C. J. Arthur (cjarthur@pavilion.co.uk)
Sun, 19 Dec 1999 20:49:30 +0000
In reply to Andy's 1938
>
>Chris,
>
>Many thanks for the illuminating clarification. It is heartening
>to see that your view is not so far from mine except in respect
>of the notion of substance of value. You spotted a crucial
>error in my defense of this notion. I Should like to correct the
>error. The upshot will be - hopefully - that the critique you put
>forward of the notion of substance of value (and R&Ws 'value-
>form' critique of the notion, eg. as a 'Ricardian hangover')
>does not apply. Given this, and your own clarification, then we
>could explore and develop where our true differences lie. (For
>example, the notion of 'pure transcendental form' without
>substance is absent from my view because it seems
>nonesensical to me).
1. What did you think of my explanation in 1909?
>You quoted me:
>
>'But value is quite clearly not any old substance. Rather, it is a
>very peculiar (perverse) social substance. This notion of a
>*peculiar* and *social* substance is a notion that Marx was
>the first to articulate'.
>
>And then you pointed out:
>
>'You cannot say both AL is 'stuff' of value and value is itself a
>'stuff' (of what?) Either 1) you must decide which is to be
>substance 2) you must change the sense of substance so as
>to allow value to be a substance in one sense but not in
>another'.
>
>Whoops! I should have said that *abstract labour* is a
>peculiar social substance but in fact said, at this point, that
>*value* is a peculiar social substance. This was a mistake.
>Sorry. Value is not a substance. Rather, *abstract labour* is
>a (peculiar and social) substance; the substance of value.
>Value is *congealed* abstract labour. An analogy: H2O is the
>substance of ice (ice is crystallised H2O); analogously,
>abstract labour is the substance of value (value is crystallised
>abstract labour).
>
>My mistake arose, I think, because of the peculiarity of value
>and its substance. On my view, abstract labour does not exist
>in its fluid state except as an aspect of concrete labour. This
>is unlike H2O, whose fluid state is water. This is my
>difference with Elson 1979 which I do not have time to
>discuss now, except to say that I am influenced by your work
>on labour as a concrete universal. (Your article dated 1979 if
>my memory is not faulty). So it is only in its *congealed* state -
> as value - that abstract labour asserts itself as a peculiar
>substance.
>
>When replying to Fred you argued that the fact that money is
>the 'form' of value would indicate that value is itself a
>substance. Not so, I argue. Rather, the fact that the substance
>of value is abstract labour (so 'ghostly') means that value
>requires an appearance form, which turns out to be money.
>Value must express itself in its own opposite, viz., use value.
>
2. But if value is the appearance of AL then it should already be present
like your ice. Why is there an extra step? Why have we got to relate 3
things?
Incidentaly Rubin ch.12 is very good on the triplicity, first of all
carefully distinguishing value from exchange value and then abstract labour
from value. However I still do not think he solves the problem of their
relations.
Chris
P. S. Please note that I have a new Email address,
<cjarthur@waitrose.com>
but the old one will also run until next summer. (To be doubly sure load both!)
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