The use-value of labour-power is not that it IS a quantity exceeding its own (exchange)-value, but that it is a SOURCE of a quantity of value exceeding its own EV, as one of Steve Keen's Marx quotes makes clear. In addition, LP is only a POTENTIAL source of value (and thus to an unquantifiable extent) until it is actually consumed as a use- value by the purchaser. It yields a surplus value only by its transformation into other use-values. The reason why Marx's concept of use-value is both so different from the neoclassical concept of utility, and so essential to all aspects of Marx's analysis, is that this transformation takes place OUTSIDE the sphere of exchange. An additional point is that use-values are only quantifiable against themselves - i.e. they usually appear in a form that can be counted: 1 Cadillac, 2 Cadillacs.... It is precisely the special social characteristic of value, visible in its appearance as exchange-value, that it, and it alone, makes different use-values socially commensurate (utility being, on the contrary, individually subjective). Hugo Radice [EMAIL PROTECTED]
