From: Michael Eldred (artefact@t-online.de)
Date: Fri Mar 28 2003 - 05:51:16 EST
Cologne 28-Mar-2003 Re: [OPE-L:8677] Andrew Brown schrieb Thu, 27 Mar 2003 11:48:19 -0000: > re opel 8676 > > Hi, again, Michael, > > > Goods are exchanged only because they are useful and what one person > > lacks for a given usage can be obtained by exchanging something else > > useful for it. Thus it is "use" (_chreia_) which "holds everything > > together", not the manifold different concrete uses, but rather > > usefulness as general, abstract usefulness. Money provides a practical > > measure for this abstract usefulness which works in practice to > > mediate exchange practically. > > This is the crux of your position, it seems. It is wrong because > exchange abstracts from the quantity of use-value. In other words, > the 'abstract usefulness' to which you must be referring (that left > after abstraction in exchange) does not have the dimension of > quantity. This is the problem with neo-classical economics too > (neo-classical economics invents 'purely subjective' utility to try to > help but the notion is idealist nonsense). > > Andy Hi Andy, The wrongness or otherwise would have to depend on how the phenomena show themselves. In the present case we have the practice of generalized commodity exchange in which all the various different use-values are made equivalent to each other as exchange-values. That is the sense of exchanging use-values, that the one changes places with the other. The quality of abstractness is a practical one brought about by exchange and applies first of all to exchange-value. Secondarily, abstractedness is a quality of use-values 'caught up' in the practice of exchange. One use-value is as good as any other in the context of exchange practices. For exchange to happen it is of no importance that there be a uniform quantitative measure in the goods themselves -- precisely because they are different, and exchange would be pointless without them being different. Exchange considered as com-merce is a 'coming together of goods'. Only with the introduction of money as the practical mediator of exchange does a uniform measure of exchange-value arise, namely, price. (Price is the quantitative tiger that value has to ride.) Money is neither an 'objective' valuation nor a 'subjective' valuation. The ontological distinction between subject and object is a product of the metaphysics of the modern age and has become one of the standard traps for present-day thinking, including economic theory. Such a distinction plays no role in Aristotle's thinking-through of exchange, and rightly so, because both use-value and exchange-value are relational phenomena relating things and human practices, and thus neither 'objective' nor 'subjective'. Michael _-_-_-_-_-_-_- artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- made by art _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_-artefact@webcom.com _-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_- _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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