From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Sat Oct 19 2002 - 10:28:57 EDT
Chris wrote in [7840]: "In my opinion now snlt should be understood to reflect modal lt. The difference may not be great empirically but is huge conceptually. The average notion fits embodied LT theory like a glove. Every commodity sold has an individual value for which all LT counts and then social snlt is the average, and there is a transfer of value from the less efficient to the more efficient (see Carchedi for a typical reading). This means that the idea of unnecessary time really becomes trivial since the only case is unsold commodities. The time in all the sold ones counts for value en bloc. I am sure Marx originally thought of something stronger. If snlt is determined by modal lt, there are two cases. In old-established industries with a big tail of inefficient firms modal lt will be lower than average. This means that those less efficient firms that have sold commodities have unnecessary labour in them, so this is much stronger then the trivial case of unsold commodities. <snip, JL> ". You refer twice in the paragraph above to the "trivial" case of unsold commodities. Yet, you offered no reasons for why you believe this "case" (which in any dynamic theory typically and necessarily occurs for extended periods, indeed it is a manifestation -- a necessary form of appearance -- of the contractionary phase of the cycle) is "trivial". Why trivial, Chris? In solidarity, Jerry
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