John R. Ernst wrote [OPE-L:1105]:
> When Fred and I started a discussion on "moral
> depreciation", one of the matters we left for
> further discussion were the concepts of individual
> value and social value.
Maybe that's part of the problem.
Our discussions on the valuation of constant capital, moral depreciation
(and, eventually) the "transformation problem" all began as *digressions*
in January.
Perhaps it would have been better to discuss the meaning of the
expression "socially necessary labor time" and the distinction between
individual values and social values (as well as issues such as the
production of absolute and relative surplus value) *before* having the
above discussions. It would seem to me that had we done so, we might have
been in a better position to build agreement (or at least understand
differences in interpretation) on the meaning of basic terms and the
underlying processes that Marx was describing.
Do others, in retrospect, agree?
In OPE-L Solidarity,
Jerry