Re: [OPE] Market socialism [the false assumption of the law of value]

alejandro_agafonow@yahoo.es

ZACHARIAH: «But Alejandro, a stochastic labour theory of value never makes the claim that market economies reach some set of "natural prices". You can't find that in Ian's paper either. Could you please point to a quote where such a claim is made, implicitly or explicitly?»

WRIGHT wrote following Marx that “[…] deviations of prices from values are social error signals that function to redistribute labour.” (pp. 18) This is not but the wrong thesis of labour values spinning prices. Wright’s paper is based on this assumption!

ZACHARIAH: «Whether the claims hold is a matter of empirical investigation.»

Of course, and the biggest mistake COTTRELL and COCKSHOTT commit is to support the whole literature of the transformation problem that allegedly empirically support the false idea that real markets equalize labour values and prices.

This literature is based in an analytical trick. It artificially fixes technological change in one temporal point; then assumes markets operate generalizing methods of production until this fixed point is reached, that mean nobody is able to obtain extraordinary proceeds. 

Voila! You have prices matching labour values. You have your so worthy natural or production prices.

ZACHARIAH: «Well, what does that mean other than: for a given commodity-type there *one* variable (labour value) that oscillates around another *single* variable (price)? I'm saying that this is conceptually wrong. There is no *single* price here. Our given commodity-type has is a *multitude* of prices that *vary much faster* than the single variable labour-value.»

My single price is not but an analytical simplification that doesn’t make any harm to the right understanding of real markets.

In a full institutional understanding, labour values spinning multiple prices! The important thing is that as far as prices are the channels through which labour is reallocated, finally have to emerge a core price that proved to be the right gravitation centre.

You can see this phenomenon as multiple prices organized in a sort of orbits, among which labour values spin in an outer space. False prices are the more external orbits and competition produces that some entrepreneurs reallocate labour time to false prices while a few entrepreneurs heat the right one, the core price in this orbital system. That is, prices are the sun and planets, but labour values are not but the natural satellites spinning planets that at once spin sun.

The problem is that this physical analogy so worthy by Marxists, tend to shadow the dynamical phenomenon of real market.

Kind regards,
A. Agafonow

----- Mensaje original ----
De: Dave Zachariah <davez@kth.se>
Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Enviado: jueves, 3 de julio, 2008 11:07:08
Asunto: Re: [OPE] Market socialism [the false assumption of the law of value]

Alejandro Agafonow wrote:
>
> ZACHARIAH: «If you have a planned economy with some sort of prices 
> there is no market mechanism by which they can gravitate around labour 
> values. This says nothing about whether the labour theory of value 
> holds as a scientific theory about market exchange.»
>
>  
>
> The false assumption here is that market mechanism cause the 
> gravitation of prices around labour values. For making a reply you 
> have to face the fact that market economies are never able to reach 
> “natural prices”.
>

But Alejandro, a stochastic labour theory of value never makes the claim 
that market economies reach some set of "natural prices". You can't find 
that in Ian's paper either. Could you please point to a quote where such 
a claim is made, implicitly or explicitly?

A stochastic LTV makes some claims about the existence and mechanisms 
upholding a distribution of ratios of labour-value to market prices for 
transactions across a market economy. Whether the claims hold is a 
matter of empirical investigation.

Tell me whether these are false assumptions:

  1. There is an immediate and local need for firms to meet their
      wage-bills.
  2. Capitalist economies have a high level of inter-industry integration.

It is through these premises that a stochastic "law of value" can emerge.

>  
>
> ZACHARIAH: «For a given commodity-type during a period of time its 
> labour value (singular) is fixed or slowly varying but there is a 
> multitude of market prices that vary over time and space.»
>
>  
>
> It seems to me that you are confusing labour as a substance forming 
> part of a single product and prices as an accounting phenomenon, being 
> able to get imputed to single products.
>
>  
>

What do you mean here? You wrote previously that 'labour value spins 
around price'. Well, what does that mean other than: for a given 
commodity-type there *one* variable (labour value) that oscillates 
around another *single* variable (price)?

I'm saying that this is conceptually wrong. There is no *single* price 
here. Our given commodity-type has is a *multitude* of prices that *vary 
much faster* than the single variable labour-value.

//Dave Z
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