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Jerry (and Geert!)
Just a request for information. There has been some post where Geert said
WHY labour is the only source of value added?
riccardo
At 8:39 +0100 19-01-2000, Gerald Levy wrote:
>Re Geert's [OPE-L:2214]:
>
>> 1. LABOUR AND SURPLUS-VALUE
>> Labour is the only one source of value added. Jerry Levy in his 2067
>> is right that (in VFS 69-70) this is arrived at by process of elimination.
>> Then Jerry quests about the connection (in VFS) between surplus-value
>> and surplus labour. My answer would be: S = ml-wl (and -- forgetting
>> about interest and rent -- profit R = ml-wl). `Eliptically', but perhaps
>> also when adressing an audience of labour unionists (below more on
>> this), I might say that socially profit is determined by surplus labour,
>> as it is `casually'. However, in theoretical debate I would refrain from
>> saying that as it risks being read in a labour-embodied way (though, I
>> assume, not by you Jerry). The point is that there is no sound measure
>> for the `eliptic' statement. One cannot add up labour and machines.
>
>If you say that "Labour is the only one source of value added", then why
>can one not also say that (ideal) value-added can be measured by
>(socially-necessary) labour *time*? It is true that you can't add-up
>labor and machines, but one can at least in theory add-up the labor time
>required to produce commodities (both means of consumption and means of
>production). Of course, there are thorny issues here (e.g. how to add-up
>simple and complex labor time?; how is the [dead] labour time that was
>expended at some point in the past counted in terms of today's [living]
>labour time, especially when there is technological change in constant
>fixed capital?).
>
>[Short digression: I read the following as support for a non-TSS position
>on the valuation of constant fixed capital. Is that correct? Please
>explain. Here's the quote: "Nevertheless, it is the *current ideal
>value* of means of production (as related to the current value of similar
>means of production, which in them also represents previous value-added)
>which is in all or in part transmitted in the current production process."
>(VFS, 69)].
>
>Since I don't think that value is fully constituted as value unless
>and until (ideal) commodities are exchanged for money, I suspect that
>there isn't a whole lot of difference here between our interpretations of
>this question.
>
>In solidarity, Jerry
>
>PS: Chris wrote in [2216], "... what Jerry often observes, that there are
>different VF theories." I would say that this is a strength rather than a
>weakness of VF theory. Where there is disagreement, there is vitality.
Riccardo Bellofiore
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