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At 10:30 AM 6/2/2000 +0100, Paul C. wrote:
>What Taylor was quantifying was exactly Marx's simple average labour.
My understanding has been that when Marx talks about "average" labour, he
means *qualitatively* average labour--- ie., labour which is a microcosm of
the different concrete labours (tailor's, miners, carpenter's, etc.) which
compose the total social labour contained in commodities. From this
perspective, Taylor was measuring necessary concrete labour (as a step
toward compressing it) rather than the qualitatively equal labour that is
visible only in the money-form. The question as to whether there is a high
correlation between these which permits significant empirical
investigations is separate from the theoretical question.
comradely,
mike
Michael A. Lebowitz
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
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