Andrew, Thanks for your clarification. And just because there are so many possibilities I'd stay with price-value equivalence rather than price=value, regardless if Marx wrote "Prices equals values". One British pound, for example, is not equal to any measure of labor hours or fractions thereof. Price=value masks the alternatives you elaborate. In any case, I don't see this particular discussion as being of significance but I do think the abstraction in Volume 1 from variations across industries of differing compositions of capital is of significance. Paul Z. *********************************************************************** Paul Zarembka, editor, RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY at ******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka "Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com> said, on 10/28/00: >You use the expression "a monetary and the value measure of prices." I >don't think value in Marx's theory is a measure. Value is rather that >which all commodities have in common, the "third thing" behind >exchange-values. VALUE has two measures, acording to the first page of >Ch. 3, labor-time and money. >In one sense, "price" is value measured in money. But Marx also uses >price in a different sense: to refer, not to the measure of value, but >to the magnitude of value. I.e., price in this sense is an amount of >value received for something that differs from its own value. The >concept of price of production uses "price" in this sense. Marx's values >and his prices of production are both measured in money. They must have >the same measure or it would be impossible to say that they are unequal. >So "price" as value received in exchange can be measured in both >labor-time and money, and the commodity's value (value produced) can be >measured in both labor-time and money. Of these 4 possibilities, 3 >appear directly in Marx's work, all but the labor-time measure of value >received in exchange, and it follows naturally from what he says. >"Prices equals values," as I noted, is Marx's expression. >Andrew Kliman
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Oct 31 2000 - 00:00:12 EST