> Date sent: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 18:03:48 -0400 (EDT)
> Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Shane Mage)
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: "labor theory of value"
What discussion? You have yet to saying anything in response to
my commentary on Marx. To say that science and automation can be
reduced to "dated" socially necessary labor time is absurd. Devine,
in his own way, is saying the same. Yet it is clear from my citations
that Marx is not saying that at all.
ricardo
> No explanation is required for a passage from a rough draft ("Rohentwurf")
> which its author chose not to use in the published version, which alone can
> be taken to represent his considered formulation. In any case, this
> passage is no evidence that, when he was writing his rough draft for
> Kapital, Marx was afflicted by the vulgar confusion between *wealth* and
> *value*. But in the published Kapital, vol. 1, Marx takes great pains to
> obviate any such conclusion. This discussion shows how right he was!
>
> Shane
>
>
>
> >
> >If Marx leaves no such confusion, how do you explain the very
> >first sentence of the passage I quoted below where Marx links
> >directly the creation of "real wealth" with "labor time"?
> >
> >
> >
> >> >Today science and technology play a greater role in the creation of value
> >> >than productive labor. In the GRUNDRISSE Marx recognizes this: "But as
> >> >heavy industry develops the creation of real wealth depends less on labor
> >> >time and on the quantity of labor utilized than on the power of mechanized
> >> >agents which are set into motion during the labor time. The powerful
> >> >effectiveness of these agents, in its turn, bears no relation to the
> >> >immediate labor time that their labor cost. IT DEPENDS RATHER ON THE
> >> >GENERAL STATE OF SCIENCE AND ON TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS, OR THE APPLICATION
> >> >OF THIS
> >> >SCIENCE TO PRODUCTION." (Italics added). <
>
>
> >> James and Ricardo seem to share the same vulgar-economics confusion: that
> >> *value* is the same thing as *wealth*. Marx leaves no room for this
> >> confusion. Value *is* the mass of socially necessary labor time embodied
> >> in the social product of a given period. Wealth *is* the mass of use-value
> >> available to society at any given point in time for consumption, new
> >> investment, and maintenance of productive capacity. Value is measured as a
> >> quantity of labor time exerted in the period being studied. Use-value is
> >> measured as a quantity of *dated* socially necessary labor time. The
> >> change in labor productivity from year x to year y is measured as quantity
> >> of use-value produced by t hours of socially necessary labor time in year
> >> y divided by the quantity of use-value produced by t hours of socially
> >> necessary labor time in year x. Clear?
> >>
> >> Shane
> >>
>
>
>
>
