Re: [OPE-L] Reclaiming Marx's "Capital": book launch talks, reviews, media coverage

From: Ian Hunt (ian.hunt@FLINDERS.EDU.AU)
Date: Sat Sep 01 2007 - 22:13:43 EDT


This is just too easy to mean anything to anyone who wants economic
theory to be scientific,
Cheers,
Ian

>On Wed, 2007-08-29 at 15:01 -0700, ajit sinha wrote:
>
>>  Then thinking economists will have to become
>>  non-thinking economists! Let's suppose I bought a
>>  Picaso painting 10 years ago for 1 million dollars and
>>  sell it today for 10 millions. Where did the surplus
>>  labor come into Picaso's painting that I was keepin in
>>  a locker in a bank? First tell me what, according to
>>  you, would be Marx's answer since I presume we are
>>  talking about Marx's concept of surplus labor. Then
>>  you could tell me what would be your answer if you
>>  disagree with Marx's answer. Cheers, ajit sinha
>>
>>
>Hi Ajit,
>
>Marx? Things can have a price but no value? A very dubious proposition
>IMHO.
>
>Me? Easy peasy.
>
>As one of the filthy idle rich who dabble in the art market you count as
>self-employed. The market has valued your productive labour (thirty
>minutes toil at the auctioneers to buy the Picasso and another thirty to
>sell it) at (the value of) 9 million dollars. If the value of money was
>a constant 0.1 hours per dollar, your socially necessary labour time was
>900,000 hours.
>
>It is difficult with the self-employed to split wages from profits.
>Taking a 50-50 split you have been earning an hourly wage rate of 4.5
>million dollars.
>
>Scott Fitzgerald once said "the rich are different from us". Hemingway
>should have replied "yes, they have better wages".
>
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--
Associate Professor Ian Hunt,
Dept  of Philosophy, School of Humanities,
Director, Centre for Applied Philosophy,
Flinders University of SA,
Humanities Building,
Bedford Park, SA, 5042,
Ph: (08) 8201 2054 Fax: (08) 8201 2784


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