From: Christopher Arthur (arthurcj@WAITROSE.COM)
Date: Tue Oct 04 2005 - 18:38:43 EDT
Jerry What I have in mind is two workers (or firms) producing exactly the same commodity but one worker operates more inefficiently than the other e.g. fetching and carrying materials as required instead of bringing them in one go. So we have the same commodity embodying different amounts of labour and hence having "different values". But the commodity is sold cet par at a social value determined by SNLT: hence via this common price value is "redistributed". It does not matter whether we consider individuals or firms. What you are thinking of is the case where technical innovation gives some capitalists a market edge for a while but the truth is some sell above value and some below so some make bigger profits than others; thus the shares of the total sales volume in money terms differs from what it would have been had all been equally productive: but there is no transfer of value because each gets exactly the value he created, the commodities all being sold at value albeit some firms produced more and some less in a given period. The numbers look the same as in the 'transfer of value' reading but conceptually it is very different. I do not think Marx himslef claims there is a transfer of value in such a case (as distinct from the production price problem) but he certainly uses the expression "individual value" which IMO makes no sense if V has a purely social reality determined by SNLT. Chris On 4 Oct 2005, at 13:30, Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM wrote: > > Such a reading tens towards an ahistorical concept of > > value, and necessarily involves the consequence that the inefficient > > worker produces more valuable commodities than the efficient one; > > and hence the formation of a social value determined by SNLT must > > mean a transfer of value. > > Hi Chris: > > Why, from the perspective that you are critiquing, would an inefficient > worker "necessarily" produce more valuable commodities than an > efficient one? > > Where it is claimed that there is a transfer of value, isn't the value > re-distributed from the least efficient capitals to the more efficient > ones? > Isn't the more "efficient" worker, to the extent that the efficiency > arises from an increase in the productivity of labour and the > production of relative surplus value, generally employed by the > more advanced capitalists? > > In solidarity, Jerry > > 17 Bristol Road Brighton BN2 1AP 17 Bristol Road Brighton BN2 1AP
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