Barkley writes
<<<<<<
1) You are right that the way "indirect summation" must
not go to zero is for the "source of value" to be unproduced
and "external". This raises some serious issues. For example
the solution to labor heterogeneity as proposed by Allin
Cottrell is to view high-skill labor as "produced" using
education. So there must be some minimum non-producible form
of labor from which all other is produced or at least measured.
What is it? Mozambican (currently earning $60 per year per
capita; I know, I know, that is due to all kinds of war,
racism, colonialism, imperialism, exploitation, etc.)?
Clearly this puts the LTV in the position of an assumed
prior belief: let labor be the exogenous unproduced source of
value, even though it is clear that in production terms it (even
the most basic form) is produced by labor and food and that the
latter is produced by labor and UNPRODUCED land containing
fundamental UNPRODUCED biogeochemicals receiving solar radiation,
that is, the bioshpere (I recognize that humans can mine the bgc's
and apply them as fertilizer to stimulate production on some land).
>>>>>>
Barkley should distinguish two uses that Allin makes of the
LTV, 1) as a theory of the determinants of exchange value under
capitalism, 2) as a theory of rational calculation under socialism.
The reduction of skilled labour to unskilled via the cost of training
applies to the second, in that such calculations would only be
possible under socialism in which the mode of production being
directly social could account for the costs of education in the same
way as any other costs. I do not think that he is claiming that
this applies under capitalism. In the socialist context the standard
that he proposes for the unit labour hour is the labour of someone
who has completed their course of compulsory education and left school.
Exactly what this was would vary according to the society and
the number of years schooling that were normal. The standard for
a unit of labour would vary between societies. Mozambique could not
really be said to have established a socialist system, but if it had,
then the educational level of the unit labour hour would be lower than
in a more developed country.
Nobody is denying that the labour used in capitalist society is produced.
The point is that it is not produced under capitalist relations of
production. It is in large measure produced under patriarchal and
socialist relations of production ( the family and the public school).
As such it is not a produced commodity in the capitalist sense.
<<<<<
2) How would a land theory of value look? Quesnay essentially did
it with his Tableau Economique. One way would be to define a
fundamental unit of land, probably the least productive that actually
gets used (I understand that that is endogenously determined by the
amount of population, the level of technology, and other things, but then
so is the use-value of labor in an LTV). Other units are homogenized
by simple multiplication as proposed by numerous writers for the
LTV to resolve labor heterogeneity not due to training. Take the
LTV model and replace all labor by its land and labor components
and reduce until everything is in direct and indirect land (as stated
before, it might be preferable to use the human-based "standard
commodity" of biogeochemicals). I note that in Vol. III of Capital
Marx at one point recognized the possibility that marginal land might
earn rent, "absolute rent", but he rejected this BECAUSE IT WOULD
UNDERMINE THE LABOR THEORY OF VALUE, not because it was untrue. The
LTV had become a matter of belief, not a matter of science, despite
Marx's assertions to the contrary.
>>>>>>
The question of whether a labour or a land theory of value is right is
largely empirical. If you can demonstrate that empirically in a developed
capitalist economy your land values are better predictors of prices
than labour values then you will have a plausible case.
Marx did not reject absolute ground rent. He held that it did exist
and was a specific effect of the existence of private property relations
in land. It can be viewed as a remnant of feudal social relations.
<<<<<<
3) Well, the point that "land is not a social actor" is well taken on
the surface. However from a deep ecology perspective this is mere
"human imperialism". In fact our expropriation of bioshperic surplus
(and overexploitation in cases where we extinguish species) can be
viewed as a "social-ecological" relationship, not with land per se,
but certainly with other species and our mutual use of biogeochemicals
and solar energy through the medium of land.
>>>>>>>
There is no dispute that society has non-social conditions of existence.
When I eat a pig I enter into a relationship with the pig that is to
my advantage and his disadvantage, but the relationship between me
and the pig is not a value relationship. I do not pay the pig for
the service he provides me with - I pay the butcher and the pig farmer
for the effort they put in. The pig, not being a social actor,
does not enter into the bargain.
<<<<<<
4) Certainly to avoid nasty metric problems it is handy to have a
single scalar measure of value, although a fixed-ratio "standard
commodity" will suffice.
>>>>>>
The question is why do empirically observed value relationships
take on a scalar form?
The choice of a suitable scalar 'numeraire' is an economists abstraction
that presupposes the social form that has to be explained. Neckties,
standard commodities, etc are fantasies, the actual numeraire is
money. The question is what is the social character of value relations
that gives them a scalar form and allows for the existence of money
in the first place.
<<<<<
5) I agree that whatever the nature of value, a democratically managed
socialist economy should make all social relations of value "transparent"
to the extent possible. Thus there can be a conscious choice about
the allocation of whatever surplus there is. Or do you think that with
true socialism there is no surplus value, by definition, given that in
Marxian terms this is a social relation between the capitalist and the
worker? This was of course the "line" of the "hithertoo existing
socialisms"---"we have eliminated the capitalists and thus have
eliminated exploitation!" (by definition)
>>>>>
No I think that surplus labour and hence surplus value existed under
socialism and would exist in a communist economy. The specific form in
which the surplus is produced are the desidera specifica of different
modes of production. Whether the extraction is exploitative is a second
question. In general I would say the extraction is not exploitative
if it is voluntary on the part of the majority of those involved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Cockshott , WPS, PO Box 1125, Glasgow, G44 5UF
Phone: 041 637 2927 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
