From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Jun 02 2006 - 16:59:17 EDT
I have read Ians paper and discussed it with him. It is certainly interesting but I am not yet convinced by it. It seems to play on a double entendre with respect to socially necessary labour time - one that Gerry echoes below. Ian treats capitalist consumption as being 'socially necessary' under conditions of capitalist production and hence argues that the labour embodied in capitalist consumption goods should count towards value in a similar way to constant capital. By this double entendre he apparently resolves the contradiction between value and prices of production. However, I am not convinced that this use of 'socially necessary' corresponds at all to that which Marx meant and as such I dont see that it resolves the transformation problem. He has redefined value using a different meaning of socially necessary labour, and as such has avoided the original contradiction. The question however as it first arose is whether there is a contradiction between the Ricardo/Marx account of labour value determination and the equalisation of profit rates. If one redefines value you can get round it, but I suspect that his new theory is just a relabeling of price of production theory - ie, it homomorphic to it. However, I think the real insights of his theory probably apply to the problems of socialist planning. -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L on behalf of glevy@PRATT.EDU Sent: Fri 6/2/2006 1:38 PM To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: [OPE-L] workers' consumption and capitalists' consumption > I would take the view that consumption by capitalists > or workers is destructive of value. The value of what > they consume does not get back into the process of > value production. Hi Phil, (I'll answer without reference to Sraffa.) The consumption of the value of commodities by workers does go back into the process of value production because it forms a necessary moment in the reproduction of labour-power and, hence, value reproduction. You see it as "destructive of value" but this is, imo, one-sided: it is true that consumption is destructive of value to the extent that the value and use-value of commodities are exhausted/destroyed, but that same consumption _reproduces_ value to the extend that it allows for the reproduction of the commodity labour-power and hence forms a pre-condition for continued value production. This contrasts, in a sense, to capitalist consumption. On the one hand, the individual consumption of surplus-value by capitalists diminishes the rate of the productive consumption of surplus-value and hence the accumulation of capital. But, on the other hand, capitalist consumption is required for the reproduction of the capitalist _class_ and in that sense forms a necessary requirement for _capitalist_ production. In solidarity, Jerry
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