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Hi Rakesh,
I could give a simple "yes" to your question:
At any rate, Steve, are you trying to explain surplus value by the
consumption of dead labor?
But instead, I'd appreciate your attempt to interpret this statement:
"It also has to be postulated (which was not done above) that the use value
of the machine significantly greater than its value; i.e. that its
devaluation in the service of production is not proportional to its
increasing effect on production." (Grundrisse 383)
Cheers,
Steve
>From: bhandari@Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari)
>Reply-To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
>To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
>Subject: [OPE-L:3093] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: re:starting points
>Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 10:12:24 -0400 (EDT)
>
>Dear Steve,
>
>All other commodities but labor power have a fixed, unchanging value, which
>is already congealed. With all these other commodities, the quantity of
>value that can be consumed--their use value as you would put it--is fixed.
>
>However as labor power is consumed its value can be augmented; moreover,
>following Marx's theory of value only *new (abstract) labor* can be the
>source of surplus value. Machines and other dead labor obviously cannot
>yield a net surplus of rentals over cost; this would commit us to the
>necromancy that the consumption of dead labor can be the source of new
>value. Indeed living labor is vested with the task of preserving value (a
>task which is complicated by rapid technical change, requiring the quick
>amortization of constant capital and the overwork of the proletariat) as
>well as creating new value
>
>The question then becomes why living labor does not hold out until its
>price allows it to capture its value surplus. The value created by labor
>is systematically greater than the value of labor power But the laws of
>exchange are not violated in the purchase of labor power--it is sold, like
>every other commodity, at value in terms of the labor congealed in the
>production and reproduction of labor power; however Marx then underlines
>the special feature of this commodity, viz. its own value (social time
>required for its reproduction) and the value it produces are separate
>quantities. The law of value is both met and violated; this is critique in
>Marx's specific sense.
>
>At any rate, Steve, are you trying to explain surplus value by the
>consumption of dead labor?
>
>Yours, Rakesh
>
>
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