From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Thu May 08 2003 - 08:40:12 EDT
Michael E wrote on Thursday, May 08: > What I find strange, not to say eery, in such discussions of the labour > theory of value is that the question, What is valuable about labour?, is > not posed. What does it mean for something to have value, to be > valuable? What makes (wage-) labour 'valuable' (for capitalists) is its use-value -- namely, the capacity of labour to create value. I do not use the terms 'value' and 'valuable' synonymously. Objects can be valuable even if those objects are non-produced 'gifts of nature' or are not produced by wage-labour. Value refers to a more historically specific social relation. A corresponding distinction is that between value and wealth. > It is presumably no accident, that the notion of the "creation" of value > by labour necessarily arises, a Judaeo-Christian term. Furthermore, it > is only labour under a certain qualification that is said to "create" > value, namely, "socially necessary labour". The crucial conceptual > determination that value is a social relation thus is accorded the > linguistic (i.e. _logos_, logical) status of an _adverb_, not that of a > substantive (noun). This necessary quirk of language has ontological > significance perhaps for the ontological status of value? It is a consequence of the ontological commitment to explain the subject matter (capitalism) rather than develop, for instance, a theory for all societies. From that perspective, the commitment is to draw out the necessary social forms particular to the subject matter. It should not be a surprise that conceptions of value, rather than just social wealth, developed alongside modern society. > An ontological commitment can only mean a sensitivity to the question of > being embedded in these questions. The term "form" in value-form or form > of society must ring ontological bells, being as it is one of the > translations of the ontological terms _morphae_, _idea_, _logos_, all of > which on occasion are rendered in English as "form". Yes, "form" should ring bells. > What can we make of > the resonance of this heavyweight metaphysical carillon today with > regard to the question of bourgeois society, the society of burghers? Well, that's a good question: what is there about the intrinsic nature of capitalism that requires an analysis of its social forms? How do others on the list answer that question? In solidarity, Jerry
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