Thanks Chris, point taken. Having also thought a bit more about Jerry's previous concern (re the possiblity for misunderstandings about: 'actual' money versus 'actual' value - a problem that arises also with Geert's 'ideal value' perhaps?) I think I will now reformulate 4. as follows: 4. Living labour systematically produces 'actual' money (i.e. value in money form) only when it takes the wage-form; the wage form is a Value-Form (of labour) necessitated by the separation of workers from means of production. Also, on your [6915] reply (below) to Geert [6891] and the relation between the two dynamics. On the first relation, would you agree with Backhaus's conclusion that in the first chapter of C1 the dynamics of value considered as content can 'only be construed as a pseudo-dialectical movement of pseudo-dialectical contradiction' (1980, p.101) because Marx actually *fails* to explicate the double character of labour as the *essential* opposition of capitalist production i.e. he fails to ground that opposition in the Value-Form (because of the retention of a transhistorical concept of abstract labour)? So that the second relation (that between value and its forms in section 3) appears rather ambiguously as a theory of commodity money derived from an exchange relation - in the context of non-monetary barter exchanges! - rather than an exposition into 'fully dialectical' monetary relations of a Value-Form determination? all best Nicky >>(2) Second there is that between value considered as a content and the forms of value listed (on 174) as commodity, money, capital, and including the transitions of sec. 3. These have entirely different dynamics. Firstly, the value form is entirely alien to the product and valorisation is entirely alien to production. The main problem for us is to theorise this almost impossible combination. Because it is a combination it is logically possible to examine each separately, and their relations will be ones of interaction such that the language of 'cause' is not too far off: the value form 'causes' the development of industry, this development in turn 'causes' changes in socially necessary labour times, which in turn 'causes' the magnitude of value to vary. It is because of the relative autonomy of the value form that two things are possible, namely the self-development of value, regardless of the matter regulated, and the force which it exerts on production which underpins quantitative changes in the magnitude of value. Secondly, the other relation, that between value and its forms is where fully dialectical relations such as form and content, essence and appearance, have their place. It is literally senseless to separate value from money because value only exists in a money economy. Occasionally Marx sees this (but I concede he often fails to) e.g.: "[without money] they definitely do not confront each other as commodities but as products or use values only." (180). The relation between these sides will be internal. best Nicky At 08:46 6/04/02 +0100, you wrote: >Hello Nicky > >I agree with most of your 6885, but surely this is too hasty: > >>4. Labour power systematically produces 'actual' money only when it takes >>the wage-form; the wage form is a Value-Form (of labour) necessitated by >>the separation of workers from means of production. >> >LP cannot produce anything since it is a capacity and production is an >activity. It is labour that produces, although under the direction of >capital to be sure. Conversely it is LP that takes value form. Labour >cannot; because it is the >source/determination/cause/substance/represented/whatever of value. It is >form-determined of course, because directed by capital, but it is itself in >origin 'not-value', 'not-capital' as Marx says. (Here I disagree also with >Geert's 6882 "Labour in capitalist process is also ideal value.") >The distinction Marx makes betwen LP and L is very important, and correct, >and should be carefully marked IMO. > >Comradely >Chris > >17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England > ----------------------- Nicola Taylor Faculty of Economics Murdoch University South Street Murdoch W.A. 6150 Australia Tel. 61 8 9385 1130 email: n.taylor@stu.murdoch.edu.au
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