From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Thu Jun 10 2004 - 08:08:38 EDT
--- Ian Wright <iwright@GMAIL.COM> wrote: > Hi Ajit > > > This is where your story ends, Ian! Once a > commodity > > "do(es) not require other commodities as inputs" > you > > are in a world of silver pickers on a beach. The > value > > theory does not get into any kind of problems > without > > conastant capital--no transformation problem, > nothing. > > The real bitch is the constant capital, which you > are > > assuming away. And without constant capital, you > > cannot think of capitalism. > > I am using a very simple case, for the sake of > brevity and clarity, to > think about the MELT, actually a special case of the > more general > equivalence relation that Krause develops. The > narrow point I wanted > to talk about was the construction and meaning of > the MELT and the > necessity (or otherwise) for money in the > measurement of abstract > labour. Why do you think constant capital is > essential to that > question, right at the very beginning? Should I > therefore assume that > you accept what I have written, but that it has no > significance due to > the simplifications? ------------------------- Ian, first of all, your case is not of a simple commodity production. Simple commodity production does have means of production that will create the same problem of adding concrete labors that I am talking about. In a case like you are proposing, I don't see what is the need for MELT. In any case, try to work it out with constant capital in the system, and see what problem do you get into. As I have said in my foot note 6 of 'Some Critical Reflections on Marx's Theory of Value', Westra and Zuege (eds.), Palgrave, 2003, "Marx's defines abstract labor as 'productive expenditure of human brains, muscles, nerves, hands, etc.' This definition of abstract labor differs from the earlier one we have encountered as definable only at the aggregate level as a pool of total level in the system. Faccarello (1998) has discovered four different definitions of abstract labor in Marx's writings. He argues that these definitions end up in contradictions. In my opinion, only the above definition of abstract labor is throughout consistent with Marx's theory." Cheers, ajit sinha __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Jun 11 2004 - 00:00:01 EDT