[OPE-L:3121] Re: re:starting points

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Thu May 11 2000 - 09:42:07 EDT


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At 18:00 11/05/00 +0530, you wrote:
>
>Ajit:
>What is *value*?

I think I see why you are asking this.

For my part I treat it as a word that denotes two related but not identical
concepts.

On the one hand I use the word as a shorthand for the phrase labour value,
meaning
the labour time required to produce something.

On the other hand I use the word as a shorthand for something like generalised
exchange value. By generalised exchange value I mean what is conserved under
changes in the numeraire or standard of price used to express exchange value.

For an economy as a whole this is representable a vector conserved subject to
multiplication by a real valued constant. The elements of the vector are
conventionally
represented by real numbers, but may alternatively be treated as random
variables
with defined means and standard deviations.

I would justify using the same word as shorthand for both of these
logically distinct
concepts because there exists a strong empirical correlation between the two
quantative measures.



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