From: Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM
Date: Thu Feb 17 2005 - 13:09:16 EST
Hi Phil: > They are many use-value words in your post -- jobs, work, extraction of > work, intensity of labour, raw materials, gaps between physical output and > output sold, availabilty of machinery, the length of the working week, > desire, comsumption. Right. But, as you emphasized on Tuesday (2/15), "the role of use-value is very wide in Marx" -- a point I indicated already that I was in agreement with. The point is there there are both essential and non-essential connections that can be made between these topics and value. E.g. I consider the intensity of labor to be a constitutive element of value because it is shapes and changes SNLT. Similarly, work is a constitutive element of value because commodities are labor products. > As I recall (and I have nearly forgotten) I was talking about > potential and actual in the context of the value-form and the valorization > process. The actuality/potential dimension that you raised (in the same 2/15 post) was between labour-power and labour (remember the 2 X 2 table?). > I look at the valorization process and the useful labour process as > different processes. The valorization process is not a redescription or > quantification of > the useful labour process. The processes are related just as commodity and > use-value are related, as substance (formed matter) to matter. If your > conception is different, that gives scope for much confusion. > I do think you are applying the actuality/potentiality distinction > in a very loose everyday way. Of coure it is possible to distinguish > between potential employment and actual employment. But 'potential' here > seems to mean little more than 'possible' or 'maximum possible'. Perhaps I _was_ using the potential/actual distinction too loosely in an everyday sense. I was simply trying to make what I took to be a point that we could agree on: i.e. that the potential/actual dialectic is fundamental to the value relation and can be identified at many temporal moments in the valorization process. If we grasp this dialectic we can also see how the valorization process can not be understood as an equilibrium process -- a point I believe that we also agree on. I.e. by understanding this dynamic we can systematically identify the causes of likely 'disruptions' in the process of the reproduction of capital and thereby see that reproduction does not happen in a 'smooth' and predictable manner. I think the more likely cause for confusion is that we go tend to go about looking at questions somewhat differently. You might claim that your approach -- which often employs numerical illustrations and/or math -- is more focused. It probably is. In examining a question, I try to keep the entire subject in focus, rather than just focusing in on a narrower sub-question. The reason I prefer to do this is that it allows one to identify the interconnective forms of a subject and then attempt to put a question in the context of the larger subject. Call it a "holistic" approach if you like or call it just a difference in the way in which we attempt to problem solve. The above is in way intended as a criticism of your mode of problem-solving -- it works for you and many others. I don't try to avoid your questions nor do I think you are avoiding mine. It's just that our preferred form of problem-solving tends to be different. However, I can readily understand that it can sometimes result in frustration and our occasionally talking past one another. In solidarity, Jerry
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