From: Howard Engelskirchen (howarde@TWCNY.RR.COM)
Date: Wed Jun 02 2004 - 06:57:52 EDT
Hi Paul, You write, > *Poverty of Philosophy* argues that economic categories correspond to the social base, arise from the social relations of production, and are not a-historical as bourgeois economists would wish. The social relations of production in slavery are different from capitalism. You are saying that ex poste (viewed in hindsight) we can apply the concept of value for exchange transactions in ancient Greece, no matter that Aristotle himself was limited by living in a slave mode of production, because we have now experienced the rise of capitalism. Can you reconcile your position with *Poverty of Philosophy*? _______________ Was water H20 in Ancient Greece? We are talking about continuity of scientific reference. In Poverty of Philosophy Marx says that economic categories are the theoretical expression of the social relations of production , that they are the theoretical expression of the historical movement of production relations and if we want to know why a particular principle was manifested (or not) at a particular point in time we have to analyze the productive life of people at that point in time. We do not want to treat modes of production as monotone. There needs to be room for an articulation of distinct and contradictory social forms within a given mode of production. The commodity form existed in ancient greece but was certainly not dominant. It influenced Aristotle enough to shape his ideas on justice, but not enough for him get to the bottom of it. The distinction depends on the analysis of the social base. Hindsight is exactly what is involved in saying the anatomy of a man is the key to the anatomy of an ape and there is nothing ahistorical in treating the evolution of understanding in this way. ________________ > I noted that you did not react to my note suggesting using value for M-C-M', but not for C-M-C. I was making the point that C-M-C is the concept relevant, by and large, for ancient Greek transactions. ______________ I'm sorry I missed this. Perhaps you can explain a little more fully. M-C-M' is the general formula for capital, not value. Do you collapse these two distinct forms of social relations? _______________ > To be frank, I still do not understand 'value' fully. In my classes I sometimes made it analogous to the theory of gravitation pull (you cannot see, feel, smell, or touch gravitation pull but it has proven extremely useful). And, a la Althusser, I could understand gravitation pull as a produced concept. Why not value as a produced concept. But I think this is far away from what you are arguing and perhaps is not consistent with Marx's own formulations on value. Marx seems to be arguing that the very fact that commodities exchange with a certain regularity suggests a 'third' something behind commodiities, namely, value. Maybe. But is this a physical property? or a produced concept? If it is a physical property, why would it 'disappear' if the use-value is consumed, not exchanged? ______________ When you drop a stone, what pulls it to earth? A physical property? or a produced concept? The concept is a theoretical expression of your understanding of a physical power. Your concepts for that power are likely to evolve over time, reflecting constraints of the social base, mistakes (e.g. confused observations, ie errors of practice), etc. Phlogiston turns out not to have referred at all, but, so far as we now understand, the the concept of a 'luminiferous ether' did, though the concept was an inadequate expression of the power to which it referred. I think reducing value to a 'third' behind commodities, while a significant part of theoretical analysis, if proposed as a definition of value offers an inadequate grasp of the power to which it refers. Howard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Zarembka" <zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU> To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 11:47 PM Subject: Re: [OPE-L] on money > Howard Engelskirchen <howarde@TWCNY.RR.COM> said, on 06/01/04: > > >... So let me turn to the helpful quote > >from Notebook VII copied in your post below (Grundrisse 776, v. 29 159). > > >In the passage Marx refers to value as abstract in two ways -- on the one > >hand, as a real entity in the world value 'appears' abstract because it is > >non-empirical; on the other hand, as a category of economic science it is > >conceptually abstract in the ordinary sense. We want to distinguish the > >theoretical concept from the historical foundations to which it refers. > >It took modern economic science to generate the scientific concept of > >value and that concept does not appear in antiquity. But the social > >relation of value did. Not only was there pearl swallowing, but the > >discussion of Aristotle in the section on Equivalent Form in Chapter 1 of > >Capital seems pretty decisive. > > Howard, > > I rather anticipated this direction of argumentation, but paused to be sure we are on the same page. Given that we are, let move a step more: > > *Poverty of Philosophy* argues that economic categories correspond to the social base, arise from the social relations of production, and are not a-historical as bourgeois economists would wish. The social relations of production in slavery are different from capitalism. You are saying that ex poste (viewed in hindsight) we can apply the concept of value for exchange transactions in ancient Greece, no matter that Aristotle himself was limited by living in a slave mode of production, because we have now experienced the rise of capitalism. Can you reconcile your position with *Poverty of Philosophy*? > > I noted that you did not react to my note suggesting using value for M-C-M', but not for C-M-C. I was making the point that C-M-C is the concept relevant, by and large, for ancient Greek transactions. > > To be frank, I still do not understand 'value' fully. In my classes I sometimes made it analogous to the theory of gravitation pull (you cannot see, feel, smell, or touch gravitation pull but it has proven extremely useful). And, a la Althusser, I could understand gravitation pull as a produced concept. Why not value as a produced concept. But I think this is far away from what you are arguing and perhaps is not consistent with Marx's own formulations on value. Marx seems to be arguing that the very fact that commodities exchange with a certain regularity suggests a 'third' something behind commodiities, namely, value. Maybe. But is this a physical property? or a produced concept? If it is a physical property, why would it 'disappear' if the use-value is consumed, not exchanged? > > Maybe I'm just offering my own ignorance on a platter. > > Paul Z. > > ************************************************************************* > Vol.21-Neoliberalism in Crisis, Accumulation, and Rosa Luxemburg's Legacy > RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Zarembka/Soederberg, eds, Elsevier Science > ********************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
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