From: Michael Perelman (michael@ECST.CSUCHICO.EDU)
Date: Wed Jun 13 2007 - 12:11:04 EDT
Paul, if you are talking about how to organize an economy you are right; as for value theory, I cannot see what you mean. On Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 10:12:24AM +0100, Paul Cockshott wrote: > Michael > ------- > > Marx says that commodities are commensurate in the market, but there is no way to > get behind the market to get a handle on the abstract labor measures. How many > hours of abstract labor does a surgeon represent. Can 20 or 50 unskilled labor > perform the same procedure? > > -------------- > Paul C > > I think Hilferdings approach does give a handle on this. > > Suppose the National Health Service wants to increase the output of knee operations, > and suppose ( unlike what happened a couple of years ago ) that it can not rely > upon bringing in Surgeons from other countries to do it. > > The knee operations require the input of surgical staff - not just the surgeon > but a whole team of personnel. The operations also involve materials - gas, > dressings, sterile instruments. To maintain all of this requires the expenditure > of past labour and present labour. The present labour is simply the time of > the team, the past labour involves the time to prepare the materials, plus > the time taken - over and above normal education - that the team have to spend > aquiring the skills. > > Thus manpower planning is required if the number of operations is to be > increased - new medical school buildings have to be opened up, additional > training staff hired etc. > > Currently all of this is costed in £ but this is just a historically specific > feature - because this directly social need is being met by the NHS within the > context of a capitalist economy. In a fully socialised economy one could calculate > it all in labour time not money - the labour time spent training, the labour time > required to build the medical schools etc. > > What one has to do is look at the total direct and indirect social time that has to > be allocated to ensure that the operations can take place. > > The idea that it is some special property of the labour of surgeons that creates > additional value is fetishism - a projection of this larger social division of labour > onto the activity of one individual. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
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