Christian, Can't follow what you're getting at. Please restate.
>Rakesh, > >>Let me try this definition (open to revision of course): > >>Value is the socially necessary abstract labor time which >>potentially objectified in a commodity has as its only and >>necessary form of appearance units of money. > >This is what I meant yesterday by "debt and wages" as the terms of >capital depreciation. Well that's not what I mean since I still don't understand what you are saying. > If I were being polemical, I might ask how you know that money >always distorts value if you have no other measure of it. What's the problem? >It seems to me that you accept that what is the reference to that? > as a first principle, based on the existential description of class >antagonism. But I wonder if this distortion always takes the same >shape: is the value produced by the LA Lakers distorted in the same >way as that by the workers who prep and clean the Staples center? I >don't think so, although you could argue that what's being distorted >is the snalt, not subjective labor time. Wage differences (like >wages themselves), you might say, express this distortion. But then >you're left explaining how Shaq's and Kobe's wages, as >representations of surplus value/snalt are only in _appearance_ >(since that's what wages are) different from those of the staff at >Staples--in principle, they really aren't different; there's still >extraction of surpl! >us! > value;, it just looks like they have better lives because their are >multimillionaires. Then what? > >Christian
