Hi Jerry,
what about saying that value *is* objectified labour (ideally) expressed in
money? Of course, in this sense, value is created by living labour - which
in itself definitely is *not* value, but potentially is value.
r.
P.S.: the same Mandel's expression was used several times by Claudio
Napoleoni: there is an extended criticism of this latter in Reuten's paper
in the special issue of the Rivista di Politica Economica which I edited a
couple of years ago [details on EconLit]. But those who knows Napoleoni
would be very, very surprised to hear that Napoleoni was an author who did
not stress enough value as *form*. So I would not build some long
theoretical battle on this expression, once is clear what is the meaning
given to it.
P.P.S.: I had to write an entry on Marxian Economic Theory, and indeed I
wrote an entry on Marx. There is a shorter version, which will be published
on the International Encyclopaedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and a
longer one. I can send it to those interested.
At 3:44 +0200 17-05-2001, Gerald_A_Levy wrote:
>>From Howard's [5594]:
>
>> To say that value exists only in exchange would
>> seem to obliterate a key
>> acquisition of Marx's analysis -- that value is in
>> fact a form of labor
>> whereby relations of producers in their reciprocal > activities are
>represented or become manifest as
>> relations of objects
>
>Hi Howard. It looks like you are enjoying
>OPE-L. If so, great.
>
>Would you comment on the following short
>quote from Chris A's article "Value, Labour
>and Negativity" (_Capital & Class_, 73, p. 31)?
>
>"Ernest Mandel went so far as to say 'For Marx
>*labour is value*' (Mandel, 1990: 11) --
>emphasizing the point. Mandel is directly refuted
>by Marx's own text. Marx says that 'labour is
>not itself value'; although 'labour creates value'
>it 'becomes value' only in 'objective form' when
>the labour embodied in one commodity is equated
>with the labour embodied in another commodity
>(Marx, 1976a [Capital I, Penguin ed, JL]: 142).
>Moreover labour is socially validated thereby only
>as 'abstract', and this in turn requires the presence
>of the money commodity to ground the universal
>dimension required. In brief, Mandel overlooked
>the importance of the value *form* in the labour
>theory of value".
>
>In a footnote to the above, Chris notes that
>(Mino) Carchedi said something similar to
>Mandel. Carchedi: "Often one runs into
>expressions such as ... labour being 'the
>substance of value', etc....But... value is *not*
>created by (abstract) labour. Value *is*
>labour....' (Carchedi, 1991: 102)" {Ibid, footnote
>17, p. 37}
>
>In solidarity, Jerry
Riccardo Bellofiore
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