Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

Paula wrote:

But I hope you'll agree that it hasn't produced those industrial products
all by itself. Human agents - aka workers, consumers, etc - have also
played a part.

I agree and I think Paul, Allin and Ian's book "Classical Econophysics"
gives the only theory of the role of information in political economy that
is well-grounded in information theory as such.

In any case, once we had such a theory, would we be any closer to knowing
whether 'knowledge labor' produces value? We already have a theory of value,
which rests on a distinction between concrete and abstract labor. This seems
to me the place to start.

Paul C has already given a testable proposition regarding this, that is
consistent with the labour theory of value of classical/Marxian political
economy. I have yet to see an alternative testable theory.

but the agent-dependent aspects should be included if we are to have a full
- and humanistic - theory.

In my view there is no place for some irreducible human 'essence' or quality
in a materialist philosophy.

//Dave Z

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Received on Thu Dec 10 04:24:47 2009