From: Christopher Arthur (cjarthur@waitrose.com)
Date: Thu Oct 10 2002 - 08:23:41 EDT
Fred writes: >Riccardo, thanks for your reply. > >My description of your interpretation as a "two-stage" theory had to do >specifically with the determination of the total surplus-value. Perhaps I >should not use for now the terms "hypothetical" and "actual" (it would >take some work to explain exactly what I mean by these terms). So fow now >I will just use the terms "Volume 1 total surplus-value" and "Volume 3 >total surplus-value". I think my description of your interpretation as a >"two-stage" theory of the "Volume 3 total surplus-value" still applies. > I am glad, Fred, you drop that terminology because it does not apply to Riccardo's specific take on the issues. I agree with Riccardo that the unfinished state of V III means we are at liberty to interpret (in particular Marx never completed the thought he began when he said in real periods of production the input would be production price). We are also at liberty to improve. One problem here is the word "production"; Fred's interpretation is most strongly supported in Marx by his continual reference to what is produced cannot be increased or diminished by its distribution. However value is not produced. What is produced are commodities. Value is the social measure of these commodities. Now if these commodities are mediating different social relations it makes sense to suppose there might be different ways to measure. I think it is not a question of two stages but of two perspectives. There is the class against class perspective where the real wage and the real surplus product are key givens, and a V1 measure of total SV is obtained. And there is the 'hostile brothers' perspective in which these givens are reevaluated for their purposes. The 'substance' is invariant but the social determination of its measure varies. The 'transformation' is the site of an objective "contradiction in actuality" rather than a technical move in determining prices and profits. Cheers Chris 17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England
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