From: Gerald Levy (jerry_levy@verizon.net)
Date: Tue Jul 15 2008 - 07:47:31 EDT
> Saying the wage is given for the theory of value does not mean that the > wage is fixed over time. Hi Robert: If a theory of value _requires_ a given wage, then the scope of that theory is so limited so as to have no practical applicability and necessary connection to the rest of one's theory. It's one thing to _assume_ a given wage, it's quite another to _require_ it. > When I suggested that if wages are above subsistence, the class > structure of capitalism will not be reproduced, I meant subsistence here > to include social norms about consumption; I am not referring to a > physiological minimum. Those social norms are themselves variables that can change over time. In any event, if the prospect of workers' savings is precluded by a theory, what does the _reality_ of workers' savings - and how that has _not_ in actual fact threatened the reproduction of class relations under capitalism - mean for the theory? It would seem to me that in attempting to shave too closely with Ockham's Razor, they have cut and disfigured their image of the face to the point where it's unclear who/what the real subject is. There is also the question raised above of how a theory faces up to the empirical/historical evidence. Assumptions, like razors, if improperly used, can be potentially lethal (to a theory and a life respectively). In solidarity, Jerry _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
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