From: Gil Skillman (gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 27 2002 - 16:11:48 EDT
Gary, you write, among other things, >What insights are these, that cannot be derivable from Sraffa's model? That >workers are exploited? Nope: I've got two eyes, and I read the papers >(Walmart, anyone?); I know workers are exploited and I don't need Marx's >labor >value analysis to see that. Sure, you can define exploitation as Marx did, >from which it follows that you can't measure it without his value categories; >but definitions are ultimately arbitrary, and there are other ways to define >exploitation. I'm curious as to how you'd propose defining exploitation without reference to embodied labor time; is it anything like Roemer's proposed generalization of Marx's notion, e.g.? Gil >Anyway, in the end, using such a value-loaded word as >"exploitation" to describe a social process cannot help but be ideological. I >don't doubt that there are contexts in which some interesting empirical >regularities can be exposed by looking at economic processes through the lens >of Marx's vlaue categories. But I don't see that these categories are >necessary to provide an understanding of the most fundamental >processes--those >relating to the determination of distribution, choice of technique, pace of >accumulation, etc. For these sorts of issues, Sraffa's framework is superior, >for all the reasons Steedman mentions. > >All the best, > >Gary
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