Re: [OPE] Consumption & law of value

JURRIAAN and JERRY   Jurriaan: *How do you measure utility for the purpose of objectively evaluating the useful effect of different expenditures of social labor, so that you can definitely say that one type has more utility than another?*   The objective evaluation of the useful effect of different expenditures of social labor depends on the verifiable act of buying a given commodity–or agreeing to give in exchange a labor voucher.   As I have expressed elsewhere, those persons who choose to queue up or join a waiting list will be the most in need or who most value the good in question, because they think the marginal sacrifice of income will be offset by the utility that the good will provide to them. On the contrary, if we charge a higher price, those persons who decide to leave the queue or the waiting list will be those who are less in need or who less value the good, because they think the marginal sacrifice of income would not be offset by the utility provided to them by the consumption of the good.   If you want you can reject the marginalist phrasing that I’m using, but note that I’m referring to concrete and verifiable human conduct.     Jurriaan: *Suppose that the Marxist-Leninist central committee decides building a pyramid for deceased CC members is the most useful thing to do, and the workers think that building swimming pools for their children would be most useful, what do you do then? Shoot those people who disagree with your own concept of utility?*   Jerry: *There's also the question of individual utility vs. social utility*   Market socialist wouldn’t shoot anybody. We are not Stalinists. Since you assume that there is a Marxist-Leninist central committee, there is not much room for other options. But, in a democratic socialism we have to politically decide if pyramids and pools have the category of primary goods. If they are, the decision to allocate social labor to their production would be a consequence of political decisions settled in elections. If they are not primary goods, market would provide these goods if there are enough people willing to pay for them.     Jurriaan: *But why should utility necessarily be a function of real output growth?*   It isn’t and that’s the problem with the high rates of growth showed in certain periods by soviet-like socialist economies. This growth only revealed the rate of accumulation of assets, but it didn’t say anything about the quality of the satisfaction of real needs.   Remember the distortions in the USSR economy when it used to evaluate the performance of enterprises by the gross output instead of sales volume. For example, an iron manufacturer had incentives to produce more heavy irons instead of irons more suitable to consumers, who surely prefer them less heavy and user-friendly.     Jurriaan: *The presumption seems to be that the allocation of resources is just "technical" and "scientific" rather than flowing from a particular morality and position of power.*   The allocation of primary goods is a moral question. The allocation of non-primary goods is technical question.   Regards,A. Agafonow ________________________________ De: Jurriaan Bendien <adsl675281@telfort.nl> Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu> Enviado: sábado, 18 de abril, 2009 11:08:16 Asunto: [OPE] Consumption & law of value How do you measure utility for the purpose of objectively evaluating the useful effect of different expenditures of social labor, so that you can definitely say that one type has more utility than another?   Suppose that the Marxist-Leninist central committee decides building a pyramid for deceased CC members is the most useful thing to do, and the workers think that building swimming pools for their children would be most useful, what do you do then? Shoot those people who disagree with your own concept of utility?    Referring to the previous discussion about productive labour, it could be argued that utility has something to do with the effect of labour on the growth of the real economy. But why should utility necessarily be a function of real output growth?   It seems to me the technocratic-Marxist interpretation substitutes a vague notion of utility for the real moral questions concerning the allocation of resources. The presumption seems to be that the allocation of resources is just "technical" and "scientific" rather than flowing from a particular morality and position of power.   Jurriaan

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Received on Sat Apr 18 09:03:59 2009