Brad, you are perfectly correct if you want to do economics as an abstract
formalism. You could have a waterfall theory of value or a oil theory of value,
but Marx began from the standpoint that the economy was a human construction.
Brad De Long wrote:
> >Not quite, Jason. The waterfall does n
>Not quite, Jason. The waterfall does not create value on its own. It only
>amplies the productivity of labor.
>
Why not say that labor does not create value on its own--it only
amplifies the productivity of the waterfall? That's the way the
Physiocrats went, and one makes as much (or, rather
Thanks, for this post, Rod. But (as usual) I have a few quibbles
Rod Hay wrote:
>Both labour and nature can produce things of value.
I don't know about this use of an active verb ("produce") as applied to
nature. In Marx, at least, production involves prior consciousness of what
is to be p
Thanks, Rod, that's what I thought. --jks
In a message dated Sun, 11 Jun 2000 10:54:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Rod Hay
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
<< Both labour and nature can produce things of value. But it is society that gives
a value to things. It assigns a value to things appropriated f
Both labour and nature can produce things of value. But it is society that gives
a value to things. It assigns a value to things appropriated from nature and to
transformations made to those things by labour.
Marx claims that the value of a thing will be proportional to the labour socially
necess
