I tried to send this to the earlier... Hello Fred, Abstract labour indeed determines price as you say. This requires that there two distinct magnitudes, viz. abstract labour time and price magnitude, with the one determining the other (ie. the quantity of one leads to the quantity of the other, and not vice versa). But does this require that abstract labour exists independently of price? Above I talked about quantity, but not quality. Do they have to be qualitatively 'independent'? Why should this follow? More generally I tried to gain some more precision on existence and indepencence etc, in the previous post. I just don't think one sentence re existence and independence is ever going to be adequate, especially given the subtleties we are dealing with. Don't you agree? Finally, note that I do allow that abstract labour exists independently of price if in a rather ordinary, transhistorical sense. Abstract labour exists as a mere aspect of concrete labour in all societies. Still, this fact is very important [I should not have called it 'banal' in my earlier post], since, for example, it is what gives rise to the transhitorical law that labour must be distributed in definite proportions within society. Perhaps this last point, is what you have in mind re 'independence'? What is *not* transhistorical, is value (the analougue of Hegel's Essence), which is 'congealed' abstract labour, or 'thing-like' abstract labour, having a quasi separate existence. This only occurs in the CMP. Many thanks, Andy On 8 Jun 2001, at 7:25, Fred B. Moseley wrote: > Andy, "abstract labor thethers price magnitudes" means that abstract labor > determines average prices, according to the equation: > > Y = m L > > Abstract labor cannot determine prices in this way unless abstract labor > exists independently of price. > > Andrew, how do you interpret this equation, which I argue is the basis of > Marx's theory of value and surplus-value? > > Thanks again. > > Comradely, > Fred ------- End of forwarded message -------
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