[OPE-L:5802] Re: cause(s) and consequence(s) of the

From: Andrew Brown (Andrew@lubs.leeds.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Jun 06 2001 - 09:02:33 EDT


Hi Jerry,

Thanks for the reply.

It's not an *assumption* regarding implicit motivations. Rather it is 
*argument*. We cannot know for sure what any one person's 
motivation is. We can make some more solid judgments as to 
large numbers of people over a long period of time. How do I argue 
in this case? Well I do it via the importance of 'value'. Thus, my 
point regarding the importance of value has nothing directly to do 
with *consequences*. Rather, I am using the importance of 'value' 
as the key aspect guiding my judgment as to the true reason and 
motivation for the value debates. In turn this relies on a materialist 
premise: what people worry about most relates to their material 
circumstances, the most important of which is 'value' in the CMP. 
Yet, value presents itself in disguise, so people may not explicitly 
or fully grasp why they are debating it, or what it is. 

I disagree that history is replete with examples of most people 
talking endlessly about stuff with no relation to material reality. 
Give me some example and some context, and more often than 
not I think we will find that the issues discussed really mattered, or 
at least were rooted in the material circumstances of the time 
(which are what matters most).

Re Fine: Fine's analysis of consumption (his notion of norms of 
consumption) is built firmly upon his LTV, in particular upon his 
grasp of the value of labour power. One cannot determine this value 
without, amongst other things (such determining wage bargaining 
outcomes), determining what, crudely speaking, the average 
consumption bundle of the working class is. This cannot be taken 
as 'given' but must be analysed for each industry (for, as Fine 
shows, their are very different norms of consumption for each 
industry). This is concrete analysis based upon the previous 
reconstruction of the more abstract aspects, such as the existence 
of the VLP and it's most abstract determination as a quantity of 
SNLT of some as yet to be determined bundle, plus moral and 
historical aspects (the contingencies of class struggle), also yet to 
be determined. 

That's the best I can do I'm afraid!....Sorry if I have got Fine 
completely wrong on this...

Thanks,

Andy



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