From: Ian Wright (wrighti@ACM.ORG)
Date: Wed Oct 19 2005 - 13:24:22 EDT
> Not really because I am arguing that value is not an intrinsic > property of commodities. To say that it is intrinsic to or inherent in > or dispositional of commodities in themselves, i.e. > outside the system of the relative and equivalent form relation, is > simply commodity fetishism. Yes, I agree, so my analogy with a brittle glass was a bit unhelpful. A useful object has dispositional exchange-value only because it is part of a system of generalised commodity production. But even if not exchanged, it has dispositional exchange-value. > I have argued however that it makes > sense to speak of abstract labor at least theoretically outside > of the value form social relation. For example the very argument > that abstract labor did not have practical validity in say a caste > society is already to assume homogeneous social labor for we > are looking at the barriers to its reallocation in the face of natural challenges > or social changes. Yes I also agree with you on this point, because I think that "abstract labour" is a real mechanism, its dispositional powers more fully realised in capitalism, but surely not wholly realised. I do not think that abstract labour is purely a socially constructed category, peculiar to capitalism. Best, -Ian.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Oct 20 2005 - 00:00:03 EDT