At 4:46 7-02-1996 -0800, Alan Freeman wrote:
>The idea of a 'dimensional
>incompatibility' between price and value has been floating
>around for a while [I first found it in Abraham-Froix and
>Berrebi; does any OPE member know of an early mention?]
I think Abraham-Foix & Berrebi had in mind works like the following:
Benetti, de Brunhoff, Cartelier, Elements pour une critique marxiste d P.
Sraffa, Colloque d'Amiens, 1973 (afterwards in Cahiers d'economie
politique, n. 3)
Carlo Benetti, Valeur et repartition, PUG-Maspero 1974
Benetti, Berthomieu, Cartelier, Economie classique, economie vulgaire.
Essais critiques, PUG-Maspero 1975
May be Lipietz in his survey on the transformation problem in JET refers to
all this.
>
>Marx, in Chapter I of Volume I, explains that both price and
>value have two measures:
>
>(a) the intrinsic measure, labour time
>
>(b) the extrinsic measure, money
>
Yes, but the first, in a very precise sense, depends on the second. Marx'
critique of Ricardo depends on this - Ricardo would be quite enough if it
would be possible to analyze capitalism without an inquiry into the 'form'
of labour.
Money does not come *after* production: it is the product itself of
capitalist production itself, and its necessary prerequisite. Thus, you can
measure either in hours or in money only if you interpret the 'hours' as
the labour producing money - you cannot 'split' production and exchange.
riccardo
PS: I apologize if I misrepresent any party here, as so often happens on
the lists. I say this because I am in a period in which I am not able to
follow entirely OPE-L discussions; in Alan's post there was something which
made a thrill inside my brain, but I may easily be out of tune with others'
concerns.
PS2: Alan, my letter is 'short' in the European or in the American sense?
In the next future I shall face the alternative between reading you or
Marx, another 'short' guy 8-)
==================================================================
Riccardo Bellofiore e-mail: bellofio@cisi.unito.it
Department of Economics Tel: (39) -35- 277505 (direct)
University of Bergamo (39) -35- 277501 (dept.)
Piazza Rosate, 2 (39) -11- 5819619 (home)
I-24129 Bergamo Fax: (39) -35- 249975
Italy
==================================================================