[OPE-L:7066] Re: the "stuff" of value and surplus value

From: nicola taylor (n.taylor@student.murdoch.edu.au)
Date: Thu Apr 25 2002 - 07:18:17 EDT


I much agree with Jerry [7064].  Value is a social relation, not a thing,
definitely not "stuff".  The conceptual problem that I mentioned just a
moment ago in my reply to Ian [7065] has to do exactly with the problem of
specifying what value is (in process, forms of value), what surplus value
is, and what these are not.  

Imo, I don't see how the different (and difficult) question of how to
theorise the real world interface between value relations (capital-wage
labour relations) and non-value relations (slave labour) can be fruitfully
approached if participants to a discussion have no agreement on these
conceptual basics.

Nicky

---------  

At 07:11  25/04/02 -0400, you wrote:
>     [7062]:   Dear Ian:   In [6099] you claimed that viewing value and 
>[the redistribution of] surplus value as "stuff" is           and surplus
>value are represented      (broadly interpreted to      "stuff" are not
>themselves  value and surplus   is because value  and     fundamentally,
>*specific  social relations*.      a nutshell, is why I disagree  with your
>"most  abstract   categories    express *specific* social     
>trans-historically such   they can apply wherever and whenever there are
>products  which are produced in order to have exchange value    This 
>strikes me as suggesting that "stuff" which comes to have a  use-value and
>an exchange-value must have a "substance"  called  -- regardless of the 
>presence or absence    ruling class and the   Yet, you rightly claimed 
>that a "stuff"  conception   clearly a conception that   fact that
>'commodities' are produced without  specifying the social relations
>characteristic of that commodity  production   pure "stuff" theory of
>value.   It is the *specific social relations* that  distinguish one form  
> The specific and necessary condition for the surplus product to come  to  
>relation between the      In solidarity, Jerry   PS: the above represents a
>reply to Rakesh's [7063]  as well.   
-----------------------
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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