In response to Paul Cockshott[668],
Sorry for my delayed reply.
1. As for causal links, the temperature was a cause while the height of
mercury was an effect. One cause may have multifarious effects. The
temperature can change the height of mercury and "its black body
radiation spectrum" as well. Labour content was a cause, the value forms
(an exchange-value, a money price, etc.) are its effect.
The labor time required to produce a commodity, you argue, can be
measured independently of its price measured in money. I do not agree.
Since the labor time is to be in terms of socially average labor time and
the social average must change with time and place, the labor time you
measured independently of prices is the correct socially necessary labor
time. What I am arguing is this, every quantum has its own measure
but we cannot value the measure in its own terms. The measure must
have its external form. The external form of temperature was the
radiation spectrum or the height of mercury. As for commodity values,
CONTENT FORM
(internal form=content's own form) (external form)
value ..................... direct price
.................... money price
.................... exchange-value
price of production .................... money price of production
(*) value = labor time contained in commodity A.
(**) exchange-value = the quantity of commodity B exchanged with a
unit of commodity A.
(#) money price = the quantity of money exchanged with a unit of
commodity A.
(##) money price of production = a transformed form of the money price.
(ps) a transformation must be either from one internal form into another
internal form or from one external form into another external form.
2. Heat is a cause, temperature is an effect. The objective character of
the temperature is measured by the height of mercury. Heating efficiency
may differ from one thing to another. But you made a wrong analogy by
putting the relationship between the specific heat of whisky and the heat
content of the whisky in parallel with that between the labor content of
gold and the labor content of whisky. One is for the same substance of
whisky, the other is for the two different bodies of gold and whisky.
IMO, the relationship between the temperature of whisky and the heat
content of the whisky seems similar with that between the money price
of whisky and the individual value of the whisky. The individual value
needs to be put in relation to the social value. The heat content was to
be put in relation to the specific heat. The relationship between
individual value and social value is wrongly put by you as that between
the value of whisky and the value of gold. IMO, gold may also have its
individual value and its social value: the money price of commodity A is
the ratio between the social value of commodity A and the social value of
gold.
3. Heat is a cause, temperature is an effect. The objective character of
the temperature is measured by the height of mercury. Heating efficiency
may differ from one thing to another. The same heat may produce
different temperatures. The same amount of physiological labor time can
create different magnitudes of commodity value depending on what sort of
commodity the labor produces. The same amount of calories, joules,
Watts, ergs, and whatsoever may produce different temperatures
depending on what sort of substance the heat works on.
4. If all value is labor, then the labor should be only the embodied labor.
Since, as you said, not all labor is value, represented labor or living labor
cannot be the value itself (see my previous post [OPE-L:675]on Dec 8).
Work done is also a sort of embodied labor amount. Then, you are right
to say all value is labor. Yet a minor slip you made is in your statement
that labour-power is a flow quantity. If you are wright, the value of
labor-power should be measured per hours like the wage-rate. But, Marx
say in Capital that the capitalists can change the length of working day
without changing value of labor-power, which means the wage-rate per
hour can change without any change in the value of labor-power. If the
labor-power is a flow quantum, how could this happen?
I feel very interested in your deep analysis of the analogy between
horse-power and labor-power.
Thanks
Chai-on Lee