re 7486 Dear Paul B, In response to your and Jurriaan's comments, I shall make only a few brief comments. 1. Weeks does indicate how the law of value could have come to regulate exchange. He charts out an evolution from a law of subsistence to a partial law of value (based on the monetization of the means of production only) to a full law of value (based on the additional monetization of the means of subsistence as a result of the commodification of labor power). I think Jurriaan is wrong to intimate that Weeks has the law of value drop out of thin air. OPE-L member Murray E.G. Smith has a similar criticism of Weeks if I remember correctly, and I think I do not follow Murray here. It would be great to hear from him, though. 2. I don't agree that the law of value would have regulated exchange between the deer and beaver hunter in the Smithean parable or among petty commodity producers. I shall not give my reasons for this, which would include some combination of Weeks' as well as Heilbroner's. I can't find the short collection of Heilbroner's essays in which his comments on the theory of value appear. Sorry no cite. 3. I accept Weeks' critique of Stalin's views on the law of value, and found myself sympathetic to Moishe Postone's critique of what he calls the Dobb-Sweezy-Meek interpretation of the law of value. For me, Marx's theory is independent of and in contradiction to Bolshevik interpretations. Yours, Rakesh >To Jurriaan Bendien and Rakesh, > >just to my tuppence worth in....... I would go further than Jurriaan >and have argued similar privately with eg Fred. > >Clearly a full social system of simple commodity producers did not >exist, nevertheless within various sorts of previous natural >economies, exchanges, often extensive, took place over which tough >bargaining took place between the direct producers, corresponding to >the estimated local socially necessary labour time contained in >them. This valuation was relative, itself changing with social and >natural conditions. Engels is quite right to refer to the drawn out >negotiations typical in such circumstances. > >The idea that the social value of a product is a reflection of the >usually required expenditure of labour and not another arbitrary >rule is simple enough. All marx was doing was to show how this was >true in a mature capitalist society, ie a class society which had >of course developed precisely because a systematic process of >accumulation had been made possible. ie by one class fighting to >entirely appropriate every thing bar the immediate life of the >other class. This last process is an historical issue. The 15th >century and later 'enclosure' process simply accelerated the >existence of free labour which was already developing in 13th >century England. One cannot separate the social categories Marx >identified from their own development. Marxism is not a static >'formalism'. This the remaining wilderness continues to be >increasingly subject to capitalist regulation, peasants continued to >be converted into one or other of the two main classes, >commodification continues to extend itself through experimentation >every day...to an extent that still seems even absurd - (thus the >regret with which financial advisors have noted that the 'frosby >flop.' was not patented! ) > >This process will continue until it is stopped, or brings so many of >us towards hell that enough say no to stop it. Marx showed how this >would happen as a necessary result of the particular organisation >(by capital ) of the 'law of value', a law that works itself out by >finally limiting, choking, that sort of 'organisation'. > >As far as Juriaan's latter remark on the Soviet type society, what >about reflecting on Stalin's ''Law of Value under Socialism''? Or is >this even more touchy a topic than the evasiveness with which Lenin >is commonly treated ? > > >Cheers > >paul bl. >
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