SV: [OPE] Are Regulation Theorists Marxists?

Hi again,

Jurriaan wrote:
> Marx to my knowledge did not subscribe to a "labour theory of value" and
> never said he did, if anything he had a value theory of labour and capital.
> If we continue to use the reference to Marx's LTV, this is only a kind of
> shorthand. Marx was well aware that the value of many assets in society were
> not, or not directly, determined by labour-time, even if Marxists still
> don't understand this.
>

I must say I am a bit surprised by Jurriaans wording here. If you just look at what Marx wrote about simple and complex labour, about gold as commodity money, unproductive and productive labour, the transformation problem - to say that Marx did not see labour as the primary value creating activity = working inside a LTV paradigm seems to me to just to run counter to an enourmous amount of textual evidence.

If you add his polemics against the subjecitivists - the case is closed.

That the theory holds for reproducible goods, that there are a lot of other power dimensions in society that makes the theory more complex at "the margins" - OK.

But to deny that Marx saw the economy as fundamentally an economy of TIME, and labour time as an essential part of this economy of time (Time as the only real social cost, jfr. Lippis book on this) - this seems strange to me.

But I see LTV as a paradigm, various theories tries to make the most coherent sense of various phenomena with "labour as creator of value" as the starting point. LTV is of course not A (with capital A and singular) theory, it is an approach, almost a pre-scientific intuition, that it is the task of science to give a coherent conceptual structure.

But to me to say:
> Marx to my knowledge did not subscribe to a "labour theory of value" and
> never said he did, if anything he had a value theory of labour and capital.

is just strange - any textual evidence that "Marx did not subscribe to a LTV"?

And when JB writes: ... if anything he had a value theory of labour and capital... But is not Marx' theory of capital an LTV or LVT? Seeing capital as a social relationship, as "Frozen Labour" etc. etc. = a LTV of capital.

IMO you cannot find in Marx labour AND capital (and Land?) - time, labour time is primary.

That Marx saw "Madamme Terre" as a source of value does not change this, only nature bearbeitet by Man has value.

What is the point you really are trying to make here Jurriaan?

Regards
Anders

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Received on Thu Aug 20 12:34:16 2009