[OPE-L:4499] Re: what is Volume 1 about?

From: Fred B. Moseley (fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 12 2000 - 01:20:18 EST


Hi Rakesh,

It seems to me that you are making a mistake with units of measure in your
logic below.  You say that the value of commodities "is the direct and
indirect labor-time embodied" in them.  But then you say that this value
of commodities is "resolved" into the monetary quantities of c + v + s.  I
presume that by "resolved" you mean divided into component parts,
right?  (At any rate, that is what Marx meant by "resolved" in the
passages you quote from Part 7 of Volume 3 and related drafts.)  But the
components of value are in terms of quantities of money.  Therefore, the
whole value that is divided up must also be in terms of quantities of
money.  How can one divide a quantity of labor-time into quantities of
money?  Am I missing something?  Maybe you have explained this in other
posts that I have not had the time to read.  Thanks in advance for your
clarification.

Comradely,
Fred


P.S.  You also make some good points in this post and other recent posts,
which I hope to respond to soon.  




On Fri, 10 Nov 2000, Rakesh Narpat Bhandari wrote:

> 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
> 
> 



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