From: Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM
Date: Sun Feb 13 2005 - 09:56:29 EST
Hi Phil: For those who want to read something 'new', skip I. and scroll down to section II. I. Summary? > I do not conflate price with value. The embodied labour value of a > produced commodity is intrinsic to that commodity. The value of the > money that the commodity sells for is intrinsic to the money. They are > quite distinct, despite being equal. Well, I see your point (that's progress, I guess) but I don't agree with it. While I agree with what I take to be a major point of yours (the way I would put it is as follows: the value-form is a necessary form of appearance of value and the money-form is a necessary form of appearance of the value-form; hence value, use-value, exchange-value, and money are all "intrinsic" to the commodity-form). The disagreement (which I simply want to note for the sake of clarity; we don't have to discuss it now) is that I believe that value only equals the quantity of money that commodities sell for on average in the aggregate (with a caveat explained in the next section). OTOH, you wrote that "Value, as recognized by money, cannot fail to equal prices"; value and market prices "are equal. There is nothing to explain." While I don't want to get into a textual debate at this time on Marx's perspective, I think that a perspective that allows for divergences between value and market price (and various intermediary forms of price, including POP) allows us to better grasp price determination by specific firms in particular branches of production. But, we don't seem to agree on this point, so I guess we should move on to other issues. II. On sunspots and nature: I had asked: what commodity prices are caused to change by sunspots? Your reply "Probably most prices are affected but since sunspots affect weather agricultural prices would be most affected" is a reasonable proposition. Even so -- despite your later reference to a study on wheat prices in the US in the XX century -- I am not convinced. But, I have an open mind on this question so I am willing to be convinced. But, I don't think either one of us really want to discuss the economic influence of sunspots. However, I'm glad you raised the issue because it returns us to what seemed to be the point that Red Kronstandt was driving at in the message I amended to my 2/9 post (the one where RK was replying to Matt Forstater) which concerns the "material substratum ... which is furnished by Nature without the help of man." What RK seems to be getting at is the assertion that the LOV and orthodox theory both "ignore the contribution of Nature." Marx's answer to this, I believe, is that both labor and nature create wealth. That is, he makes a distinction between wealth (which, of course, tends to take the commodity-form under capitalism) and value. All well and good (I believe), but what percentage of the wealth of bourgeois society (and the wealth inherited from pre-capitalist modes of production) is a consequence of the contribution of nature? I don't think we have any way of determining that. However, an implication of the foregoing is that the *sum of values can not equal the sum of prices* (NB: I wrote prices rather than POP because certain sectors, e.g. natural monopolies, are excluded from the determination of POP and the general rate of profit) since the sum of prices should equal some amount *greater than* the sum of value because some portion of output which has exchange- value takes the form of wealth rather than representing value. How would you (and others on the list should they choose to reply) explain the "contribution of Nature" to the creation of wealth? What then are the macroeconomic implications? In solidarity, Jerry
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