From: Andrew Brown (A.Brown@LUBS.LEEDS.AC.UK)
Date: Tue Apr 26 2005 - 09:04:02 EDT
Hi Paul, Thanks for the response to Andrew Kliman. Re. 'creativity' and 'adaptability': I've come to the view that adaptability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for creativity, where we have productive creativity in mind (the creation of new material things). I certainly agree they are closely related. Re. 'visible features of the final product': My point here is simply that when one considers an object as an item of consumption (of utility), then it does not matter what produced the object, all that matters is what the object currently is. In other words, it is the current material structure of the object that constrains and enables the utility (usefulness) of the object. Only when we come to consider the object as an item that has been produced (indeed a product, and hence objectification, of labour) are we led to consider the process of its production. So there is nothing more to it than the distinction (within unity) between production and consumption. This is of significance to my qualitative argument because as soon as we think of the object as a product then qualitative considerations regarding the relative importance of labour in production (vis-a-vis electricity, and all other inputs) arise. It is of no direct significance to your quantitative argument, however. Many thanks, Andy -------------------------------------------- Paul wrote: Here is a response to Andrew that I am working on. I am with you with respect to what you call creativity I would call it adaptability or re-trainability. Why did the bourgeois class succeed in replacing horse-power with steam power, but not be able to completely replace workers by machines. It is not that they did not want to, but that as each task was mechanized, the working population has just been displaced into tasks that have not yet been mechanized. This did not happen with horses - except insofar as they were retained as a badge of class by the horse-riding landed gentry. Horses, whilst stronger than workers were not adaptable. To return to a previous thread, although a slave might legally be defined as instrumentum vocalis, their species being as a human made them educable and trainable and adaptable to any task that their social superiors could do. I don't get your focus on visible features of the final product though. Why does electricity not make a particular mark on the use value of a product - you have used an aluminium coke can I imagine? That aluminium metal bears the unmistakable mark of electricity. The issue is not whether an object has a visible or material mark on it, but what actually determines its exchange value. -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Andrew Brown Sent: 25 April 2005 14:52 To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Why aren't non-labourers sources of value? Hi Paul, You write: One can construct a consistent electrical theory of value, the problem is not its internal consistency, but that it is a shit theory when it comes to predictiong what actually happens to prices. When you look at real prices, only labour will cut it. I reply: This quantitative aspect that you mention does, in some sense, come into my argument on the LTV (though I'd never put it in terms of 'prediction' as you are very committed to doing). However, this quantitative argument first comes in when considering the commodity as a use value. Here we think of a commodity in terms of the material qualities that constrain and enable its uses. Thinking in these terms, there are 'candidates' for a theory of value such as height, weight and age which are universal to commodities (where the latter are restricted to material things). They are obviously not quantitatively related to price magnitude however, hence they can be excluded from consideration on grounds similar to the ones you go through above. 'Electricity' doesn't come into it here, because it does not leave any particular mark on the use value of the commodity. We have to consider the commodity as a product (rather than as a use value, an item of consumption) for us to consider electricity. But then the key qualitative point is that the labour input, rather than electricity input, is directly 'decided upon' by society: it is via (constrained) labour 'choice' that humanity influences the course of production and reproduction, hence influences the allocation of all other inputs such as electricity, at any point in time. This qualitative point requires us to recognise not just the universality but the also the creativity of labour (in my view - following Ilyenkov - the recognition of creativity takes us from Spinoza to Marx and Engels). The quantitative point you make is a separate point, though could be considered to be related to the qualitative one I make. Still, on the empirical side, Andrew Kliman seems to put up a reasonable response to your quants, in the latest CJE... (I can't work out who I agree with in that exchange!) Many thanks Andy
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