RE: [OPE] peanut butter value-form theory

> Oh, I get it - contaminated peanut butter. Sure, the crackers are in the
> dump, not on the market, so they are not commodities any longer. We can't
> measure their value any more than we can measure the value of any other
> items in the dump, because they have none.

 
 
Hi Paula:
 
 
The crackers didn't have value - after a certain point in time - *even
when they were on the market*. After it became known thru the media that they
were contaminated and represented a health risk, they did not represent value.
[NB: At that point, indeed, they could be said to represent 'negative value'
since they no longer had value but value had to be expended to eventually
dispose of them.]
 
 
So, let's follow the sequence:
1. money capital is used to purchase c and v.
2. production takes place.
3. the crackers are moved from the site of production (the plant in
GA) to the locations where they are made available for sale. This
transport of the product could be seen as a continuation of the
process of production in the sphere of circulation.
4. When the crackers are made available for sale (and even beforehand),
the firms which seek to sell them _presume_ that they represent value.
5. If the crackers sell, that the presumption of the capitalist has
been shown to be correct. If they don't sell because the product
now does not have a use-value, then those crackers do not represent
value - even though a proportion of the total amount of abstract labor
had been allocated in their production.
 
 
The equation that you suggested before assumed that the products had
a use value and hence would be commodities with value and exchange value.
But, for crackers to have value and therefore be equal in worth to
some amount of another commodity, the value which was assumed to
exist by the Cracker Capitalist must be socially validated by the market.
 
 
In solidarity, Jerry
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Received on Wed Mar 25 09:22:33 2009