[OPE-L:7060] [OPE-L:557] Re: Re: Re: How mathematicians think about

Gil Skillman (gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu)
Sun, 28 Feb 1999 17:59:13 -0500

A question (actually 3 related questions) to Andrew (and in light of his
recent post, Michael W.):

If you agree, as I think you do, that mere *exchange* is insufficient to
establish a relation of "equality" among exchangeable items sufficient to
support Marx's inference of "a common element of identical magnitude" which
exists in the exchangeable items, on what grounds do you assert, as I think
you do, that *commodity exchange* in particular is has the special property
of establishing a relation of "equality" from which can infer this "common
element of identical magnitude" to which the exchanged commodities are
"reducible"?

Second, if these grounds can be found in Marx's writing, where does he
establish the *uniquely* "equalizing" properties of *commodity* exchange,
and in terms of what logic?

And third, just for the sake of clarity: are you implicitly disagreeing
with Alan, who is basing his defense of exchange as equality relation
purely on the properties of the binary relation R, rather than on the items
to which the binary relationship R is held to apply?

Gil