Re: [OPE] Value as worth & cockroaches

Cockshott: “If the insecticide did not work it is likely that it would not sell at its full value and would have to be discounted by the state wholesalers. The planners on seeing this would scale back production of that line.”   What kind of mechanisms are at stake here? 1) A way of monitoring inventories and 2) a way to feedback producers on the useful effects of the commodity (insecticide) from the point of view of consumers.   The second point was critical in Cuba due to the pitfalls of the Budgetary Financial System devised by Che and his team. They didn’t have (couldn’t have either due to the absence of supercomputers) a ‘price/labor value index’, nor market prices in the conventional sense. The feedback seemed to come in a rawway thorough complains from consumers that couldn’t be properly processed.   Relying on supercomputers would make easier to scale back production, but even your model, Paul, would face problems due to the narrow offer of substitute inputs available in a central planned economy. In absence of these substitutes made possible by competition, the production of an alternative input would take too much time. The lack of basic capacity to synthesise pyrethrins or DDT in Cuba, was increased by the absence of market.   Of course, your model Paul has an advantage. You have a price/labor value indexwhich lets you reallocate socially necessary labor toward the production of goods that changes of preferences have pointed out as more valuable or desired. You have indeed a mechanism that operates with ‘values as worth’, but you seem to be blind on its consequences for a ‘theory of value as labor’. You have rejected the later with a subtle Marxist rhetoric, but you seem to be unaware of this.   Regards,A. Agafonow ________________________________ De: Paul Cockshott <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk> Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu> Enviado: miércoles, 8 de abril, 2009 12:51:51 Asunto: RE: [OPE] Value as worth & cockroaches Why do you say that? If the insecticide did not work it is likely that it would not sell at its full value and would have to be discounted by the state wholesalers. The planners on seeing this would scale back production of that line. This does not deal with the problem of whether the chemical industry in Cuba in the 1960s had the ability to synthesise pyrethrins or DDT. If they lacked that basic capacity, no monkeying around with prices would lead to proper insecticide. ________________________________ From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of Alejandro Agafonow [alejandro_agafonow@yahoo.es] Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 10:00 AM To: OPE List Subject: [OPE] Value as worth & cockroaches Che Guevara cited in Helen Yaffe’s The Economics of Revolution:   «…but the sad reality is that this product to kill cockroaches is coming out with terrible quality, and I am receiving many complaints from all over. I think we will have to produce this with a label that explains that to kill cockroaches we have to tie them together, submerge them in a bottle of insecticide… so that if they don’t die from the poisoning, they will die from drowning.» (pp. 126)     This quotation illustrates in a funny way the consequences of not having a theory of value as worth. Your models if carried out would be stuck in similar situations.   Regards,A. Agafonow

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Received on Thu Apr 9 13:52:19 2009