From: Andrew Brown (A.Brown@LUBS.LEEDS.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Feb 10 2006 - 06:47:11 EST
Hi Paul, As you say, there are other scalars that exercise constraints... thousands of them. The point is they cannot be *meaningfully* or 'rationally' or 'really' combined into a *single* scalar [though they of course can be formally, as you do for your empirical work]. They constitute a large matrix. Labour input is different in part because of the first reason you mention (it inputs into all production processes) but fundamentally because it is the sole determinant of the available production time to a society. The total available labour time to a society, for any given time period, is the sole determinant of the total available production time that the society has to allocate in that period. This is a general time cost and is a scalar. One way I have put this is that available production time cost is a general cost, a general aspect of all other costs. All these other costs are particular and individual costs (oil cost, steel cost etc.) Many thanks Andy -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Cockshott Sent: 10 February 2006 09:46 To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [OPE-L] price of production/supply price/value Andrew > >Now, we know what is and what is not necessarily related to feasible >reproduction proportions by scrutinising them. (To comprehend an object >requires comprehension of its necessary relations). And on scrutinising >them, there is only one scalar to which they are necessarily related, >viz. SNLT. The extent to which Sraffian prices are related with feasible >reproduction proportions can only be determined by this prior scrutiny >of such proportions. If *no* scalar is necessarily related to feasible >reproduction proportions then price (a scalar) cannot be either. If >there is such a scalar (and there is one such, viz. SNLT), and this >scalar is not identical with price (which it is not) then this scalar >*must* tether price. (This tethering is dynamic and invisible to the >static Sraffian calculation). Otherwise the thing that continually >causes feasible reproduction proportions (price) is self-contradictorily >going to have no necessary relation to feasible reproduction >proportions. > > There are of course other scalars that also exercise constraints on social reproduction : electricity values, oil values etc. However the constraints exerted by these are much weaker than those exerted by labour for two reasons: 1) Labour enters directly into the production of everything, which is not necessarily true of other inputs 2) Electricity and oil etc are not social actors, they do not represent social classes struggling over the share of the output. -- Paul Cockshott Dept Computing Science University of Glasgow 0141 330 3125
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Feb 15 2006 - 00:00:02 EST