From: paul bullock (paulbullock@EBMS-LTD.CO.UK)
Date: Wed Sep 05 2007 - 08:34:58 EDT
Philip, Cost of goods sold (COGS), is what it is. If goods arn't sold they are retained as Finished stocks so part of current assets for the accountant, and his client, the capitalist. If these arn't sold then they will eventually written off, (they may be sold in desperation, written down), but even the bourgeoise recognises that no value can be raised from dumped products. So it always amazes me when I hear that value is value without sale, ie without taking on the form of money. Secondly, the price form can be 'irrational'. Marx refers to interest as such. An irrational price represents a sum of money anyone can spend on whatever they want, but that has no 'counterparty' in the socially necessary time of production of the product. Since 'picasso's ' are a luxury items - paid out of the surplus value stolen from the workers by the bourgeoisie for their own 'pleasure' - with no socially determined time of production, (ie they play no part in the fundamental/ economic reproduction of capitalism), the individual price paid can, IMO, be ragarded as 'irrational'. regards Paul Bullock ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip Dunn" <hyl0morph@YAHOO.CO.UK> To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 8:56 PM Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Reclaiming Marx's "Capital": book launch talks, reviews, media coverage > On Tue, 2007-09-04 at 10:18 +0100, Paul Cockshott wrote: >> Philip >> ------ >> >> Assets such as Picassos act as stores of value. How can they do that if >> they have no intrinsic value? Is the value which they store not labour >> value but some other sort of value? >> >> Paul C >> ------ >> I would say that these are speculative prices not determined by value. >> What is your view of the prices of shares for example? >> Is a rise in the price of shares due to the labour input of stock >> jobbers? >> Does the stock market put in negative amounts of labour on days >> when share prices fall? >> > In chapter 18 of CI Marx said that capital was command over unpaid > labour-time. So I would see the value of equities and bonds as the > intrinsic power to command a future stream of surplus value. I must > admit I do not know how to go on from there. > > I do not think it is due to the productive labour of stock jobbers. > > I do not see the value of shares as embodied labour value. > > I do not have a problem with negative socially necessary labour-time. If > the value of sales revenue is less than the value of the cost of these > sales then labour as measured by money is negative. > > Most of the time labour value added is positive but sometimes labour > activity destroys value and is negative. The limiting case is where > sales are zero and labour must destroy all the value of the constant > capital transferred. > > However, I suspect this conclusion is invalid. Value transfer seems to > me to be basically the same as what accountants call cost of goods sold. > The paradox is: if sales are zero how can the cost of goods sold be > other than zero. If no goods are sold how can there be a cost of these > non-existent goods sold? > > Anybody got a solution? I suspect I have not understood accruals based > accounting well enough. > > > > > > ____________________________________________________ > > Yahoo! Photos is now offering a quality print service from just 7p a > photo. http://uk.photos.yahoo.com >
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