[OPE-L:5395] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: turnover time and surplus value

From: Rakesh Narpat Bhandari (rakeshb@Stanford.EDU)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 13:31:53 EDT


re Jerry's 5393

>
>>  MOREOVER, MY INTERPRETATION
>>  DOES NOT HAVE MARX LAPSING
>>  INTO LOGICAL  CONTRADICTION AS
>>  YOUR  INTERPRETATION DOES.
>
>This isn't a convincing argument -- in fact, I
>don't think it is an argument at all. To begin with,
>there is the assumption that the interpretation of
>Marx which shows that he did not make a
>mistake WINS.  This is a very dangerous way of
>looking at any text -- including those by Marx.

Jerry, it is however the way Fred has been looking at the text. He 
has emphasized repeatedly the conceptual precision and rigor of 
Marx's argument, yet he has Marx talking nonsense. So my argument is 
an appeal to Fred on his own terms.

Moreover, as I have repeatedly emphasized, there is a point behind my 
criticism. Value (transferred) is not the visible flow price of a 
machine. Value is not in principle observable and directly 
measurable. In my opinion Fred's (as well as Alejandro's, Alan's, 
Mino's and Andrew K's) interpretation of the formula for the 
determination of value violates this fundamental principle which 
holds due to the fetishistic nature of our social relations.

So I have tried to give a reason why Fred's interpretation has to be wrong.

>
>
>
>Moreover, let us not forget that we're only
>talking about a few sentences in Volume 3 and
>that what became Volume 3 under the
>editorship of Engels was only a DRAFT.

No we are talking about a whole paragraph in Capital 3 and TSVIII. 
And again there is a deeper reason why I object to Fred's 
interpretation in that it treats value as if it were not an 
unobservable, albeit detectable, explanans. But our social labor 
relations can never appear as what they are, including in the 
observable flow price of the machine. This is exactly the error to 
which Marx was pointing. He was wrong to infer the value transferred 
from the machine from the flow price. That is the mistake in his 
transformation problems. So not only can I make sense of Marx's 
comments on double divergence, I make sense of the error (or the way 
in which Marx had gone wrong) on p. 265.

Yours, Rakesh



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