Since January of this year there has been much media speculation and hype about a mysterious invention called 'IT'. Today IT, the invention that was touted as potentially one of the greatest consumer innovations since the automobile and the refrigerator, was revealed and demonstrated live on the TV show 'Good Morning America' (GMA). What is IT? Well, it's kind of a battery-powered gyroscopically-balanced scooter. Lightweight, with speeds up to 12 MPH, alleged to revolutionize pedestrian transport, available for sale to the public by late next year (the first customers, who will be shipped IT in the next few weeks are primarily government and corporate sponsors). Thus, the integration of IT into selected factory and office (and military!) settings is only weeks away. Despite all of the hype, my reaction upon seeing IT demonstrated was the same as that of GMA co-host Diane Sawyer: 'Is that IT?'. It did look like a fun toy (for the wealthy) and perhaps an important tool eventually for some who are physically disabled. The inventor of IT said that he had 'hope' that it would 'eventually' be sold for approximately US$2,000. * What, though, is the *value* of IT? I.e. where there is a product innovation that is a monopoly good, how can we determine the individual and social value of that commodity? Empirically, how is it possible to break-down the market price for an individual commodity so that one can determine the value of the commodity, the surplus value appropriated by the individual (in this case, IT) capitalist, *and* the redistribution of surplus value from other capitalists? Can we, relatedly, empirically determine *which* capitalists had surplus-value taken away from them through this redistribution? Thus, can we determine not only how much surplus value monopolies and monopoly-like firms (e.g. oligopolies) receive through the redistributive process but also how much the other individual capitalists *lose* in the re-shuffling of surplus- value? In solidarity, Jerry
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