very good point! I think it's also important to remember that what most critics of the LOV are talking about is a LTP, a Ricardian Labor Theory of Prices. Marx wasn't especially interested in prices (assuming the question away until volume III of CAPITAL) but he was interested in the social relations of production of capitalism as a whole and in microcosm. Jim D
-----Original Message----- From: Chris Burford To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 2/2/02 11:40 PM Subject: [PEN-L:22261] LOV or LTV Quite rightly, these fundamental questions come round and go round. I have not been able to keep up with all the recent posts. But I notice that some of the debate is using the abbreviation LTV. I suggest that this slants the debate and makes it more likely that people will talk past each other. Marx and Engels never used the term Labour Theory of Value, nor did they invent it. It was conceptualised by the classical political economists. Marx and Engels to be fair also did not formulate a neat definition of the Law of Value, but LOV is the term they did use. I suggest that approaching these debates with the mind set of LTV, sustains an assumption which is essentially about a simple equation: the value of something is its labour content (with various subtleties added about terminology and more or lessness) LOV however is essentially a whole systems dynamical approach to the circulation of the collective social product that is produced in the form of commodities. Crudely, the difference between LTV and LOV is the difference between a simple equation, which may indeed be weak nourishment, and a dynamic system. IMHO Chris Burford London
