From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Thu May 01 2003 - 07:37:43 EDT
Paul C wrote on Wednesday, April 30:
> What I am asking the value form people is this:
> if it is sale for money that validates value what validates money
> We know that the value of money changes over time but if we
> conceed this, then money can not be the measure of value,
> value must have a prior existence for us to be able to say that
> the value of money has fallen.
> If that is the case, how can we assign money priority in validating
> and measuring value?
List members Geert and Mike W, within the context of a systematic
dialectical reconstruction in thought of capitalism, conceptualized
inflation "as an increase in the money expression of labour, m"
which "requires in addition an upward move in prices relative to
labour-productivity change" (_Value-Form and the State: The
Tendencies of Accumulation and the Determination of Economic
Policy in Capitalist Society_, p. 148; also see rest of Ch. 5,
Section 3). On a more basic level -- which is what you are most
concerned about -- their answer is given in Chapter Two, Section
2 ("The Credit System: Reproduction of Money and Money
Capital"; Ibid, pp. 81-89 ), especially sub-sections 9 ("The social
expression of private pre-validation"; Ibid, pp. 84-86) and 10 ("The
Central Bank and pseudo-social validation: the fully developed credit
system"; Ibid, pp. 86-89). A more formal, mathematical treatment is
given on p. 96 in the sub-section on "The money expression of labour
and abstract labour."
Maybe Geert and/or Mike W would like to offer a more succinct or
developed answer to your questions? In any event, they would no
doubt be the first to add that they offer _a_ value-form answer to the
questions you asked rather than _the_ value-form answer. So, I have
no idea of how others like Chris, Tony, and Nicky (or someone
sympathetic to some value-form conceptualizations like Phil) view this
issue.
In solidarity, Jerry
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