Hi Rakesh, Thanks for your interesting post on OPE-L on the law of value and Weeks. I think though that Weeks, who argues the law of value can only exist in the capitalist mode of production, not before, doesn't explain how the law of value comes into being in the first place, and doesn't allow for the possibility that the law of value may assert itself in more primitive forms where exchange is regulated by labour expenditures (cf. e.g. Thomas Sekine's essay "The necessity of the law of value" in Science and Society). Weeks' main point seems to be, that the law of value can only operate under generalised commodity production, i.e. capitalism, i.e. through competitive pressures, the mobility of capital and the tendential equalisation of the profit rate. Weeks wants to reduce the law of value to an objective impersonal force asserted through a universal market. But might it not be argued that in precapitalist society, where you have simple commodity production as a "sector", the law of value also asserts itself, be it in a more undeveloped form, as the determination of market values by socially necessary labour time, where adjustments to the market occur through the mobility of the labour force and of instruments of production (similar to Morishima and Catephores) and through some "imperfect competition" (Meek) ? I am not saying that Engels's historical argument is necessarily correct (he places a lot of weight on the ever increasing sophistication of commodity trade, and less emphasis on extra-economic factors such as expropriation), nor am I arguing for the historical existence of a society of simple commodity producers - but Engels does have the merit of trying to describe better the process of how it comes about that the law of value can come to dominate the whole economy of a society, i.e. the law of value doesn't just fall out of the air. I think this debate is important, because presumably a socialist society would wish to reduce the operation of the law of value more and more, and institute other principles of economic regulation more consistent with basic human and socialist values (as Weeks himself argues). So, simply put, we need to understand how the law of value comes into being, in order to know how to get rid of it. Seems to me the law of value still operated in Soviet-type societies (since they still had a commodity producing sector and were under the pressure of the world market to an extent) but it was no longer dominant there (it no longer "ruled" or was the dominant regulative mechanism). Regards Jurriaan
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