On Mon, 02 Apr 2001, you wrote: > > My point about clock fetishism was only to insist on the diversity of forms > of measure -- we measure length by a human foot or hand or stride or by a > platinum bar or wavelengths of krypton in a vacuum. Time gets measured by > seasons, phases of the moon, tides, and all sorts of biological processes > -- the time it takes wine to age, seeds to sprout, crops to mature, etc. -- > as well as the difference in energy level between two states of caesium. Yes but national standards labs take great care to calibrate these measures with one another, so that by a simple multiplication one can be converted ot another. I would contend that no post neolithic society has based its calendar on the time it takes crops to mature. The exigencies of agriculture force them all to adopt an astronomical one for reliability. > > The broader significance of the point is that there where the material > basis for the operation of the law of value remains in place, then the law > of value will continue to operate. But then bringing the law of value > under control is not just a matter of computational capacity, although this > is enormously important, but, more importantly, of really transforming its > material foundation. This, I think, is the point underlying what you refer > to as Charles Bettelheim's skepticism. Take the first separation of > productive labor under capitalism to which he refers -- of enterprises from > each other. Under the CMP this is resolved by exchange within the > juridical form of contract, but this dynamic simply reproduces the > conditions of separation. I full agree with that. It is the production of commodities by means of commodities that reproduces this separation. I had great respect for Bettleheim's work, but it always struck me that it was just on the edge of telling you how to abolish commodity production but never going over it. > Howard -- Paul Cockshott, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland 0141 330 3125 mobile:07946 476966 paul@cockshott.com http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/people/personal/wpc/ http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/index.html
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