[OPE-L:850] Re: Readers of the lost citation

Paul Cockshott (wpc@clyder.gn.apc.org)
Thu, 25 Jan 1996 15:57:56 -0800

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To add something which may connect up with the concerns that
Paul has voiced in relation to value's metric.

For value to satisfy axioms of the type he has expressed, I
hope he would agree the exchange value of a given commodity
bundle must be proportional to the amount of use value of each
commodity in the bundle.

For a consistent linear theory of production, this implies that
if this bundle is consumed to make a product, the value
transferred to the product by the bundle should also be
proportional to the amount of use value of each commodity in
the bundle.

Paul
----
I get what you are arguing after a little thought.
It would be more precise to say that the partial
derivative of the value of the output with respect
to any one of the inputs measured in use value terms
must be a constant.

But note that when Allin and I have argued for the
law of value as a conservation law, this was only
with respect to exchange. Once one steps outside of
the exchange relation and looks at the passing on
of costs in production, then this is a different
problem, and one really has to re-argue the case
for value conservation.

Alan
----
This
is why I suggest that moral depreciation expresses a fetishised
social relation; it is projection into the sphere of private
production and exchange of the social impact of technical
change. It appears as a cost to the capitalist, but it is in
reality a disguised transfer.

Paul
----
I think I would agree with this.

Alan
----
I also have the very speculative hypothesis that it will turn
out to be possible to explain uncertainty as a fetishised
social relation arising from the private character of exchange;
it would then remain to explain uncertainty and expectations in
terms of something deeper, rather than the other way around.

Explaining uncertainty in terms of something deeper might have
repercussions beyond economics.

Paul
----
This has been touched on in debates on socialist economic
calculation.