Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Value talk
Justin, you expect us to move on after you characterize my attempts as inward turning--this is exactly what the Marxian law of value is not! Well, I'm out of energy, anyway. And these are not the points I am after, as should be clear to you after years of debate. There is a willful ignorance on your part that is disturbing to say the least. You are trivializing what the law of value is meant to explain so that you can walk away from it without loss. This is in fact dishonest. So shoot me. And please do not use the hot and heavy rhetoric I thought I was pretty mild. unless you can explicitly name the fatal objection. We were dealing with the redundancy charge which even if true is not by any means a fatal objection, for all it shows in itself is that calculation by value is inconvenient and derivative. A degenerating research program often doesn't have a single fatal flaw. It just runs out of steam, spends all of its time trying to fix up internal problem, doesn't geberate new hypotheses and predictions and theories. I think that is a pretty good description of what has happened in Marxian value theory over the last century. Or do you really think GA Cohen's piece on the labor theory of value is definitive? I think it's a perfect disaster. his absolute worst piece, showing inexplicable and appalling ignorance of fundamental issues. Moreover, note that I raised the question whether and how any theory other than labor value makes sense of moral depreciation and the paradoxes to which it gives rise. You give no reply. Haven't really thought about it. And we need to be clear yet another thing. Freudianism and Marxism would clearly be falsifiable if people were not to act irrationally and capitalist development were to crisis free, respectively. ? Anyway, falsifiability is not my thing. I'm a pragmatist, not a Popperian. Fruitfulness is my thing. The LTV isn't fruitful. As Grossmann demonstrated, the law of value finds its confirmation not only in the recurrence of general, protracted crises but in its accurate prediction of (and specification of) the kinds of techno-organizational changes that are needed by both individual capitals and the capitalist class-as-a-whole for an exit from crises of a general and protracted type. The law of value which was applied by Mattick Sr to the accumulation of fictitious capital in the form of govt debt was confirmed by mixed economy going up in stagflationary ashes and by the limits of Keynesian intervention since then. The law of value is not confirmed at the level of exchange ratios but rather more like the law of gravity is confirmed when a house falls on one's head. A fallacy: Your theory preducts that there will crises. The theory posits X. There are crises. So X exists. I have argued, however, that the main lines of the theoey can be reconstituted without X and still give us the same results. Also, I note that Marxisn crisis theory is highly underdeveloped, and IMHO the best version of it, Brenner's, does not use value theory. Anyway, I'm plum tuckered out. jks _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Value talk
I thought I was pretty mild. Referring to your interlocutor as desperate and inward turning is clearly not mild, but I suspect that I shall be blamed for the rancor on the list as I was supposed to take the heat for Paul Phillips' explosion. Moreover, note that I raised the question whether and how any theory other than labor value makes sense of moral depreciation and the paradoxes to which it gives rise. You give no reply. Haven't really thought about it. but this was my reply to your query. Yes of course the input means of production can be said to embody/represent indirect and direct labor time, you concede, but why does this make them values, you seemed to ask. And my reply was that their character as values is revealed by the threat that they will undergo moral depreciation, i.e., come to represent less socially necessary abstract labor time, and the compulsion the ruling class puts on the working class to consume them before they are morally depreciated. This is how Marx explains what puzzled JS Mill: the best tools for the reduction of labor become unfailing means for the prolongation and intensification of the working day. Marx explains this puzzle by understanding these means of production as values-in-process, not simply given technical conditions of production. A fallacy: Your theory preducts that there will crises. The theory posits X. There are crises. So X exists. I have argued, however, that the main lines of the theoey can be reconstituted without X and still give us the same results. You're not reading carefully. The theory explains both the recurrence of general, protracted crises and the means by which they are overcome. The law of value thus pits so called orthodox Marxists against underconsumptionist social democrats. Also, I note that Marxisn crisis theory is highly underdeveloped, and IMHO the best version of it, Brenner's, does not use value theory. Anyway, I'm plum tuckered out. Does Brenner agree that he does not use value theory? As far as I can see, he is in part saying that the full value of commodities could not be realized due to international competition. But Marx's crisis theory is able to explain the onset of crisis even when demand is strong enough for commodities to be realized at their full value. rb
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Value talk
I thought I was pretty mild. Referring to your interlocutor as desperate and inward turning is clearly not mild, I refereed to the theory that way, and not to any of its advocates. but I suspect that I shall be blamed for the rancor on the list as I was supposed to take the heat for Paul Phillips' explosion. Far as I can tell everyone's being uncommonly civil. note that I raised the question whether and how any theory other than labor value makes sense of moral depreciation and the paradoxes to which it gives rise. You give no reply. Haven't really thought about it. but this was my reply to your query. Well, I still haven't thought about it. Yes of course the input means of production can be said to embody/represent indirect and direct labor time, you concede, but why does this make them values, you seemed to ask. And my reply was that their character as values is revealed by the threat that they will undergo moral depreciation, i.e., come to represent less socially necessary abstract labor time, and the compulsion the ruling class puts on the working class to consume them before they are morally depreciated. Ah, I guess I have thought about it, not under that description. I don't see why the LTV has to be true to explain this. I have never denied, nor does the the most orthodox bourgeois economist, that if you can save labor costs by adopting a new production technique, that people who have sunk costs in onld labor intensive production techniques are going to have trouble making money. But we don't have to talk about value, least of do we have to say that value is a quantity measured by SNALT. Does Brenner agree that he does not use value theory? As far as I can see, he is in part saying that the full value of commodities could not be realized due to international competition. But Marx's crisis theory is able to explain the onset of crisis even when demand is strong enough for commodities to be realized at their full value. Why don;y you ask him? But read him! If he does use it, it's well-hideen. This supports my view that value is a fifth wheel. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
