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But Ajit, I wasn't defending Rakesh's position as a whole. Rather, i
was defending him against the *specific* argument you put forward
regarding Marx's alleged failure to deal with demand.
You have made other arguments, some of which seem, to me, to
be stronger than your argument concerning marx's alleged failure to
deal with demand. I wasn't referring to those arguments. As you
will have seen from my ongoing exchange with Rakesh my position
is not the same as Rakesh's (I think a commodity is a value before
sale). But my position is not the same as your own - indeed I am
trying to steer a course between the two positions...not there yet
though!
Andy
On 12 Jun 2000, at 18:24, Ajit Sinha wrote:
>
>
> Andrew Brown wrote:
>
> > Paul,
> >
> > But I am defending Rakesh against Ajit's, and your own point.
> >
> > Ajit asks, why no theory of demand if demand is an aspect of
> > value?
> >
> > my answer: because there is nothing to say about demand at the
> > abstract level at which marx is working other than banalities.
>
> ________________
>
> Then Rakesh's and your points are nul and void. At the level of defining
> and measuring value, the concept of demand can be introduced only at the
> level of banalities, such as commodities must have use-values, etc. Both
> you and Rakesh should keep in mind that almost any commodity could be sold
> at some prices (close to zero or may even be negative), so the problem of
> excess supply relates to some given prices. Your last but one sentence,
> "In other words I am yet to formulate my own views on exactly how the
> notion of demand relates to Marx's notion of value", suggest to me that
> once you think through this issue you will come around our position. As
> Rakesh is moving from Hegel to Aristrotel, which is a movement in the
> right direction. We just have to give him some more time. Cheers, ajit
> sinha
>
> >
> >
> > I referred to microeconomics, but you mention, also, effective
> > demand (ie the macroeconomic concept).
> >
> > Here, I would suggest that marx does provide the tools necessary
> > to consider agg demand. This is not only because the neoclassical
> > distinction between micro and macro is problematic. More
> > importantly, one simply cannot comprehend agg effective demand
> > fully outside of a comprehension of value, surplus value etc.: in
> > building up these concepts marx is building up an adequate
> > conception of usually confused concepts such as agg effective
> > demand. Therefore, while it may not look like it to begin with, Marx
> > is
> > not *ignoring* demand in his analysis, and Ajit's point does not hit
> > home
> > against Rakesh (that's my argument here anyway).
> >
> > On the main issue at hand: well part of my ongoing discussion with
> > Rakesh implicitly covers the relation of aggregate demand to
> > value...but the discsussion is difficult enough for me without
> > explicitly having to consider the place of agg demand!
> >
> > In other words I am yet to formulate my own views on exactly how
> > the notion of demand relates to Marx's notion of value. But this
> > discussion is helpful!
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > On 12 Jun 2000, at 12:12, Paul Cockshott wrote:
> >
> > > At 11:17 12/06/00 +0100, Andrew Brown wrote:
> > > >Regarding the theory of demand:
> > > >
> > > >is there really much more to say, at the *abstract* level (ie
> > > >generalising over all markets in the manner of microeconomics),
> > > >than banalaties:
> > >
> > >
> > > I agree, but that statement is from the standpoint of a classical
> > > marxian view of the theory of value - that it is determined in
> > > production not by market conditions.
> > >
> > > I was just supporting Ajits point that if you think marx was saying
> > > demand was important to the determination of value, why did he
> > not
> > > analyse it.
> > >
> > > My take on it is that demand is not important to the determination
> > > of value except in the case of marginal land, and that this was
> > > also the position of Marx. Rakesh has been arguing that
> > commodities only
> > > have value once there is sufficient effective demand for them to
> > sell.
> > > If that is the case, then one needs a theory of effective demand
> > to get
> > > a coherent system.
> > >
> > > By the way part of this may be terminological, Rakesh sees
> > commodities
> > > prior to sale as having potential value. I would say they have value
> > > which has a big influence on their likely exchange value, so that
> > if
> > > we systematically relabel all uses of the unqualified noun value in
> > what
> > > I write with the phrase 'potential value', what I am saying will be
> > > translateable without loss of meaning into a format acceptable to
> > > Rakesh.
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
>
>
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