From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Tue Dec 02 2003 - 19:34:32 EST
Phil wrote: > It is worth pointing out the difference equal exchange makes. With > equal exchange it is impossible for the "value of labor-power" to > fall below or rise above the value of money wages. Right. All the more reason why the assumption of equal exchange has to be modified at a later stage in the presentation. > In the "New > Interpretation" the value of labor-power is equal to nominal wages > times the absolute value of money. I would modify this to say that > the labor-power value of the producer commodity is equal to nominal > wages times the real value of money but that is not the issue here: > there is equal exchange anyway. Further, in the non-dualist strand, > the value of constant capital is equal to the dollars paid for it > divided by the MELT or multiplied by the value of money: equal > exchange again. > One further step. Treat commodity capital in the same way as > constant capital: take the value of commodity capital as equal to the > dollars it sells for times the value of money. > Now the universal equivalent is fully reinstated. Is it fully re-stated in the analysis of competition? Marx explicitly indicates that the subject of a reduction of wages below their value (which you recognize is impossible with equal exchange) "has its place in an account of competition, which is not dealt with in this book" (Volume III, Penguin ed., p. 342). Evidently, then in an account of competition the universal equivalent is _not fully_ reinstated. Yet, presumably the topic of competition is essential to our comprehension of the subject of capitalism, no? In solidarity, Jerry
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