the capital relation (by the sale/purchase of labour
power), grounded in the separation of workers from the means of production,
that enables capital to extract surplus labour in the shape of surplus
value.
I'm not sure that Chris and VFS disagree - although, imo, it is Chris who
has made a better fist of introducing Labour etc into the systemic
presentation at the appropriate point.
Michael
____________________
Dr Michael Williams
Economics and Social Sciences
De Montfort University
Milton Keynes
UK
fax: 0870 133 1147
http://www.mk.dmu.ac.uk/~mwilliam
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