Re Allin's [5287-8]: > One can actually _measure_ the divergences > only under restrictive conditions, but that's > not a major problem. On a reasonable > definition of SNLT, the average divergence of > actual hours from SNLT across the entire > economy has to be zero. Putting aside the questions of skills and productive labor, the last sentence is correct ... tautologically. It is tautologically correct, however, *only* if "the entire economy" is understood as "the entire world capitalist economy" rather than the entire economy of an individual capitalist nation. It is not the case for an individual nation precisely because of *international* variations in the intensity of labor. > But then the labours going > into a particular product can be considered a > (large) sample from a > population with a mean (divergence) of zero. And how does one determine the extent of the divergence for a particular product within the context of the international capitalist economy? In practice, I think that most Marxian empirical work has taken place under the assumption of "intensity-adjusted" labor hours. In practice, though, I think this is simply assuming away the problem of variations in the intensity of labor internationally rather than making a real adjustment. If that is the case, then what has been measured with NIPA data by Marxians is not SNLT and is not a measurement of value. > If the sample can be > considered random, from a statistical point of > view, then there must > be a strong expectation that the divergences > roughly cancel. My > contention is that the many and varied labours > that go into producing > any given product can reasonably be thought of > as a random sample of > social labours, absent any specific reason to > believe otherwise. I think I have already offered reasons to believe otherwise. In solidarity, Jerry
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