Re Diego's [7044]: > I think Brody says: There is no problem at all with the different kinds of labor. If it is true that in the aggregate the value of labor power is the value of the means of consumption needed to reproduce labor power, it will also be true at the disaggregate level. < Why must that "also be true"? And what level of aggregation are we talking about? Since the VLP "contains a historical and moral element" and therefore differs not only historically but for each society, the aggregate that you refer to above can not be the world capitalist economy but only an individual capitalist social formation. If that is the case, then how can different kinds of labor in different social formations be reduced to simple labor since "how much society needs" varies by country? In other words, you (re-stating Brody) begin by assuming that, at any moment in time, there is one VLP which can then be disaggregated. What happens, though, when there are many V[s]LP [values of labour power] in the world economy? On a related note, I find Brody's general claim regarding models -- following Leontief -- about "how similar static and dynamic, open and closed models are" (Andras Brody _Proportions, prices and planning_, North-Holland, 970, p. l59) to be highly problematic. Even more problematic, though, is assuming that the VLP (and V[s]LP) can be expressed in a very similar way in static vs. dynamic and open vs. closed models (I suspect that some concepts of equilibrium and linearity, a la Leontief and von Neumann, have to be smuggled in to bring about such results.) Yet is it legitimate to conceive of value (and the V[s]LP specifically) in the contemporary world capitalist economy as some sort of linear equilibrium process? In solidarity, Jerry
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