> Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 10:46:43 +0000
> From: Paul Cockshott <wpc@faraday.org>
> To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
> Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Re: Historical, real and current costs
Paul Cockshott wrote:
> Whilst I agree with Chris that discussing exchange value and price
> in a oneproduct economy is absurd, I think you overstate the case
> in saying Marx explicitly denounces the identification of value
> with labour time. I think one can find passages where he explicitly
> identifies the two.
I have no doubt of this, but in Capital I, Ch. 1 (the core of his
theory of value) Marx states that abstract social labor-time is the
SUBSTANCE OF VALUE. He doesn''t hold that value and labor-time are
identical. What would be the reason of this analytical distinction if
both categories, value and labor-time, were only synonymous? Note
also that Marx actually distinguishes between value-SUBSTANCE and
value-FORM. Value is therefore a twofold entity, it is social labor-
time which must be "objectively" and "externally" represented through
money. Then, money (value-form) is abstract social labor-time in an
objective, external, visible, autonomous form.
Alejandro Ramos