[OPE] RE: ope Digest, Vol 10, Issue 5

Hello ope,
 
I also remember one episode when a (previously) wealthy individual is revived from long-term suspended animation. He demands access to his bank accounts. The crew are amused and inform him to his chagrin that differences in private wealth had been abolished centuries ago.
 
By the way anything which has been digitized (software, music, etc.) can be reproduced at a marginal cost approaching zero as well as at a labour cost approaching zero. Implementing Mandel's thought experiment is long overdue (at least in some areas).
 
Ratio rising.
 
Terry

Message: 7
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:52:53 -0500
From: David Laibman <dlaibman@scienceandsociety.com>
Subject: Re: [OPE] Star Trek and Labour Theory of Value.
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Message-ID: <490F2C65.5020406@scienceandsociety.com>
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We talked about this on OPE many years ago.

The starship Enterprise has "synthesizers." Captain Picard, e.g., says
"Earl Grey Tea -- hot." The computer hums, and -- voila -- there is
his cup of tea, ready for drinking.

I remember one unimaginative writer having the characters speak of
"synthesizer rations," and even trading these rations. Shame! But the
technology clearly implies unlimited power to synthesize -- in short,
labor content of goods = 0. Surely, the energy required to accomplish
this, compared to what it must take to run a starship at warp speeds,
must be negligible.

Ernest Mandel, in his *Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory*, used
this fantasy (not Star Trek; just in general) as an argument for the
labor theory of value. Clearly, where goods can be synthesized
infinitely at zero labor cost, they would not command other goods in
exchange. No labor, no exchange value. QED. Unfortunately, and
interestingly, this thought experiment does not distinguish between
labor and the other (perhaps the only other) candidate for a substance
of value: marginal utility. Without scarcity, MU is also = 0. This
seems to confirm what many have said: substantiation of the principle of
an intrinsic relation between labor and value (one definition, surely,
of the "law of value") cannot be accomplished within the frame of
economic categories alone. It is about social relations, and the
"proof" of that fact takes us beyond the normal range of epistemological
validity criteria (trains of reasoning with "QED: at the end).

Anyway, greetings to all Trekkies on the list! And herewith I improve
Jerry's ratio of participating OPE members.

David

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