Re: [OPE-L] James Furner's paper in Historical Materialism

From: Philip Dunn (pscumnud@DIRCON.CO.UK)
Date: Wed Mar 02 2005 - 07:31:06 EST 

It looks like the phrase 'valeur intrinseque' is from Cantillon's Essay: 

http://www.taieb.net/auteurs/Cantillon/essai1c.html

... cependant dans cet essai je me suis toujours servi du terme de valeur
intrinseque, pour fixer la quantité de terre & du travail qui entre dans la
production des choses...


Quoting "Hans G. Ehrbar" <ehrbar@LISTS.ECON.UTAH.EDU>:

<SNIP>
> This is the passage I want to comment on in my present
> email.  First of all, James is the victim of a terribly
> misleading translation here.  Marx writes:
> 
> > Der Tauschwert scheint daher etwas Zufaelliges und rein
> > Relatives, ein der Ware innerlicher, immanenter Tauschwert
> > (valeur intrinseque) also eine contradictio in adjecto.
> 
> One could translate this as follows:
> 
> > Hence exchange-value seems to be something accidental and
> > purely relative.  A ``valeur intrinseque,'' i.e., an
> > exchange-value that resides in and is inherent to
> > commodities, seems therefore a contradiction in terms.
> 
> Nowhere does Marx talk here about an intrinsic value.  He is
> talking about an intrinsic exchange-value, and the French
> quote "valeur intrinseque" is somebody else's term (it is
> not clear whose) for what Marx himself would call "intrinsic
> exchange-value".  Marx has not yet introduced the concept of
> value at this point.
> 
<SNIP>
Philip Dunn

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