Justin, I suspect that you merely have a different idea about what value is than I do. It does not mean that either of us would be wrong.
Marx, as I read him, is saying that value is a particular social relationship unique to capitalism; only living labor creates surplus value; dead labor cannot. He does not mean that nature is unimportant or that machines do not have an important place, but that in capitalism, the key relations for him is what sort of social relations exist under capitalism. You may read him differently; if so, labor may not be the sole source of value in your interpretation, but that does not mean that Marx is wrong. For that reason, I don't see how this debate can lead anywhere. Justin Schwartz wrote: > > Not at all. I think that Marx's notion of SNALT is a useful one, but it's > not necesasrily a notion of value, or anyway doesn't exhause the notion. Btw > it is important to distinguisg between the theses that SNALT is the measure > of value and that labor is the source of all value. The first is true in a > limited way; as Roemer among other argues, anything can be the numaire, > labor, corn, iron. The question, from thsi point of view, is whether it is > useful or illuminating to use labor as the numaire, and that is where the > redundancy theory kicks in. The other matter, whether labor is the sole > source of value, is a different quesion: labor might be the source and not > the measure (and vice versa). Here I think that labor is _a_ source of > value, anda major one. But not the only one. Ina nay case, Marx simply uses > the first version, and trues tos hwo that using the laboras the measure you > get interesting results. As to thesecond, hewassumes taht it is true as a > matter of definition, with only a passing swipe at subjectivist theories, > which were underdeveloped in those days. > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
