From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Fri Nov 02 2007 - 07:07:21 EDT
--- Paul Cockshott <wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK> wrote: > Marx hints at a "conservation law", insofar as he > argues e.g. that if a set of newly produced > commodities are sold below their value, this must > mean that another set of commodities is sold above > their value, in the same proportion. But I am not > really sure whether this should be interpreted as a > theoretical assumption, or as an accurate > description of empirical reality. I would think it > is more a theorem which is almost impossible to > prove empirically for the economy as a whole. > > Marx does not prove it, but he certainly believes it > to be true. > > I think it should be provable for a barter economy, > and thus for one involving gold money. Basically one > knows that the amount of labour embodied in goods is > fixed prior to the exchange process. Every exchange > of two commodities must occur either at par, or with > one selling for above its value and one below. ____________________ I have two questions about this idea of "conservation of labor": (1) We all know that labor is heterogenous. Marx homonegizes it by multiplying them by wage differentials. Thus unless you have a theory based on the conservation principle itself which says that wage differentials must reflect differentials in the labor-energy expenditures, your measure of labor-values have no "physical" standing. (2) Let's suppose that labor is homogeneous. Even then it is not clear what the labor-values of constant capital measures and why it should be conserved? Marx's argument of conservation of labor (assuming homogeneous labor) works okay if we assume that total capital is only variable capital. Marx seems to have made this simplifying assumption (even though he criticizes Ricardo for doing so) during his argument about allocation of total labor (i.e. 'law of value'). But the argument no longer holds when constant capital is introduced. Marx thought that he had solved the problem with his rate of profit formula [S/(C+V)], that's why he insisted that after transformation the total values must be equal to total prices of production (i.e., that the conservation principle holds). But this rate of profit is itself dependent on the assumption that the conservation principle holds. So the argument seems to go in a circle. Cheers, ajit sinha __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
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