[OPE-L:2476] Re: Was Lenin a nondualist, supporter of the single-system vision

Duncan K Foley (dkf2@columbia.edu)
Wed, 5 Jun 1996 12:22:51 -0700

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On Tue, 4 Jun 1996 glevy@acnet.pratt.edu wrote:

> > "Price is a manifestation of the law of value. Value is the law of price,
> > i.e. it is the generalized expression of price phenomena. To talk here about
> > "independence" is to mock the Science".
>
> Do you agree with the above quote, regardless of whether it can be
> classified as nondualist? [BTW (that means "by the way", BTW), Alan told
> me that Alejandro was the first to coin the term nondualism].

I don't know about "dualism" and all that, but I would interpret the quote
as expressing the idea that value added is an expression of living labor
time, and that surplus value is an expression of unpaid labor time.

>
> Expressing my question somewhat differently, isn't Lenin suggesting that
> value theory is a theory of relative prices

I don't see why one would suppose this. I kind of doubt Lenin thought very
much about relative prices.

> and isn't that part of the
> Ricardian tradition that Bortkiewicz represented and Marx broke
> decisively from?
>
> [If you want to be really brave you can also define the term "law of
> value" for us].

The law of value in my opinion is the idea that the value added is an
expression of the living labor expended in a period.

Duncan