Re: measurement of abstract labor

From: cmgermer@UFPR.BR
Date: Wed Jul 21 2004 - 09:00:52 EDT


Rakesh wrote:

But if in so regulating credit and the supply of paper money Greenspan
succeeds in maintaining the "value" of the dollar as a determinate
quantity of a composite commodity, will he not have succeeded in giving
the dollar a value as the value of that composite commodity? I am not
saying that Greenspan is doing this but that he is being pushed to do
this. To maintain the dollar as nearest substitute for world money and the
attendant privileges to the US financial sector and the USG, Greenspan has
to build confidence that the "value" of the dollar--or rather its equality
in physical terms to a composite commodity--will not fall; that in turn
means he has to demonstrate that he will and can take the steps to do this
(this means that the US has to have the economic and political power to
influence other central banks). For example, why else would Greenspan have
raised rates with the marginal efficiency of capital remaining quite
depressed as indicated by the pile up of cash in corporate coffers. Isn't
this an indication that he is trying to preserve the commodity basis of
the dollar, the "value" of the dollar as a physical quantity of a
composite commodity? Of course he is going slow because some of the price
rise of oil may prove to be temporary, and the price of gold has not
risen.


Claus:
As I argued in a previous post, what Greenspan is using in your example is
not a composite commodity, but a price index based on a basket of
commodities. A composite commodity would be a commodity produced by using
as raw materials the three commodities you suggested previously in
constant proportions, which is however not what you are saying. As I
added, this would be a commodity like any other, hence it wouldn’t
introduce a new element into the problem. In the above paragraph I
provided an explanation of what you suggest Greenspan is doing, which, I
think, can be taken as a valid hypothesis based on Marx’s theory and
consistent with a number of previous historical situations. Wouldn’t you
agree with this?

Claus.


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