[OPE-L:3254] Re: Re: starting points

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Thu May 18 2000 - 08:42:41 EDT


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At 17:18 18/05/00 +0530, you wrote:
>
>____________________
>Ajit:
>
>Marx's price theory is nothing but Sraffa's.

I would agree, but perhaps the other way round, Sraffa was just formalising
Marx's theory.

I accept Ajits point about the ambiguity of Marx's definition of socially
necessary labour time. There is a conceptual slide between a technical
definition and a definiton based upon effective demand.

For consistency the references to effective demand determining value
should be dropped. One should stick to a technical definition defined in
terms of the mean labour required to produce commodity X averaged over
the firms currently producing it. One would calculate this by adding up
the total number of X.s produced per week let this =n,
let the number of workers employed
directly and indirectly to produce these X.s be y, let the working week
be w hours.
then the value of an X is yw/n hours.

No need to refer to demand conditions at all.



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