Chai-on Lee posts:
|PS: I fail to see what you are talking about in the reply to my point.
|My point was this: if money is a mere symbol, it then would be by
|definition a purely social one, and then it could not be owned privately,
|nor privately produced. A mere symbol cannot have a value, then it
|cannot measure a value, then it cannot function as money.
I see this as thinking of money as a commodity, whose exchange-value
is determined by its value, the socially necessary labor-time that
went into its production. This is consistent with Marx's presentation
in Vol. I, but he argued something fundamentally different--and in
my opinion superior--in Vol III and Theories of Surplus Value Parts II
and III. I have cited these passages before; what they argue is that
money is the unique commodity whose exchange-value is set by
its use-value.
In that case, it *can* be a mere symbol, and yet have exchange-value,
even though it lacks value. To briefly cite Marx on this:
"What the buyer of an ordinary commodity, buys is its use-value; what
he pays for is its value. What the borrower of money buys is likewise
its use-value as capital; but what does he pay for? Surely not its price,
or value, as in the case of ordinary commodities." (Marx
1894, p. 352.)
Cheers,
Steve Keen