Andrew
------
(2) my demonstrations that simultaneous valuation is incompatible
with the determination of value by labor-time. This is an
incompatibilit
with Marx as well if we accept that he held that value is determined by
labor-time (and there's a lot of evidence that he did).
Paul
----
I dont think that you have presented us with such a demonstration.
I am willing as a general point to argue that we generally think
of physical causual processes as developing in a time-like manner.
I have in other papers argued against adopting calculi that allow
apparently simultaneous causation. ( There is a paper on the
Csf server under my director in psn called 'Physical realism
and Process Semantics'). Making certain fairly general assumptions
one can show that any process algebra with these characteristics
implies a 'non-classical' physics or else the violation of the
conservation of energy. In practice one can not implement physical
models of such algebras since they imply the possibility of
building super-luminal information transfer devices, the macroscopic
realisation of Einstein Podolsky Rosenberg thought experiments
etc.
However, one has to be cautious about this. This sort of argument
merely says that such calculi require non-classical effects. It does
not rule them out. We know that such phenomena can be experimentally
produced, and it is almost certain that a major 21st century technology
- quantum computational devices - will be based on them.
Thus, instantaneously propagating fields can not in principle be
ruled out, though one must admit the plausibility of their bein
applied to something as large as an economy, and operating at
such a high temperature is low. This is the same sort of objection
that consciousness researchers level at Penrose and his
'Gravitronic Brains'.
However, it is not clear that even if one adopts Mirowski's metaphore
and calls simultaneous determination of value by socially necessary
labour time a 'field theory', that these sorts of arguments apply
to it. The question is, whether this field has immediate causal
effects. There is no reason why one can not allow the value field
to exercise a force on prices, to which they respond with inertia.
The field may be assumed to propagate instantaneously, but
this does not imply instantaneous adjustment of prices.