Re: (OPE-L) Ajit's paper

From: Riccardo Bellofiore (riccardo.bellofiore@UNIBG.IT)
Date: Tue Jun 01 2004 - 13:08:22 EDT


About the MEL, I am satisfied with Foley.

My problem with the so-called NI is not with that magnitude, but with
the "postulate" (I provide an argument instead, based on my reading
of Volume I and my version of Marx's comparison between a situation
where living labour is necessary labour, and the lengthening of the
former), with it being only ex-post, and with a monetary view
bordering on the loanable fund appproach. But on accounting I agree
100%.

About abstract labour, of course it is in time (provided the
ante-validation, and the ex-post confirmation of demand). The time
accounting strictly depends on the monetary validation(s). But it is
in time. Hours of the same intensity, if you wish.

However, frankly, I do not think this has anything to do either with
operational accounting or with calculation in the usual meaning.

How many hours?In the aggregate, of course, they depend on the wage
and on the techniques. In my view, the basic model is with the real
wage of the working class as given by the capitalistv decisions (if
you wish, aggregate autonomous investment and capitalist consumption
by capitalists), say the subsistence set by class struggle; the
conflictual extraction of living labour, and the output sold. We may
calculate the embodied abstract labour time in necessary labour and
the embodied total labour time spent

The point is that here we take as given exactly the three (no: four
or five) things that are fluid in Marx reasoning:

1. the real wage
2. the length of the surplus labour time
3. demand

I should add intensity and absolute length of labour time. Once we do
this, and we go to the calculation, all the discussion about labour
exploitation vanishes, because as we know you can determinen prices
etc. without any recourse to labour.

But to read things in this way would be to remain at Ricardo before
Marx (see the criticism of Marx versus Ricardo in TSV). The LTV is
essential in the constitution of what is given in Sraffa: methods of
production (then, indirectly, in price theory too). May be he (PS)
almost get there.

rb

ps: I disappear for some days (conference of historians of economic thought).



At 5:03 -0700 1-06-2004, ajit sinha wrote:
>--- Riccardo Bellofiore <riccardo.bellofiore@UNIBG.IT>
>wrote:
>>  At 3:21 -0700 1-06-2004, ajit sinha wrote:
>>
>>  >______________________
>>  >How do you measure labor in terms of $? The unit of
>>  >labor is time. So we need to know how is labor
>>  >measured in terms of time.
>>
>>  You have money wages, employment, expected
>>  extraction of living
>>  labour, expected money sales. If expectaction are
>>  fulfilled both in
>>  the capitalist labour process and on the commodity
>>  market, I guess we
>>  have abstract (living) labour time which will be
>>  confirmed by the
>>  market.
>___________________
>So will that "abstract (living) labour" be in terms of
>hours? And after the market has confirmed, how do we
>know how many hours are they?
>______________________
>>
>>
>>  >
>>  >Can you tell me what mLL and mPP stand for? Cheers,
>>  >ajit sinha
>>
>>  LL living labour
>>  m monetary expression of labour time
>>  MP means of production
>>  p prices of MP
>____________________
>How do you get " monetary expression of labour time"?
>Cheers, ajit sinha
>>
>>  riccardo
>>  --
>>
>>  Riccardo Bellofiore
>>  Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche
>>  "Hyman P. Minsky"
>>  Universitý di Bergamo
>>  Via dei Caniana 2
>>  I-24127 Bergamo, Italy
>>  e-mail:   riccardo.bellofiore@unibg.it
>>  direct    +39-035-2052545
>>  secretary +39-035 2052501
>>  fax:      +39 035 2052549
>>  homepage:
>http://wwwesterni.unibg.it/dse/homepage/bellofiore.htm
>
>
>
>
>
>__________________________________
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--

Riccardo Bellofiore
Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche
"Hyman P. Minsky"
Universitŕ di Bergamo
Via dei Caniana 2
I-24127 Bergamo, Italy
e-mail:   riccardo.bellofiore@unibg.it
direct    +39-035-2052545
secretary +39-035 2052501
fax:      +39 035 2052549
homepage: http://wwwesterni.unibg.it/dse/homepage/bellofiore.htm


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