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 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
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
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
