From: Allin Cottrell (cottrell@wfu.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 19 2004 - 20:00:01 EST
On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > Value is measured in dollars. The question is what determines the > value of the dollar. If your first sentence here is true, the answer to the question in the second is that the value of the dollar = 1, by definition. In marxist parlance, value is generally measured in hours of socially necessary labour time. Price is 'measured' (more properly, 'expressed') in dollars (or whatever national currency unit) and the price of the dollar is indeed identically 1.0, unless we're talking about the currency exchanges. If the real question is 'What determines the amount of socially neccesary labour time, embodied in commodities, that is commanded in exchange by 1 dollar?', then there is no simple answer: it depends on the policies of the Fed and the US fiscal authorities as well as trends in the productivity of social labour. Allin.
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