[OPE-L:4655] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Questions

From: Rakesh Narpat Bhandari (rakeshb@Stanford.EDU)
Date: Fri Dec 08 2000 - 21:42:57 EST


re 4653
>
>So may I infer from this that in your reading, one *can't* conclude from
>Ch. 6 that capitalists must hire labor power as a commodity in order to
>appropriate surplus value, simply because Marx avoids the question entirely
>by assuming it away?
>
>Gil


Gil, it is not immediately obvious how there can be surplus value 
since workers are free to sell their labor (so it seems) to the 
highest bidder.  We have to understand what it is that workers 
alienate on the market (once we do, the basic confusion in Ricardian 
value theory between cost of production and quantity of labor is 
eliminated or so argues Marx) . What precisely do you think workers 
sell on the market? Themselves? Their labor? Their labor capacity? 
What is that? Is it a commodity?

Best, Rakesh



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