RE: [OPE] value-form theory redux

On Tue, 2009-03-17 at 22:38 +0000, Paul Cockshott wrote:
> What I am meaning is that Mises argued that without money there can be no comparison of
> economic alternatives, no rational economic calculation. Mises argued that against the
> possibility of socialist economy saying that a non monetary economy would descend into
> economic chaos because it would be unable to do economic calculation.
>
> If Marx actually believed what you said 'Money, as a measure of
> value, is the necessary form of appearance of the immanent measure of
> value, namely,labour time.' Then Marx's well known political support for communism would
> be incomprehensible. If he thought that value could only be measured in terms of money,
> why did he advocate a programme for communism in which money would be abolished and
> replaced by labour accounts?
>

The gulf here seems completely unbridgeable. When I quoted that sentence
from Marx, I automatically assumed it was intended to apply only to
capitalism and foolishly imagined that no-one would think otherwise.

Let me be a little autobiographical. I started working on value theory
in 1984. 16 years later I had hit the wall. I asked myself who I was
doing this for when, in fact, I had stopped doing anything.

As it happened I then came into contact with work others were doing. I
was initially quite resistant to it, but I tried to understand it rather
than dismissing it. Dogmatism is unavoidable when pursuing a research
project - the cost is high so one must be convinced one is right.
However, there can come a time when the difficult task of opening one's
mind to the thought of others is a "growth experience".

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Received on Wed Mar 18 17:01:44 2009