(OPE-L) Re: science

From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Thu Oct 30 2003 - 08:09:01 EST


Rakesh quoted Marx:

> The product of mental labor--science--always stands far below its value,
> because the labor time needed to reproduce it has no relation at all to
> the  labor time required for its initial production. For example, a
> schoolboy can learn the binomial theorem in an hour."

If commodities on average are assumed to sell at their value and if
the 'products of mental labor' are sold below their value, then:

a) [excluding rent] what are the products that are sold above
their value?; and

b) will there be a tendency for those branches of production
that purchase the 'products of mental labor' as means of production
to also sell final commodities at prices below value?

What isn't mentioned by Marx above is the extent to which
the development of  science is very frequently a consequence
of  *state* employment. If the beneficiaries of that state
research are capitalists, then that could represent a de facto
state subsidy to private national capital which could help those
firms especially in *international* markets.

In solidarity, Jerry


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