Re: [OPE] Reply to critics

  On 2010-10-12 22:49, Paula wrote:
> Dave, you might want the question to still be open, but let's be
> honest and clear about this. If we say that productive labor is simply
> coexisting labor in a definite amount, then all labor employed by
> capital is productive. The very concept becomes redundant.

Given numerous posts here and the article with Paul C it should be more
than clear that (a) I certainly think that the question can be 'settled'
if one accepts the two problematics we address and that (b) I certainly
do not think that all productive labour "is simply coexisting labor in a
definite amount".

> I define commodities as goods produced for market exchange (with the
> partial exception of the 'special' commodity, labor-power) . But not
> all use-values are goods; and not every use-value exchanged for money
> is a commodity.

This does not answer my specific question regarding the painting firm:
Is the service a 'thing' or an 'activity'? Is it relevant to say that it
has a labour-value, or that the labour itself is productive?

Moreover, Marx's formulation of 'embodied' labour may have been a
pedagogic weakness on his part: If labour productivity in the production
of a good would rise, do you agree that the quantity of embodied labour
in *already* produced goods would fall? Why so?

//Dave Z
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Received on Tue Oct 12 18:08:24 2010