Part II of my response to Alfredo re Rubin and Marx on the labor theory of value. In the earlier post I argue that Rubin begs the same question as Marx, and that Marx's critical premise, to the extent that it is correct, holds for any exchange economy, not simply one limited to the exchange of commodities. Of course the latter poses problems for the sense of Marx's and Rubin's argument, which Rubin anticipates as follows (ESSAYS ON MARX'S THEORY OF VALUE, Ch. 12, p. 110): "Another premise (of Marx's argument) consists of the following: we assume that the exchange of one quarter of wheat for any other commodity is subsumed by some regularity. The regularity of these acts of exchange is due to their dependence on the process of production....we affirm that all the possibilities for the exchange of a given commodity for any other commodity are subsumed under certain regularities based on the production process." Again, two points: 1) Marx never adopts this "premise", unless it be through his unexplained use of the single adjective "valid", as in "the valid exchange-values of a particular commodity express something equal." If anything Marx "affirms" the opposite condition, i.e. that exchange value "changes constantly with time and place." 2) Rubin baldly *asserts* that the called-for "regularity" is due to a "dependence on the process of production." As a logical claim, of course, this is nonsense, but Rubin insists that what is at issue isn't a "purely logical" argument. OK, the only other alternative is empirical, and neither Rubin nor Marx provides empirical grounds for the claim that the production process establishes a necessary or sufficient grounds for such "regularity." In essence, Rubin is *assuming* that Marx's argument is limited to the realm of commodity exchange, so as to get around the problem posed in my two earlier posts. This is an utterly arbitrary procedure, and furthermore it leaves unsolved the problem that exchange, even under Rubin's interpretation, does not express the "manifold equalization of all commodities with each other...". Cheers, Gil Skillman
