From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Sun Aug 19 2007 - 09:21:02 EDT
Our analysis has shown, that the form or expression of the value of a commodity originates in the nature of value, and not that value and its magnitude originate in the mode of their expression as exchange value. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a4 In all states of society, the labour time that it costs to produce the means of subsistence, must necessarily be an object of interest to mankind, though not of equal interest in different stages of development http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a4 It is one of the chief failings of classical economy that it has never succeeded, by means of its analysis of commodities, and, in particular, of their value, in discovering that form under which value becomes exchange value. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a4 In other words, the origin and essence of value according to Marx has nothing directly to do with economic exchange (trade) as such, but with the fact that the products are the products of human labour as such, and can be socially recognised in this way. It is just that economic exchange sharpens up, conventionalises and objectifies what that value is, to the point where value relations gained an independent existence. Again, this insight appears a trivial subtlety but it has a major effect on how you understand the so-called "transformation problem". For Marx, value and value relations exist regardless of price and price relations, because an economy of labour-time exists, regardless of price and price relations. Labour-time can be economised only on the basis that it has a value, but that value can exist irrespective of whether commodity-trade occurs or not. Jurriaan
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