From: Gerald A. Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Sep 17 2004 - 09:05:53 EDT
Hi Ajit. > In this case the law of value has even harder time to > work itself out. The exchange of commodities between > two communities in this case would be exchange of > exotic commodities and their exchange ratios would > reflect all kinds of subjective and contingent > factors. There is no reason to think that the two > communities will have decent idea of what kind of > labor and how much of labor goes into producing such > commodities. And, moreover, there was generally deliberate secrecy since communities and artisans had knowledge that they did not wish to share with 'outsiders': this was especially the case for producers who were skilled who jealously safeguarded their trade secrets and who, by virtue of custom and tradition, only passed this information on to selected others, e.g. fathers passing on trade secrets to sons who customarily would then become part of the same trade. They thus had a strong incentive not to disclose their individual labor times since such information could undermine their bargaining position on the market. In solidarity, Jerry
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