Re: [OPE] "Parasitism"

Briefly returning to this.

Dave wrote:

> I note that you have a different perspective when you write "productive of
> *value*", which in my opinion is not only quite different from Marx and
> Smith but is unconvincing on its own basis because it rests on some
> vaguely stated criteria. That criteria is a mistake in my view because it
> rests on a *description* of the mystified form of appearance that material
> products assume when produced as commodities.

Dave, to remind you I did explain my criteria (under 'Services' thread) as
follows:

"The case follows from social wealth being created in the form of objects in
every human society, including capitalism. We don't count all 'material
effects' and all 'material activities' as produced wealth; we only count
products of human material activity that take an independent objective form.
A dance, for example, is a material activity with material effects, but does
not constitute wealth, since it's not separable from the dancer and/or the
spectator; while the dancer's shoes and attire do constitute wealth. (One
may argue that a dance constitutes some other kind of wealth, eg cultural or
spiritual wealth; but we are here only concerned with economic wealth).
Value is the form this material wealth takes under capitalism - when it is
produced for profit, not for its use-value - and abstract labor is the labor
that produces it."

The 'mystified form of appearance that material products assume when
produced as commodities' (commodity fetishism) then follows logically from
this.

> Marx (and partly Smith) had a concern of what is productive of *surplus
> value* not 'value' as such.

This is probably why our views differ; we are not talking about the same
thing. I am indeed concerned with value in general, and I think Marx was
also interested in this more fundamental category, otherwise he would not
have written about commodity fetishism.

Paula

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Received on Sun Feb 8 22:42:39 2009