Re: [OPE] peanut butter value-form theory

Cottrell.-   In order to let the ‘labour commanded’ by dodgy crackers be adjusted Cottrell, you would have to recover someway the labor time already crystallized in a useless commodity. This is impossible unless you have a time machine. The fact that the price of dodgy crackers is zero doesn’t mean that the labour they command is also zero. You expended labor time in the production of these useless crackers indeed. How can this labor just be zero? This is very real labor which became useless due to its waste.   As Engels wrote: ‘…by depreciating below their labour value those commodities which by their kind or amount are useless for immediate social requirements…’ competition brings production geared towards the objects required.   Technological change is just the way the disruption of the cost structure takes place. But this disruption is ultimately brought about by changes in consumer preferences which trigger entrepreneurs to experiment with new forms of production. So, 1) computers are much cheaper in real terms than they were 20 or 10 years ago and 2) air travel became much cheaper with the development of the high-bypass turbofan engine, because their relative scarcity have decreased. Computers became very much cheaper after the reduction of their scarcity, thanks to entrepreneur who foresaw their potential demand not yet realized.   If Consumers' preferences only played the role of determining the quantities of the various goods produced, the cost structure would not change and there were nothing to trigger technological change off. And here lies ultimately the ‘impossibility of the dynamic efficiency’ in your socialist model, which I pointed out in my dissertation. You and Cockshott only foresee preferences as playing the role of determining the quantities of the various goods produced, but you don’t have satisfactory mechanisms to foster technological change in response to the change of preferences.   Regards, A. Agafonow ________________________________ De: Allin Cottrell <cottrell@wfu.edu> Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu> Enviado: sábado, 4 de abril, 2009 4:11:01 Asunto: Re: [OPE] peanut butter value-form theory On Thu, 2 Apr 2009, Alejandro Agafonow wrote: > [T]he amount of labor-commanded should be counted to measure > the degree of devaluation of labor-values due to the failure of > dodgy crackers to satisfy concrete preferences... "Preferences" have nothing to do with it: the US peanuts were objectively contaminated and poisonous.  Nobody in their right might "prefers" salmonella. But the labour commanded is indeed adjusted: it's the money price divided by some measure of the wage.  If the goods are unsaleable the price is zero and the labour commanded is zero, regardless of the wage rate one uses in the calculation.  (And regardless of what one reckons the "value" of the crackers is/was.) > To understand what 'value' is one have to answer what makes the > objective cost structure of the economy change. What is the > primary force that cause a disruption in the objective cost > structure? The primary factor making for change in the cost structure is technological change -- that's pretty obvious.  And from the standpoint of the labour theory of value, the ultimately relevant aspect of technological change is its effect on the total labour-time required for producing the various commodities. Why are computers much cheaper in real terms than they were 20 or 10 years ago?  Why did air travel become much cheaper with the development of the high-bypass turbofan engine?  It's not rocket science. Consumers' preferences play the role of determining the quantities of the various goods produced.  When computers become very much cheaper (a fact which has in itself nothing to do with preferences), do people want a lot more of them (elastic demand) or not? Allin Cottrell _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope

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Received on Sat Apr 4 17:02:00 2009