re: Fred's 4485 > >Although NLT is not defined in terms of Lms, NLT does DEPEND on Lms. In >Volume 1, Marx assumes that the price of labor-power is proportional to >(Lms). Under this assumption, NLT is equal to Lms. However, NLT is not >DEFINED as (nor "identical to", as you put it) Lms. It is only EQUAL to >Lms under the assumption of proportionality. In Volume 3, when the price >of labor-power is no longer assumed to be proportional to Lms, then NLT >will still be defined as the time necessary to reproduce the price of >labor-power, but this will no longer be equal to Lms, although it will >still be determined primarily by Lms. A very helpful clarification, Fred. It remains true however that cost price has been determined on the assumption of prices "proportional to" Lms and Lmp. This is why after Marx has derived the category of price of produciton upon completion of the second of the juxtaposed tableaux in ch 9. he himself points out that cost price has to be modified by transforming the inputs from such "proportional" prices to prices of production. It seems to me that you have simply denied that Marx is saying that such a transformation of the inputs is needed, though much criticism of your interpretation has focused on your handling of Marx's own statements on pp. 264-65 of Capital 3. Moreover it is not true that the value of a commodity (C) is determined by the addition of the monetary variables of c and v in the cost price of a commodity to another monetary variable of s. But this too seems to me what you are saying. Rather the value of a commodity is the indirect and direct labor time it embodies (though that labor time is socially determined); commodity value is then resolved into cost price (c + v) + surplus value (s) in its many forms. It seems to me that you have mistaken the resolved monetary components of commodity value for the actual determinants of commodity value. Yours, Rakesh
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 30 2000 - 00:00:05 EST