[OPE-L:7518] Yaffe on gold

From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@stanford.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 16 2002 - 14:22:31 EDT


David Y may not want to return to this question as he seems to have 
been at work on an analysis of contemporary capitalism.

http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/marxism/articles/


Value & Price in Marx's Capital From Revolutionary Communist No. 1 
(Second Edition) May 1976. by David Yaffe


It is incorrect to treat gold, as the money commodity, exactly in the 
same way as luxury products, although they share important features 
in common. However, gold, as the money commodity, does not have a 
price of production, while luxury products do. Further, competition 
does not affect the gold industry in the same way as for luxury 
products - it has a certain independence. Gold producers, in
  producing the money commodity, have a social monopoly. It is the 
only commodity which cannot be  over-produced. The moment it is 
produced it is already in exchangeable form. If we regard, with Marx, 
luxury products as being a sub-section of Department II (11b), gold, 
as the money commodity, would  require a separate department of its 
own.[60]


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