From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Sat Apr 16 2005 - 03:01:34 EDT
I have not been able to follow this thread but since it appears to be related to my discussion with Andrew on the Standard commodity, I'm tempted to put my two cents again. The question appears to be intriguing but at the same time a symptom of the misunderstanding of the whole issue by present day Marxist value theorists. To be able to ask this question, "Why aren't non-labourers sources of value?", one needs to know or have an agreement on "what is value"? Now the present day Marxist value theorists, leaving aside their differences about how to measure value, claim that "value" is a definitional category, i.e., it is simply defined as "abstract socially necessary labor time" represented by A commodity, where "abstract" and "socially necessary labor" are measured in one way or the other. Thus in this case, the question is meaningless, since value is simply defined as labor-time and nothing else. The concept may be meaningful or meaningless depending upon its position in a coherent theoretical structure that explains some phenomenon or phenomena. Thus in this context, what needs to be done is to show how this definitional category helps in explaining certain phenomena—a line of inquiry that “the defense of the Marxist value theory” has failed to take. Now, the question presupposes that "value" is some sort of an objective entity that has a source or a cause. In this case it is paramount to establish what this objective entity is. However, instead of doing that the discussions invariably reverts back to what is the correct definition of value, which turns the question meaningless in the first place. Hence the unending discussion and all the confusion! Cheers, ajit sinha __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides! http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide
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