[OPE-L:3] [OPE-L:224] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Chapter 1

Ajit Sinha (ecas@cc.newcastle.edu.au)
Tue, 27 Oct 1998 18:17:41 +1100

At 10:12 26/10/98 -0500, Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
>I agree, John. Like Ricardo, Marx initially restricted his analysis only
>to reproducible commodities. As for the validity of this initial
>restriction, we could of course debate. Pasinetti justifies the
>restriction, e.g., the elimination of land or rare art works.
>
>What I don't agree with is this:
>
>> If we rule out land as a commodity by saying that it is not
>> a product of labor, Marx's argument becomes tautological.
>
>Marx's analysis is not tautological because the point of his analysis is
>to specify the kind of labor, abstract labor, that produces commodities,
>value and surplus value. What is crucial to his analysis is this exact
>"correction" of the classical labor theory of value.
>
>best, rakesh
___________

I don't agree. The reason Ricardo and Marx are keeping price of land and
art works etc. beyond their pail of analysis is because they are interested
in the analysis of reprocution, that's why only reproducible things are
brought within the pail. This directly relates to the idea of surplus
approach economics as opposed to the idea of scarcity approach economics,
for which art works etc. would be the ideal types.
Cheers, ajit sinha
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