Re: LOV and LTV
I'D LIKE TO HEAR YOUR RESPONSE TO THIS CRITICISM OF YOUR IDEA THAT WE ONLY NEED EXPLOITATION NOT VALUE THEORY. More on your papers as I read through them. I'm tuckered out on value theory. But as a matter of philosophy of social science, I note that it was never an objection of mind that: Value theory is a lawlike generalization, but there are no such in social sciences, so value theory is false. That was not what I said. Even if laws as lawlike as you like are available in social science, itdoes not follow that anything that has the form of a lawlike generalization is true or useful. However, this is a point about philosophy of science. I am not discussing value theory any more. Sorry. jks _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Re: LOV and LTV
But Justin, do you accept that what you criticise as being redundant some of us would merely call a labor theory of prices? Not merely. Marx attemptedto use value theory to do a lot of work, e.g., as part od a theory of crisis, as a component of his account of commodity fetishism, as an account of the nature of money, and, of course, as the explanation of profit, exploitation, surplus value, and the rate of these things. However, he correctly started from the premises that to do this work, value had to be quantity with a determinable magnitude, and price is the point of entry into that because value appears as price and profit in the phenonemal world. If value theory breaks down there, it's toast, as Marx also recognized, which is why he and Engels and traditional Marxism were concerned with the transformation problem. In these respect he was more intellectually honest that the latter-day defenders of value theory who want the quantity without being able to determine its measure. And from the perspective of it being an expanation of exploitation, some of us would say that childen notice there are grossly unfair and inexplicable differences in society. Unlike me, right? I think that all the inequalities that exist are just great. But here you depart from Marxism: Unfair is a charge he would dismissa sa bourgeois whine. As a liberal democrat, I myself think he was wrong about that--I think justice talk is very important--but I find it odd that you insist on orthodoxy in political economy while rejecting Marx's ideologiekritik of morality in general and talk of justice and fairness in particular. Finally, I don't understand why you think you can't explain inequality with value theory. Here's Roemer['s explanation: the bourgeoisie grabbed the means of production by force or acquired them by luck, and used their ill-gotten resources to maintain their unfair advantages. Not a whisper of value, and so far as it goes a perfectly true, and indeed Marxian explanation. Some of us would say that the marxian theory of value is much bigger than an explanation of exploitation. Without being persuaded by us, do you acknowedge that such different perspectives exist? Do you mean, do I recognize that you persist in error? Yes. jks _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Re: LOV and LTV
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. If I were being polemical, I might ask how you know that money always distorts value if you have no other measure of it. It seems to me that you accept 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
RE: Re: Re: LOV and LTV
But Justin, do you accept that what you criticise as being redundant some of us would merely call a labor theory of prices? Justin responds: Not merely. Marx attempted to use value theory to do a lot of work, e.g., as part od [of?] a theory of crisis, as a component of his account of commodity fetishism, as an account of the nature of money, and, of course, as the explanation of profit, exploitation, surplus value, and the rate of these things. That's right: Marx's Law of Value was a component of his account of commodity fetishism, or is rather implied by his whole vision of the capitalist system, which involves commodity fetishism (or the illusions created by competition of volume III). Like Locke before him (who developed a very non-Marxian labor theory of property), money is central to Marx's LoV. The key thing about the LoV is that it applies -- as a true-by-definition accounting system that's an alternative to doing one's accounting in price terms -- for the capitalist system as a whole or to the average capital (abstract capital) representing the system as a whole. However, he correctly started from the premises that to do this work, value had to be quantity with a determinable magnitude, and price is the point of entry into that because value appears as price and profit in the phenonemal world. If value theory breaks down there, it's toast, as Marx also recognized, which is why he and Engels and traditional Marxism were concerned with the transformation problem. It's surplus-value that appears as profit in the phenomenal world, i.e., the world that we perceive rather than the world revealed by applying the acid of abstraction. (It's only Roemer who sees profit as in essence a scarcity price.) But no matter. Marx's concern with the so-called transformation problem (the derivation of values from prices or vice-versa) comes from his early learning from Ricardo. But then he takes the whole issue in a different direction. For Marx, as I read him, the movement from value to price (or price of production) is not mathematical as much as it is one of moving from a high level of abstraction (volume I of CAPITAL) to a lower one (volume III). In volume I, he focused on capital as a whole (as represented by the representative capitalist, Mr. Moneybags), abstracting from the heterogeneity of many capitals and the relationships amongst them. Step-by-step, he brings in aspects of the picture from which he had abstracted, until he gets to volume III, where he deals with how the configurations of capital appear on the surface of society, in the action of different capitals on one another, i.e., in competition, and in the everyday consciousness of the agents of production themselves (from the first page of text in volume III). In this light, the so-called transformation problem should be seen as a disaggregation problem, going from the whole to the heterogeneous parts that make it up. In Marx's thought, the distinction between individual values and individual prices is as important as their unity. (For example, the value produced by money-lenders equals zero in Marx's theory, but they receive revenues: they are paid a price for their services.) The distinction represents the role of heterogeneity of capitals and competition, whereas the unity (represented by his equations total value = total price and total surplus-value = total profits+interest+rent) represents the fact that the heterogeneity and competition take place within a unified whole. (The revenues received by the money-lenders is a deduction from the surplus-value that the industrial capitalists have organized the production of.) In these respect he was more intellectually honest that the latter-day defenders of value theory who want the quantity without being able to determine its measure. to whom are you referring? and what does this mean? It should also be noted that prices are very hard to measure, especially since the quality of diffferent products varies among them and over time. And from the perspective of it being an expanation of exploitation, some of us would say that childen notice there are grossly unfair and inexplicable differences in society. Unlike me, right? I think that all the inequalities that exist are just great. But here you depart from Marxism: Unfair is a charge he would dismissa sa bourgeois whine. As a liberal democrat, I myself think he was wrong about that--I think justice talk is very important--but I find it odd that you insist on orthodoxy in political economy while rejecting Marx's ideologiekritik of morality in general and talk of justice and fairness in particular. Finally, I don't understand why you think you can't explain inequality with value theory. Here's Roemer['s explanation: the bourgeoisie grabbed the means of production by force or acquired them by luck, and used their ill-gotten resources to maintain their unfair advantages. Not a whisper
FW: Re: Re: LOV and LTV
[this was sent by mistake, before I finished it.] But Justin, do you accept that what you criticise as being redundant some of us would merely call a labor theory of prices? Justin responds: Not merely. Marx attempted to use value theory to do a lot of work, e.g., as part od [of?] a theory of crisis, as a component of his account of commodity fetishism, as an account of the nature of money, and, of course, as the explanation of profit, exploitation, surplus value, and the rate of these things. That's right: Marx's Law of Value was a component of his account of commodity fetishism, or is rather implied by his whole vision of the capitalist system, which involves commodity fetishism (or the illusions created by competition of volume III). Like Locke before him (who developed a very non-Marxian labor theory of property), money is central to Marx's LoV. The key thing about the LoV is that it applies -- as a true-by-definition accounting system that's an alternative to doing one's accounting in price terms -- for the capitalist system as a whole or to the average capital (abstract capital) representing the system as a whole. However, he correctly started from the premises that to do this work, value had to be quantity with a determinable magnitude, and price is the point of entry into that because value appears as price and profit in the phenonemal world. If value theory breaks down there, it's toast, as Marx also recognized, which is why he and Engels and traditional Marxism were concerned with the transformation problem. It's surplus-value that appears as profit in the phenomenal world, i.e., the world that we perceive rather than the world revealed by applying the acid of abstraction. (It's only Roemer who sees profit as in essence a scarcity price.) But no matter. Marx's concern with the so-called transformation problem (the derivation of values from prices or vice-versa) comes from his early learning from Ricardo. But then he takes the whole issue in a different direction. For Marx, as I read him, the movement from value to price (or price of production) is not mathematical as much as it is one of moving from a high level of abstraction (volume I of CAPITAL) to a lower one (volume III). In volume I, he focused on capital as a whole (as represented by the representative capitalist, Mr. Moneybags), abstracting from the heterogeneity of many capitals and the relationships amongst them. Step-by-step, he brings in aspects of the picture from which he had abstracted, until he gets to volume III, where he deals with how the configurations of capital appear on the surface of society, in the action of different capitals on one another, i.e., in competition, and in the everyday consciousness of the agents of production themselves (from the first page of text in volume III). In this light, the so-called transformation problem should be seen as a disaggregation problem, going from the whole to the heterogeneous parts that make it up. In Marx's thought, the distinction between individual values and individual prices is as important as their unity. (For example, the value produced by money-lenders equals zero in Marx's theory, but they receive revenues: they are paid a price for their services.) The distinction represents the role of heterogeneity of capitals and competition, whereas the unity (represented by his equations total value = total price and total surplus-value = total profits+interest+rent) represents the fact that the heterogeneity and competition take place within a unified whole. (The revenues received by the money-lenders is a deduction from the surplus-value that the industrial capitalists have organized the production of.) In these respect he was more intellectually honest that the latter-day defenders of value theory who want the quantity without being able to determine its measure. to whom are you referring? and what does this mean? It's quite possible to measure values, though only approximately. But note that even prices can be very hard to measure, especially since the quality of diffferent products varies and the cost of buying something can involve non-monetary or hidden monetary elements. Justin continues ... I don't understand why you think you can't explain inequality with value theory. Here's Roemer['s explanation: the bourgeoisie grabbed the means of production by force or acquired them by luck, and used their ill-gotten resources to maintain their unfair advantages. Not a whisper of value, and so far as it goes a perfectly true, and indeed Marxian explanation. In our old article in ECONMICS PHILOSOPHY, Gary Dymski and I devastated Roemer's theory. He has no explanation of why the capitalists continue to receive profits over time. Blinkered by general equilibrium theory, he presents an equilibrium (i.e., inadequate) theory which cannot explain why the key variable in the story -- the scarcity of capital goods -- persists over time. That is, Roemer's theory doesn't
Re: Re: LOV and LTV
And how could Marx define the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation in the way he does in Ch XXV if his theory of value was not a) dynamic b )systemic? Mine is not an overimaginative reading of the overall thrust of Marx's approach, (although unimaginative readings of Marx's theory are more than possible). Chris Burford Not at all Chris. I was suggesting that my definition was limited, in need of supplmentation because it did not capture the meanings on which you are rightly focused. Rakesh
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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
Re: Re: LOV and LTV
Chris, Marx puts the dynamism in, in part, by saying that value represents the cost of REPRODUCTION, not production. This is a key element in his analysis of the devalorization of capital. Chris Burford wrote: At 06/02/02 20:10 -0800, you wrote: This definition of course does not capture the systemic and dynamic features which Chris B is attempting to build into his definition. The law of value of commodities ultimately determines how much of its disposable working-time society can expend on each particular class of commodities. V Vol I Ch 14Sec 4 And how could Marx define the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation in the way he does in Ch XXV if his theory of value was not a) dynamic b )systemic? Mine is not an overimaginative reading of the overall thrust of Marx's approach, (although unimaginative readings of Marx's theory are more than possible). Chris Burford -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: LOV and LTV
^ CB: Are you saying that probablistic laws are not fuzzier than laws that are more definitive ? Depends on the probablistic laws. The laws of quantum mechanics are as precise as can be. So too are the laws of Mendelian genetics. Essentially they can predict the probabilities they describe extremely precisely. A law of thefalling rate of profit is not like that that. The laws of physics are formulated with plenty of exceptions. Take the first law of Newton and Galilei as presented by Einstein below. The clause removed sufficiently far from other bodies is a ceteris paribus clause and implies exceptions to the law ( i.e. when the body is not removed sufficiently from other bodies there is an exception). Not the same thing. If you factor in the gravitational attraction of other bodies, you can (with difficulty, the many-body problem is very challenging), predict the path of the body affected as precisely as you like. With physics, the sources of deviation are few in kind, well understood, and rigorously accountable for. Social systems by contrast are open. We don't know even what kinds of things might count as disturbances. And the ideal type models, freed from disturbances, are of unclear status. The best ideal type we have of that sort is the rational actor model underlying game theory and neoclassical economics. Even there the terms are disputed. With the rational actor minimax or maximin or what? I repeat that I am not, as a social scientist, gripped with physics envy. I do not think that physics is better as science merely because it is more precise. I also agree that the differences between the natural and the social sciences are differences in degree rather than kind. This was the thesis of my doctoral dissertation. That doesn't mean that there are no differences. jks _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
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I discuss this is What's Wrong with Exploitation?, look it up, and see if you disagree. jks What is wrong is endegenous accumulation which is enabled by exploitation as the profit source. And if endogenous accumulation is possible, capitalism can not experience crises. Rosa Luxemburg understood that, ninety years ago. Say more, I don't understand this. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: LOV and LTV
Charles Brown wrote: Myself, I would not give dialectics a lesser status than full theoretical concepts. I was edified by THE DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST , well, sort of as a heuristic in coming to an understanding of dialectics as more than a heuristic , as Marx , Engels and Lenin use dialectics. Charles, some where in Anti-Duhring Engels says that dialectics neither proves anything nor discovers anything new. Sorry I can't quote it exactly or give you an exact cite. Some writer used that as a text on the basis of which he rejected dialectics completely. Carrol
Re: LOV and LTV
As with most definitional debates or what seems futile hairsplitting and mere semantics, the hope is that clarity as to definitions will help prevent confusion and mutual incomprehension at a later stage in the debate. For example, I think much of the debate in value theory could be more productive if participants were clear about how surplus value is defined. 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. I believe that this definition follows from the simple fact that in an atomized bourgeois society in which social labor is organized by private money-making units social labor time relations can only be regulated in and through the exchange of things, however value is in fact misrepresented by this mode of expression. In capturing Marx's quantitative and qualitative sense, one should probably build money and fetishism into the very definition of value. This will help to clarify that Marx is not simply qualifying Ricardo's definition of value but stipulating a new meaning. This definition of course does not capture the systemic and dynamic features which Chris B is attempting to build into his definition. Of course a serious problem with my definition is that it may imply that units of money come to define the objectified social labor time that is socially attributed to a commodity, rather than money price being an expression of the socially necessary abstract labor time objectively needed for the reproduction of the commodity. While I would agree that monetary measurement is not merely a passive ascertainment of a preexisting attribute and specifically that value is not actualized without successful money sale--that is a value must prove itself to be a social use value--the value that is expressed in exchange value is based on the objective social labor time that is in fact needed to reproduce the bulk of such commodities though as Marx emphasizes this value is in fact necessarily mis-represented in exchange. rb
Re: LOV and LTV
CB: What's the difference between a lawful explanation and a lawlike explanation ? ( no fuzzy answers) The explanations invoked in physics are lawful, i.e., they use preciselt formulated lawsto generate specific (if sometimes probabilistic) predictions. ^^ CB: Of course, admitting probablism admits the very fuzziness that this old superiority complex of hard sciences claims is its superiority to soft social science. Not at all. With quantum probabilities you can predict values down to as many decimal places as you care to write. Quantum is not riddled with exceptions and ceteris paribus clauses. Physics is now a contradictory unity of extreme precision and extreme fuzziness, just as a dialectics of nature might have expected. What are you talking about? On the most charir=table interpretation of laws in social science, any lawlike generalizations that exist are not like this. CB: Naw. I overcame my social science inferority complex to physical sciences long ago. It's not superiority/inferiority thing, it's just different. This won't fly anymore with us social scientists. I'm a Michigan=trained socisl scientists myself, Charles--my PhD is joint polisci and philosophy. Social scientist generalizations are very lawlike, in the original sense of law , to which physics and certainly biology, have come full circle and retuned to. Some and some, but more like evolutionary biology, which hardly has any lawlike generalizations at all. That doesn't, I say again, make it worse or inferior. To paraphrase the leading anthropologist Leslie A. White (sort of opposite to postmods) a main reason that social science is rendered soft and impotent in the bourgeois academy is that the best social science today, Marxism, would overthrow the existing order. I said something like this in The Paradox of Ideology, by way of explaining why therre is no consenus in social science. Marxism makes very good and lawlike generalizations. A few, but which are you thinking of? I'm mean you can say that the laws of history are not as mechanical as the laws of mechanics, i.e. physics. But that's a tautology. So what ? Physics is not the archtype model for all science. You asked what the difference was. I never said social science should aspire to be like physics. They are riddled with exceptions, burdened with ceteris paribus clauses, and generally fuzzy. ^^^ CB: There are lots of these in physics, chemistry and biology. Biology, yes. Name a few in physics and chemistry. But that subjectivities play a bigger role in social science does not mean there are not also objective exactnesses. I agree. There are subjectivities in law situations, but the law manages to put a very precise grid over social situations. Social science can obtain a literally similar _lawlike_ precision. Not a _very_ precise grid. So, natural scientists need a new word. Lawlike is closer to what social scientists have. That's what I said. But not only that, social science has identified satisfactorily , from the standpoint of knowledge, many generlizations, and laws,that can guide practice. I reject the physical sciences claims to lawlike superority and the like. Me too. CB: In this sense, Marx's value is not heuristic, but a fundamental theoretical concept. I'm not persuaded. jks _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Re: LOV and LTV
At 07/02/02 06:07 +, you wrote: CB: In this sense, Marx's value is not heuristic, but a fundamental theoretical concept. I'm not persuaded. jks Nobody has to be persuaded of anything. But Justin, do you accept that what you criticise as being redundant some of us would merely call a labor theory of prices? And from the perspective of it being an expanation of exploitation, some of us would say that childen notice there are grossly unfair and inexplicable differences in society. Some of us would say that the marxian theory of value is much bigger than an explanation of exploitation. Without being persuaded by us, do you acknowedge that such different perspectives exist? Chris Burford
Re: LOV and LTV
At 06/02/02 20:10 -0800, you wrote: This definition of course does not capture the systemic and dynamic features which Chris B is attempting to build into his definition. The law of value of commodities ultimately determines how much of its disposable working-time society can expend on each particular class of commodities. V Vol I Ch 14Sec 4 And how could Marx define the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation in the way he does in Ch XXV if his theory of value was not a) dynamic b )systemic? Mine is not an overimaginative reading of the overall thrust of Marx's approach, (although unimaginative readings of Marx's theory are more than possible). Chris Burford
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The clearest non-LTV demonstration that there is exploitation is Joan Robinson's observation that ownership is not an activity therefore it is not a productive activity, so any rewards to ownership must come out of someone else's production. But without something like the LTV, we miss a lot of what is important about specifically *marxist* exploitation. It's possible to believe that there is exploitation in this sense, but that this is because of a technical factor; that capital has a marginal productivity. In order to see that the reward to capital is a result of social relations rather than relations between things, you need to get off the fence and make more definite statements about value. I have argued this point ins ome detail in my What's Wrong with Exploitation? Nous 1995, from which you might as well be paraphrasing, except that while I say the notion of value in a broad sense has an important theoretical role to play, and labor time is an important component of it, particukarly in accounting for profit, the LTV as I have defined it here is false and unnecessary. You might well say that I have conceded enough so that I mighta s well admit the LTV is true. But this is a glass half-empty/full matter. I could justa s well as that if you admit that value is not definitionally or empirically equivalent to labor time, you might as well admit that the LTV is false. Some of the issue between these alternatives may be the difference between those who think of themselves as Marxists possessed of a new science,a holistic theoretical explanation of the nature of capitalsim, and pragmatic radicals like myself who are cheerly eclectic, willing to borrow from Marx, Hayek, Weber, Robinson, Keynes, etc., but who have no pretense to having more than mid level scientific theories that may help us muddle through in our reformsit ways towards unseen but aspired to radical ends. I don't think we are making progress here, hadn't we best stop? _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
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I wrote: Marx uses the word law differently than Justin does. Marx's laws are dialectical, non-deterministic. But many interpret his ideas in Justin's terms, proving that Marx was a determinist. Justin writes: How do you get deterministic out of precisely formulated relatoon among variables? The laws of quantum mechanics are as precisely formulated as could be, and nondeterministic too. they are deterministic in that they make very specific predictions. Fallback to dialectics, though, raises my antennae, because it is often an excuse to talk a lot of nonsense. I think Marx was genuinely dialectical in a specific Hegelian sense--he proceeds by immanent critique, for example--but this isn't a matter of giving an alternative to explanation by means of probabalistic laws or tendecies, but rather a style of explanation that offers a framework for offering lawlike explanations. Yes, dialectics are often used to speak nonsense, just as the economic way of thinking that shows up in textbooks is. But I wasn't falling back to dialectics (and I don't understand why you think I was doing so). Rather, I was pointing to the intellectual tradition that Marx belonged to, which meant that he used the word law in a different way than modern social science does. That's all. If you don't situate a thinker in his or her tradition, it weakens your understanding of his or her thought. Among other things, different traditions use words differently. See Ollman's excellent book, ALIENATION, for example. (Frankly, I don't like the way Marx uses words -- as having varying meanings depending on context -- but it's important for understanding's sake to understand what he was doing.) It's good to get beyond a knee-jerk reaction (pro _or_ con) to the word dialectics. That kind of thing encourages the rigidity of thought. BTW, the laws of supply demand are also non-determinist. SD cannot give specific answers to anything in the abstract. Rather, they have to be given empirical content. SD might best be seen as a (an?) heuristic, acting as a guide to thought. Of course, Marx's value theory -- or law of value -- is also a heuristic. I have said as much here. But it's a far more limited heuristic than you seem to think. It's basically useful for showing ina simple way that there's exploitation going on. However, you can do this without it. as I write on the margins of term papers now and then, assertion is not the same as proof. I've published a couple of articles about the utility of value. If you want the references, I'll send them to you. -- Jim Devine
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Devine, James wrote: I wrote: Marx uses the word law differently than Justin does. Marx's laws are dialectical, non-deterministic. But many interpret his ideas in Justin's terms, proving that Marx was a determinist. Justin writes: How do you get deterministic out of precisely formulated relatoon among variables? The laws of quantum mechanics are as precisely formulated as could be, and nondeterministic too. they are deterministic in that they make very specific predictions. Wow. That's a broad definition of deterministic. Are bookies determinists? Fred _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
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Justin wrote: I have argued this point ins ome detail in my What's Wrong with Exploitation? Nous 1995, At this point I must once more apologise for having taken a somewhat snippy tone in this thread; it is entirely because I am an idiot. I seem to have acquired the belief that What's Wrong with Exploitation? and In Defense of Exploitation were the same paper and that this paper was called In Defence [note spelling] of Exploitation. As a result I've been searching fruitlessly for this non-paper for the last three days and was beginning to uncharitably suspect that it didn't exist. A thousand apologies. In the circumstances, I agree that we'd better stop; I may come back on this once I've read the papers if I still disagree. Alternatively, if I find that I agree with you, I promise to start a cult in your name and argue with anybody who I decide is misinterpreting you :-) dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV
- Original Message - From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 11:17 PM Subject: [PEN-L:22376] RE: Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV I have said as much here. But it's a far more limited heuristic than you seem to think. It's basically useful for showing ina simple way that there's exploitation going on. However, you can do this without it. jks It's also useful for showing that the exploitation (defined in Roemer's sense) is a result of social factors rather than technical ones; I don't think you can do this without ending up committed to something which has most of the characteristics of the LTV. The clearest non-LTV demonstration that there is exploitation is Joan Robinson's observation that ownership is not an activity therefore it is not a productive activity, so any rewards to ownership must come out of someone else's production. But without something like the LTV, we miss a lot of what is important about specifically *marxist* exploitation. It's possible to believe that there is exploitation in this sense, but that this is because of a technical factor; that capital has a marginal productivity. In order to see that the reward to capital is a result of social relations rather than relations between things, you need to get off the fence and make more definite statements about value. dd = Why not focus on ownership, property, contract, corporate governance etc. in a manner that fellow citizens can relate to. How would value theory help the working class understand Enron and Argentina? Ian
RE: LOV and LTV
Many laws such as the laws of supply and demand are really neither descriptive nor predictive, but can only really be seen as *prescriptive*. This is what you *should* do if you want such and such results. (This is what Adolph Lowe called instrumental analysis.) Subject: [PEN-L:22404] LOV and LTV LOV and LTV by Devine, James 05 February 2002 04:42 UTC BTW, the laws of supply demand are also non-determinist. SD cannot give specific answers to anything in the abstract. Rather, they have to be given empirical content. SD might best be seen as a (an?) heuristic, acting as a guide to thought. Of course, Marx's value theory -- or law of value -- is also a heuristic. JDevine
RE: LOV and LTV
Charles writes: Can we get into a little more what a heuristic is ? Seems to be a sort of ok device for guiding scientific enquire, but sort of not a fulfledged ...what ? Theoretical concept ? What is the term for other types of ideas ( that are more than heuristic ) that are used in scientific or economic theories ? Heuristic devices seem to be tools used in a scientific or knowledge process, but not the ultimate theoretical concepts. you've got it. A heuristic is a device for guiding thought or inquiry. One example is the dialectical way of thinking, which does not give answers as much as tell you what questions to ask: how does the whole affect the parts? how do the parts affect the whole? how does the dynamic interaction between these work? (cf. Lewontin Levins, THE DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST, last chapter.) JDevine
RE: LOV and LTV
CB: Can we get into a little more what a heuristic is? Anyone interested in heuristics should consult a wonderful little book called _How to Solve It_ by Georges Polya. The aim of heuristics according to Polya is to study the methods and rules of discovery and invention. People like Polya (and those he influenced like Michael Polanyi) and C. S. Peirce (and his follower Norwood Hanson) believe that there is a logic of discovery. mat
Re: RE: LOV and LTV
Charles writes: Can we get into a little more what a heuristic is ? Seems to be a sort of ok device for guiding scientific enquire, but sort of not a fulfledged ...what ? Theoretical concept ? What is the term for other types of ideas ( that are more than heuristic ) that are used in scientific or economic theories ? Theory, law, variable, etc. Heuristic devices seem to be tools used in a scientific or knowledge process, but not the ultimate theoretical concepts. Could not have said it better myself. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
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I have argued this point ins ome detail in my What's Wrong with Exploitation? Nous 1995, At this point I must once more apologise for having taken a somewhat snippy tone in this thread; it is entirely because I am an idiot. I seem to have acquired the belief that What's Wrong with Exploitation? and In Defense of Exploitation were the same paper and that this paper was called In Defence [note spelling] of Exploitation. As a result I've been searching fruitlessly for this non-paper for the last three days and was beginning to uncharitably suspect that it didn't exist. A thousand apologies. In the circumstances, I agree that we'd better stop; I may come back on this once I've read the papers if I still disagree. Alternatively, if I find that I agree with you, I promise to start a cult in your name and argue with anybody who I decide is misinterpreting you :-) dd Here is the link to a draft (slightly different from the published version): http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/marxism/Exploit.htm In defence of exploitation, Econ Phil 1995, is at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/marxism/DefenseE.htm The Brit editors britishized the spelling (behaviour, defence, and the like). I wrote it in good 'murrican. jks ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: LOV and LTV
I think Marx was genuinely dialectical in a specific Hegelian sense--he proceeds by immanent critique, for example--but this isn't a matter of giving an alternative to explanation by means of probabalistic laws or tendecies, but rather a style of explanation that offers a framework for offering lawlike explanations. ^ CB: What's the difference between a lawful explanation and a lawlike explanation ? ( no fuzzy answers) The explanations invoked in physics are lawful, i.e., they use preciselt formulated lawsto generate specific (if sometimes probabilistic) predictions. On the most charir=table interpretation of laws in social science, any lawlike generalizations that exist are not like this. They are riddled with exceptions, burdened with ceteris paribus clauses, and generally fuzzy. Moreover many social scientific explanations are, like the explanations in evolutionary biology, entirely nonwalike, but instead proceed by giving a specific sort of narrative. Darwinian explanations are generally like this. However, there sre some more or lessrobust explanatory generalizations that are like laws, if not ful--fledged laws like the laws of physics. Precise enough for you? Books have been written on this; I could give you cites. CB: Is exploitation a heuristic ? Does the other way of showing that exploitation is going on use heuristic devices ? No, exploitation is a fundamental fact. And yes my way of proceeding does use heuristics; there's nothing wrong with using heuristics, as long as you remember they are not fundamental theoretical concepts that describe the Way Things Are. (I was a graduate student of Prof. Mary B. Hesse, author of the pioneering study Models and Analogies in Science, still the place to start in thinking about this stuff.) _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV
Title: Re: [PEN-L:22419] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: LOV and Why is domination functional for increasing exploitation? The answer highlights a third problem with Roemer's argument which turns on a crucial assumption of his models. In these what workers sell is labour, not labour power, or, equivalently, labour contracts are costlessly enforceable (1986b, 269). This is a consequence of the Walrasian assumption that there are no transaction costs, including those of contract enforcement, i.e., that markets are 'complete'. But this assumption is not a minor technical issue. Its effect is to undermine domination as an ethical reason for interest in exploitation by calling into question the explanatory interest simpliciter of domination. Marx argues that workers sell labour power, their ability to work (1967a, 167-169). Justin, this is extremely well put, though it leaves us with the task of reconstructing Marx's logic. How is it that Marx discovers on the island of free wage labor (i..e, workers own no means of production) that the proletariat alienates labor power rather than (as it seems) labor time? rb
Re: LOV and LTV
Another point on this is that for Marx value mainly applies to capitalism. Marx refers to the fruits of exploitation in pre-capitalist societies as surplus-labor ( see below) not surplus value . So, for Marx value is meant to convey the specific form of exploitation that predominates in capitalism. Value is unique to capitalism, or to the commodity production and exchange that was on the periphery of societies until capitalism. In Marxist terms, feudal serfs were exploited , but did not produce value. So, showing exploitation in capitalism without using the concept of value misses the point or impoverishes rather than enriches Marx's theory. I discuss this is What's Wrong with Exploitation?, look it up, and see if you disagree. jks _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV
I have said as much here. But it's a far more limited heuristic than you seem to think. It's basically useful for showing ina simple way that there's exploitation going on. However, you can do this without it. as I write on the margins of term papers now and then, assertion is not the same as proof. I've published a couple of articles about the utility of value. If you want the references, I'll send them to you. Right, Professor. I used to be a Professor too, and I think I may have heard of the concept. I also think I have argued the point. I would very much appreciate if you would send me the _papers_ (snail mail: 2227 Lincolnwood Dr. Evanston IL 60201). I lack easy access to a U library, not being a Professor anymore. I will do the same, if you like, with the papers I have written attacking the utility of the LTV or showing that we can do without it. jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Re: Re: LOV and LTV
I discuss this is What's Wrong with Exploitation?, look it up, and see if you disagree. jks What is wrong is endegenous accumulation which is enabled by exploitation as the profit source. And if endogenous accumulation is possible, capitalism can not experience crises. Rosa Luxemburg understood that, ninety years ago.
RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV
JKS writes: I have said as much here. But it's [the Marxian Law of Value is] a far more limited heuristic than you seem to think. It's basically useful for showing ina simple way that there's exploitation going on. However, you can do this without it. quoth me: as I write on the margins of term papers now and then, assertion is not the same as proof. I've published a couple of articles about the utility of value. If you want the references, I'll send them to you. he responds: Right, Professor. I used to be a Professor too, and I think I may have heard of the concept. I also think I have argued the point. dunno. It seems that you rest too much on your laurels rather than your logic, citing published articles rather than explaining your point of view, your assumptions, how they are applied, etc. I would very much appreciate if you would send me the _papers_ (snail mail: ADDRESS SUPPRESSSED TO PRESERVE PRIVACY). They're in the snail-mail. JDevine
Heuristics Re: RE: LOV and LTV
A wonderful story on heuristics. Back in the fall of 1970 I got subpoened by a legislative commit6ee investigating campus disorders. They were a bunch of buffoons -- as shown beautifully by their interrogation of a professor of electrical engineering from the U of I. He was a German emigre and stepped right out of a cartoon of a kindly old professor. The background was that for many years he had taught a quiet course in the Engineering school on heuristics, in which only engineering students enrolled. As part of the jazzing up of distribution requirements back in the late '60s they made his course available to the general student body. The idea he came up with was to let the students choose their own goal, it could be anything sensible or not, and then their semester project would be to establish how they would work out the means to that end. They came up with some doozies. How to make a fortune selling marijuana. How to blow up the student union building. All sorts of sixtyish projects. The good Illinois senators decided that it was all a commie plot hauled him down to springfield to testify. The high point came when they began grilling him on those students who had, purportedly, refused to carry out the project. The Illinois Legislators (name for one of the lower forms of life) obviously thought that he had assigned subversive topics and that some patriotic students had refused to carry out the nefarious work. His reply (in a gentle German accent but very clear): I'm sorry, zey vas just lazy bums!. Carrol
Re: LOV or LTV
CB: The problem I see with this is that increasing productive capacity of the men in the trade or increase productivity would seem to be defined by fewer human labor time per unit commodity. How can that result in more work for men (people) ? And yet, it has been a historical fact for long. This paradox demands to be explained. The answer is growth. Capital runs after productivity to make profit. Now, the profit does not result from a fewer human labour per unit commodity, but from the multiplication of commodities per unit of time (not working time, but calendar's one). So that in a period of normal growth (inflation being neglected) due to an increasing productivity, the most productive sectors do not reduce their workforce. But according to Marx's assessment I recalled in my posting (differential distribution of productivity along the economic chain), the providers of the most productive sectors can not match with the increasing demand by an equal productivity rise. So that they must increase their workforce in order to compensate their productivity gap. And so on, up to the sectors that are the closest to natural cycles. This way, an increasing productivity leads to an increase in global labour force. And this is a historical fact. However, this mechanism does not work, when growth is repressed in order to fight against inflation, by repressing public expenditure and setting interest rates above price index. So that the equation I wrote in my answer to Chris is more accurately: Rate of productivity rise = Rate of change in Labour force + Price Index Such a model is detailed in my article World-System's Entropy on irép's website: http://www.edu-irep.org/Romain.htm RK
Re: LOV and LTV
At 04/02/02 15:37 -0500, you wrote: Chris Burford: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. Justin:That's not a law, in any normal scientific sense. A law is a precisely formulable generalization (n.b., not a definitional assumption) stating relations between variables. I think the law of value is that the price of commodities tends towards their value in long runm, with certain determinate disturbances that imply that prices tend to converge on pricesof prodyction. CharlesB: The law of value is stated by Marx and Engels azs a relationship between variables. The law of value is that commodities are exchanged for each other based on the labor time embodied in them (not as Justin state it; Engels has an essay on this in the afterward or something of Vol. III ) Obviously I am in general sympathy with Charles's defence of the LOV approach, but I think Justin helpfully pinpoints a line of demarcation. For Justin a law is a precisely formulable generalization. Many might agree the merits of such an approach, but I am fairly confident that Marx and Engels would not. People will have to make a value judgement about this. In Chapter XXV Section 4 of Vol 1 of Capital Marx states in connection with the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances, the analysis of which does not concern us here. Now it is true that Marx's formulation of the law could still conceivably be expressed in a clear relationship of variables despite this qualification, but the qualification suggests to me that Marx expected the workings of any serious law to be fuzzy in practice. The statement about the law of value of commodities in Ch XIV Section 4 goes on to say But this constant tendency to equlibirum ... is exercised only in the shape of a reaction against the constant upsetting of this equilbrium. This to my mind makes it sound much more like a strange attractor than a simple equation. There is the strange argument that the law of value only begins to develop itself freely on the basis of capitalist production (Ch XIX) which Engels appears to support by his argument in the appendix to Vol III of Capital on the Law of Value, which argues that the LOV has been in existence for at least 7,000 years. In stating this Engels, has a throw-away qualification as far as economic laws are valid at all In the essay he considers various definitions of the law of value and does not insist on only one. Furthermore he asks people to make sufficient allowance for the fact that we are dealing with a historical process and its explanatory reflection in thought, the logical pursuance of its inner connections. So this is a declaration of philosophical realism - that something has emerged in the course of economic history and that a law describing it is not a purely logical process but an explanatory reflection in thought of that real process. The phenomenon itself may be complex enough but the reflections in our brain could be fuzzier still. Nevertheless the complex phenomenon DOES exist. Chris Burfod: Crudely, the difference between LTV and LOV is the difference between a simple equation, which may indeed be weak nourishment, and a dynamic system. Justin: It's possible, and a standard move of defenders of Marxian value theory, to make immune from testing and criticism by making it so fuzzy that it lacks determinate meaning. Who could object to asytstems-dynamical approach to the economy? CharlesB: Here's an example of what I am talking about on AM. It is Justin's understanding that seems fuzzy here . Chris Burford's seems to have quite adequate determinate meaning. The difference Chris describes is also that between moving from the whole to parts and moving from the parts to the whole. A holistic approach is not fuzzier than an approach by parts. ( See Jim D.'s discussion of this issue elsehere here) Obviously like Charles I am a believer that there is some such thing as a capitalist economy and that it has a self perpetuating dynamic. As in chaos theory, it is possible to posit something that is determinate but is indeterminate in precise form: deterministically indeterminate is a serious mathematical concept. As is fuzzy logic. But I suspect that Justin's clearest line of demarcation is in the importance of any theory being vulnerable to testing and criticism. This is a standpoint of a philosophical approach that objects to theories like those of Freud or Marx on the grounds that they are not falsifiable. This is the
Re: LOV and LTV
Chris wrote: The statement about the law of value of commodities in Ch XIV Section 4 goes on to say But this constant tendency to equlibirum ... is exercised only in the shape of a reaction against the constant upsetting of this equilbrium. This to my mind makes it sound much more like a strange attractor than a simple equation. Dear Chris, I have not done any work in Dynamical Systems, so I don't know much about strange attractors. All I know is that an attractor is a set with certain properties, which is associated with a nonautonomous, nonlinear differential equation, and that a strange attractor is an attractor which is chaotic. A simple equation, which based on your statement I read as one that does not exhibit chaos, is not comparable to a set, i.e., they don't belong to the same equivalance class, so I get confused here. Also, as far as I know, not all departures from equilibria are chaotic, even when the equilibria are unstable. I don't even see anything related with stability in Marx's statement. No offense is meant Chris. I read many of your posts with great interest and respect. But this time, I got confused. Best, Sabri
Re: Re: LOV and LTV
Obviously I am in general sympathy with Charles's defence of the LOV approach, but I think Justin helpfully pinpoints a line of demarcation. For Justin a law is a precisely formulable generalization. Many might agree the merits of such an approach, but I am fairly confident that Marx and Engels would not. Why do you think not? People will have to make a value judgement about this. Why is this a value judgment? In Chapter XXV Section 4 of Vol 1 of Capital Marx states in connection with the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances, the analysis of which does not concern us here. This doesn't show that Marx rejects the usual formulation of law, rather, he accepts the obvious point that like many purported social laws, it states a tendency that is ceteris paribus and probabalistic. Now it is true that Marx's formulation of the law could still conceivably be expressed in a clear relationship of variables despite this qualification, but the qualification suggests to me that Marx expected the workings of any serious law to be fuzzy in practice. Sure. But this is just a fact about social generalizations. The statement about the law of value of commodities in Ch XIV Section 4 goes on to say But this constant tendency to equlibirum ... is exercised only in the shape of a reaction against the constant upsetting of this equilbrium. This to my mind makes it sound much more like a strange attractor than a simple equation. Even a precisely formed law can take a very complex form. A law doesn't have to have a simple form. In the essay [Engels] considers various definitions of the law of value and does not insist on only one. Is that supposed to be a recommendation? So this is a declaration of philosophical realism - that something has emerged in the course of economic history and that a law describing it is not a purely logical process but an explanatory reflection in thought of that real process. Social laws, if there are any, are empirical generalizations, not purely logical processes. Obviously like Charles I am a believer that there is some such thing as a capitalist economy Me too. and that it has a self perpetuating dynamic. I agree. But I suspect that Justin's clearest line of demarcation is in the importance of any theory being vulnerable to testing and criticism. This is a standpoint of a philosophical approach that objects to theories like those of Freud or Marx on the grounds that they are not falsifiable. I didn't say that and don't believe it. I think Freud's a fraud as a scientist, but Marx is the real think. I think the core of his theories is correct. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV
Marx uses the word law differently than Justin does. Marx's laws are dialectical, non-deterministic. But many interpret his ideas in Justin's terms, proving that Marx was a determinist. How do you get deterministic out of precisely formulated relatoon among variables? The laws of quantum mechanics are as precisely formulated as could be, and nondeterministic too. Fallback to dialectics, though, raises my antennae, because it is often an excuse to talk a lot of nonsense. I think Marx was genuinely dialectical in a specific Hegelian sense--he proceeds by immanent critique, for example--but this isn't a matter of giving an alternative to explanation by means of probabalistic laws or tendecies, but rather a style of explanation that offers a framework for offering lawlike explanations. BTW, the laws of supply demand are also non-determinist. SD cannot give specific answers to anything in the abstract. Rather, they have to be given empirical content. SD might best be seen as a (an?) heuristic, acting as a guide to thought. Of course, Marx's value theory -- or law of value -- is also a heuristic. I have said as much here. But it's a far more limited heuristic than you seem to think. It's basically useful for showing ina simple way that there's exploitation going on. However, you can do this without it. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
RE: Re: RE: Re: LOV and LTV
I have said as much here. But it's a far more limited heuristic than you seem to think. It's basically useful for showing ina simple way that there's exploitation going on. However, you can do this without it. jks It's also useful for showing that the exploitation (defined in Roemer's sense) is a result of social factors rather than technical ones; I don't think you can do this without ending up committed to something which has most of the characteristics of the LTV. The clearest non-LTV demonstration that there is exploitation is Joan Robinson's observation that ownership is not an activity therefore it is not a productive activity, so any rewards to ownership must come out of someone else's production. But without something like the LTV, we miss a lot of what is important about specifically *marxist* exploitation. It's possible to believe that there is exploitation in this sense, but that this is because of a technical factor; that capital has a marginal productivity. In order to see that the reward to capital is a result of social relations rather than relations between things, you need to get off the fence and make more definite statements about value. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
RE: LOV or LTV
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
Re: LOV or LTV
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 I agree with the authenticity of LOV rather than LTV. Nevertheless, a simple equation may match a model of a dynamic system, as follows. In 1911, F. W. Taylor observed that the history of the development of each trade shows that each improvement, whether it be the invention of a new machine or the introduction of a better method, which results in increasing the productive capacity of the men in the trade and cheapening the costs, instead of throwing men out of work make in the end work for more men (The Principles of Scientific Management). This empirical observation may be done further, up to nowadays. And it may be explained by having in mind a theoretical assessment of Marx, on the unequal distribution of organic composition of capital, that is of productivity, along the economic chain (B.3, Ch.45; Dietz: pp.767-768). By putting n productive sectors in a growing-productivities order between ecosystem and final product, as an abstract model of economic chain, and by assuming that the very upstream productivity gains are insignificant with respect to the ones of the very downstream activities, we obtain such an equation at the limit of flows adaptation (just-in-time) : Rate of increase in global employed workforce = Rate of increase in mean productivity of economic chain That is to say, along economic chain, capital valorizes its productivity gains (relative surplus value) by exchanging them against labour activity. And we retrieve LOV. From the point of vue of downstream dominance (USA, Western Europe and Japan), this law is blured by relocations outside, but from the point of vue of Third-World countries, providing cheap work force and raw material, it works as it always worked, driving populations from their traditional economy towards industrializing centers (cf. Rosa Luxemburg). Such a model of mine is published at this address: http://www.edu-irep-org/ romain.htm under the title: World-System's Entropy. It is a dynamic model that notably matches asymmetric exchanges, exogenous accumulation, expansionnism, inflation by growth and the trending profit rate to fall. It demands to be harshly criticized. Regards, Romain Kroês
Re: 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. Marx and Engels never used the term Labour Theory of Value, nor did they invent it. Of course not, and I have repeatedly said that Marx was using and developing the best political economy of his time.. 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. Well, he does say, for example, that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount oof labor socially necessary, or the labor timer socially necessaey for production. This at the very start pf CI, Part I. Marx footnotes an author of an a remarkable anonymous work written circa 1740. That is the formulationI 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. That's not a law, in any normal scientific sense. A law is a precisely formulable generalization (n.b., not a definitional assumption) stating relations between variables. I think the law of value is that the price of commodities tends towards their value in long runm, with certain determinate disturbances that imply that prices tend to converge on pricesof prodyction. Crudely, the difference between LTV and LOV is the difference between a simple equation, which may indeed be weak nourishment, and a dynamic system. It's possible, and a standard move of defenders of Marxian value theory, to make immune from testing and criticism by making it so fuzzy that it lacks determinate meaning. Who could object to asytstems-dynamical approach to the economy? jks _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
