[ show plain text ]
Gil, What's the point? We all agree that the price value divergence is to
be independent of the question of the formation of capital, price-value
divergence doesn't add to an understanding. Fine. Why should we care
about all the rest you are saying? You don't say that Marx FAILS to
establish the formation of capital, that in fact Marx would REQUIRE a
price-value divergence to establish the formation of capital. Or have I
missed something? Paul
***********************************************************************
Paul Zarembka, supporting RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
Gil Skillman <gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu> said, on 05/28/00:
>>In other words, he wants to establish the formation of capital WITHOUT
>>price/value divergence; he refuses to permit price/value divergence to
>>establish the formation of value.
>I agree with both statements here: establishing the formation of capital
>without price/value divergence is clearly what Marx *wants* to do, and
>just as clearly he refuses to permit price/value divergence to establish
>the *formation* of value. I would add that he embodied this refusal in
>his *definition* of surplus value as "valorization" of value rather than
>mere redistribution of existing value. But Marx insists at the end of
>Ch. 5 that this is much more than just a matter of what he "wants" to do;
>he asserts that the arguments in the chapter *imply* that the formation
>of capital must be explained without price/value divergence. But that
>doesn't follow, precisely because the argument in question concerns only
>sufficient conditions, not necessary conditions. Thus, with respect to
>your latter point, even though it's true by definition that price/value
>divergence can't account for value *formation* (the condition I've
>labelled VC), Marx's argument tells us nothing one way or the other about
>the connection between price/value divergence and capitalist
>*appropriation* of a portion of the newly formed value (condition VA).
>So Marx's argument is incomplete relative to his own explicitly stated
>grounds.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 31 2000 - 00:00:12 EDT