[OPE-L:3133] Re: starting points

From: Ajit Sinha (ajitsinha@lbsnaa.ernet.in)
Date: Fri May 12 2000 - 03:58:35 EDT


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Asfilho@aol.com wrote:

> Ajit's three main questions in 3119, directed to Rakesh,
>
> >What is *value*?
> >On what ground you know that "they [value] have to be modes of expression of
> the
> same undifferentiated human labor"?
> >you need to tell us how do you measure it {value} before you start telling
> us about its rise or fall.
>
> are not new, and Marx answered all of them in his well known letter to
> Kugelmann (July 11 1868) and in the first lines of his Notes on Wagner, as
> Ajit surely knows. Marx' answers may be rejected as being insufficient or
> wrong, but this is no reason to keep repeating the same questions as the
> answers will inevitably be repeated too. Maybe this calls for shifting the
> debate or moving on to something else.
>
> alfredo.

___________________

But shifting of the debate does not work. Because time and time again mainly the
proponents of Hegelian Marxism fall back on the concept of value. Since you cut
out the context within which those questions were raised, let me again repeat my
point. I have read a bit of Hegelian Marxism (some of decent quality), but it is
not clear to me how do they quantify "abstract labor". So let us begin with their
most fundamental concept. And then we can take it from there step by step to see
what kind of problem this concept gets into. Quotations from Marx is of no help
here. Let us clarify our own understanding of what sense we make of these
concepts. Cheers, ajit sinha



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