re 4537 > > >Rakesh, what is your textual evidence for this intepretation of constant >capital and variable capital as having two different meanings, one for the >determination of value and the other for the monetary resolution of >value? I don't know of any passage in which Marx said anything like this. Fred, Commodity value is determined in countless passages as indirect plus direct labor, as the value of the consumed means of production themselves as they reappear in the final product plus newly produced value. See Capital 1 (Vintage), p. 294 (last paragraph), p. 318; Capital 3, p.133 I do not know of any passage in which Marx determines commodity value as the value of the sums of money advanced as constant and variable capital plus surplus value. Commodity value is then resolved or broken down in cost price [k or (c + v)] and surplus value (s), which vary inversely (see Capital 3, p. 258 [bottom], p.992 and 995, p.117, TSV II, pp. 417-18). These are just the passages which I have already cited, but there are doubtless more which will support my interpretation. > > >I think that for Marx, constant capital and variable capital are always >DEFINED consistently in the same way - as the sums of money-capital >invested to purchase means of production and labor-power. Means of >production and labor-power are purchased with money, not with labor-time. Yes, I agree money price is the necessary form of appearance of value. But this does not mean that total value is not determined independently of money. A commodity does not have value unless sold, but the money price of a commodity does not determine its value. Its value is determined as the socially necessary *labor time* for its reproduction. Alejandro then reasonably argues that the labor time needed for the reproduction of the commodity is determined by the value of the money sum which has to be laid out to replace the used up constant and variable capital. I agree that when commodity value which is the prior and fundamental magnitude is resolved, it is broken down into surplus value and cost price, which is determined in terms of the money laid out as constant and variable capital. But I can't agree that Marx is saying this is how the value of a commodity is determined. If the money laid out for the means of production deviates from their value, commodity value is determined by the value of the used up means of production, not the value of the money needed to purchase them. I have argued that it is just this possibility of deviation that Marx is analyzing Capital 3, p. 309. See the last part of my OPE 4515 where I defend this interpretation. > >Constant capital and variable capital (as these money quantities) could be >DETERMINED as proportional to the labor-times quantities required to >produce the means of production and means of subsistence, but the >DETERMINATION of constant capital and variable capital is a separate issue >from the DEFINITION of these variables. These variables can be and are monetarily defined. But it does not follow that commodity value is determined by adding to surplus value, as monetarily expressed, constant capital as the value of the money sum laid out for mp and variable capital as the value of the money sum laid out as wages. However these variables are defined, the point remains that Marx determines total value as the value of the consumed means of production themselves plus newly produced value. > > >1. C and V are DEFINED in terms of money, in both the determination and >the monetary resolution of value. But I need evidence and logic for this idea of the monetary DETERMINATION of value. > >2. But the money-quantities of C and V are DETERMINED as proportional to >the labor-times quantities required to produce the means of production and >means of subsistence. Well, it seems obvious to me that in his transformation tableaux Marx has assumed that the unit of account is the unit of labor time or--more accurately-- that monetary expression of labor value is one. > >I thought this is what you accepted in your recent "Fred is correct" post >(4444), that constant capital and variable capital are "monetary >sums". Did I misunderstand you? I have always agreed with you in the strongest terms that money price is the necessary form of appearance of value. All the best, Rakesh
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