Re the debate between Nicky and Andy, I endorse everything Nicky says about my view* and about how to read Marx. With regard to the issue of abstract labour and money I think we all agree that abstract labour can only appear in money and that money represents abstract labour. The issue is the conceptual priority of each term. For a value form interpretation it is only the money form of value that creates the conceptual space for the abstract concept of labour to become separate from and opposed to its concrete reality. Furthermore it is only as thus abstracted that capital can cognise labour; for its concrete cognizance capital has to rely on managers etc. I do not see any other way of giving an account of abstract labour specific to capital. Of course one could argue it is not specific to capital; thus the 'physiological' definition does not sound specific; Uno explicitly denies it is specific but he is clearly confusing it with general concrete labour in which the element of separatness and opposition is not present. In an artcle in the old CSE Bulletin and subsequently I have admitted that labour must be concretely general in the sense of adaptable for the law of value to work but equally I argued this is only a precondition of the possibility of taking this, stripping out the variation, and treating it as ontologically abstract. To be charitable to Marx one could argue the first few pages are an ungrounded anticipation. But I think the real problemis that he has already silently assumed only products are to be considered in the first place. Chris A *If anyone does not have access to C&C I have offprint of my piece available or I could send a pdf attachment. 17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England
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