I wrote: >>One way of summarizing this whole issue is as follows: >>(1) the distinction between value and price roughly corresponds to the orthodox distinction between "social opportunity cost" and opportunity cost to an individual. Both of these are quantitative.<<
Ian writes: >How do we get from *soc* to *ioc* without a fallacy of division and, vice versa, from *ioc* to *soc* and avert fallacies of composition? I know the / dividing the quantitative/qualitative drives methodologists nuts, but I'm very interested in your take on this especially as the issue of value, < the real-world fallacy of composition (or division) is crucial: in this context, it says that the microeconomic processes governed by prices do not correspond to the macroeconomic processes described and understood by value concepts. This contrast leads to crises, among other things. >it seems to me, can't be separated from issues of norms and how differing norms are resolved or not in societies--keep in mind I come at this from philosophy-ethical theory with all it's limitations.< I don't see Marxian (labor) values as normative, except as representing "bourgeois right" (sale at value is treated as "equal exchange" in CAPITAL). >In that sense I've found so much of Marx and his interpreters on the role of value to be very problematic and by default I opt for a those who take a parsimonious approach because it gives greater room for normative critique and ties Marx into substantive issues in philosophy that I think we can't avoid no matter how many times Marxists try to tame philosophers! :-).< I'm not saying that you should shut your mind to non-Marxian influences. Nor did Marx. >In that sense I'm quite sympathetic to what Cohen is trying to do in "Self Ownership, Freedom and & Equality" because he uses Marx to go after the libertarians and by chapter 8 lands very close to Robert Hale who helped found the Left approach to law and economics which we need to revive if, over the medium term, we hope to put property rights--not just the current infatuation with intellectual property, crucial as that is-- issues back on the map< I haven't read this stuff, but it fits with the idea of Marx's "theory of value" really being an anti-Lockean "labor theory of property." >>(2) the social opportunity cost and value are defined from the perspective of the society as a whole, though of course we can't assume that society gets what it wants all the time. Since its perspective is human society, value is in terms of human effort rather than subjective wants (though those wants play a role). (Social opportunity cost has to be defined in terms of some sort of "social welfare function.")<< >Doesn't this raise the issue of 'we can't get outside of society' and look at it sub specie aeternitie [??] and the slippery slope to reification? [??]< we can do gedanken experiments to "get out of society," but the point is to attempt to understand the whole totality rather than just the parts. I don't like "slippery slope" arguments, especially against specific ideas. They assume, for example, that the idea that threatens to push us down that slimy slope is the only part of the overall theory, whereas there may be other ideas that prevent such a slide. >>(3) it's important to utilize both value and price (social opportunity cost and individual opportunity cost). Otherwise, we fall into the fallacy of composition or into the sterility of methodological individualism.<< >See above.< see what specifically? >>(4) there are contrasts between the two levels. MOE is aware that social opportunity cost and individual opportunity cost don't always coincide (so that there's "market failure"). Modern Marxist theory should be aware of the distinction between a worker's contribution to the societal pool of value (value) and what he or she is able to claim from that pool (exchange-value). Societal rationality isn't the same as individual rationality (however that word is defined).<< >Ok so we have Chris Burford's emergent properties issue coming to the fore with all it's entailments of class struggle. I take it that when class societies disappear there will be no more fallacies of division or composition in the causal dynamics of determining the distribution of the social surplus?< The fallacies (the difference between micro and macro) won't disappear: rather, the process of the distribution of the social surplus would be decided democratically rather than by force. (In fact, as I've argued elsewhere, when and if socialism comes, the liberal image of society (public interest vs. private interests) will actually apply, whereas it doesn't in liberal -- i.e., capitalist -- society, due to the existence of class antagonisms.) >Are not heterogeneous preferences and wants a big barrier irrespective of class?< of course: people are different. But these differences can be dealt with democratically. They should be. >> (5) But there's unity at the societal level: in the end, the social costs (value) constrain the individuals in the system, even though it's individual costs (prices) that are crucial in determining behavior. A capitalist can't get a profit as a "free lunch."<< >Ok but don't we fall into the issue of whether profit *is* a just reward, even as ownership itself is not productive? I take it the unity is there despite the conflict or is the result of the conflict or both? < I don't understand this. Jim Devine
