Re: the labor theory of value

[Carrol Cox]

Doug Henwood wrote:

>
>
> Wasn't Marx himself critical of the notion that only labor creates
> value? I recall something about nature being a partner in the
> enterprise.

Probably someone else has already responded to this more accurately
than I can -- I'm still struggling with nearly a thousand posts in my inbox
when I returned from marxism 2000. But that use values stem from nature
as well as labor seems self-evident and I don't think Marx ever doubted
it. But since value is not a thing but a social relation it's a little mystifying
how it can come from "nature" except in some almost tautological sense.

Carrol

(Even services -- say carrying a product from point a to point b or
informing someone of the location of her dinner -- *as useful
acts* depend on nature. We are part of nature ourselves, and so
in that sense anything we do comes from nature.)