----------
From: owner-ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu on behalf of aramos@aramos.bo
Sent: Monday, March 16, 1998 11:41 AM
To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
Cc: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [OPE-L] El Chunche (was "Historical, real and current costs")
A reply to the PIAF:
I had written: "I posed the question to Duncan and other proponents of the
simultaneist MELT, for whom, I
believe, history doesn't matter here. I believe they have all the information
they require."
Ale responded: "I think it''s unfair to say that Duncan and other people
working in a "simultaneous framework" don''t take "history", or "time", into
account."
Right. But I didn't say this. I wrote that, for them, history doesn't matter
HERE. In other words, they do not require past information to answer the
questions I posed.
> Ale: "I would say that you have 2 MELTs, one before 9 p.m.
> ($1/hour), and other between 9 p.m. and midnight ($0.98/hour)."
>
> Yes, of course. So would I. But our paradigm is temporalist. I
> don''t think this possibility is permissible within the
> simultaneist paradigm.
Ale: "Despite some evidences, I find difficult to believe this."
Well, as you noted, simultaneism does allow the MELT to change over time. But
I don't think it allow the MELT when the wages accrue (and/or are paid) to
differ from the MELT when the output is produced. My example reduces to this
issue.
It is true, as Duncan noted last year, that output is being produced
*continually*, and value is being produced *continually*, even though the
product is not in a form that is consumable (e.g., the chunche aren't dry
until 9 p.m., but wet chunche of 5 p.m. are commodities that are worth more
than no chunche). And we can say that wages accrue continually while the
workers work (e.g., up through 5 p.m.)
So far, I don't think Duncan's conception runs into any problem. If the wet
chunche of 5 p.m. are worth, say, $0.50 each, he could say that, since they
contain 1 labor-hour each, the MELT is $0.50/hr. There's negative profit =
100*$0.50 - $99 = -$49, but that's because the wages represent $99/($0.50/hr.)
= 198 hrs., so surplus-labor is 100 hrs - 198 hrs. = -98 hrs.
But a problem arises, I think, because Duncan requires production of value to
be continuous in a very particular sense. That is, value increases in strict
proportion to the flow of labor-time. This would imply that the value of the
chunche are determined when the workers quit work at 5 p.m., because no more
labor is incorporated in them after that time.
Yet, the dry chunche of 9 p.m. are clearly worth more than the wet chunche of
5 p.m. By Duncan's own line of reasoning (last year), which I accept, they
are not the same commodity.
So I think one must reject either the determination of value by labor-time, or
the notion that value increases in strict proportion to the flow of
labor-time. In other words, there's a distinction between working time and
production time. The problem that my example addresses is that wages accrue
only during working time, but value increases throughout production time.
BTW, I think this creates a problem not only for Duncan, but also for any
version of temporalism that would hold value to increase in strict proportion
to the flow of labor-time. The potential lag between input and output must be
respected.
Andrew Kliman