At 15:30 -0700 15-05-1997, Michael Williams wrote:
>> Dear Alls,
>>
>> Paul's 4993 make me pose to all of you this question, if you have some
>time
>> to waste.
>>
>> Why, according to you, the value of the commodity output is nothing but
>> labour in Marx?
>>
>> riccardo
>
>
>Instead of giving a theoretical reason, I am going to offer various
>explanations why Marx adopted this position:
>1. Everybody was at it. Not just the Scottish Poltical Economists, and the
>French Utopian Socialists but even the English Political Philosophers, and
>indeed Aristotle.
>2. He thus 'saw' that it was so, and desired to given an account of how it
>could be so, even under capitalism (ie post the appropriation of private
>proeprty in land and the accumulation of capital.
>3. He understood capitalism as a specific mode of the exercise of human
>creativity in its relations with nature ('work'), and saw abstract labour
>as the specifically capitalist (not to mention alienated and distorted)
>mode of existence of work.
>
>It is, thus, a postulate, not a conclusion of his work - although of course
>one brilliantly justified by the totality of his systematic conceptual
>presentation.
>
I agree on all the poits.
Would you agree that your point 3 is a very special postulate, in the sense
that its being justified by the totatility of his systematic conceptual
presentation, and its being based on a *specific* mode of the exercise of
human creativity in ints relation with nature, work (may I add: in
production?) have very deep consequence on the analytical shape of the
theory.
That is: the theory would be different if one takes the postulate as saying
that what matters is human labour transhistorically as the only human
element in production; or if one does not take into account the systematic
developments?
riccardo