Re: AUT: Re: Immeasurable value

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Tahir Wood wrote:

> I'm still wondering how this all relates to the fictitious capital
> debate that Loren Goldner and others have engaged in (I raised this once
> before). According to Loren's argument, fictitious capital is fictitious
> because it loses its connection with actual value. Now if value is
> immeasurable, how can anyone know that?
> Tahir

Tahir,
I haven't read the debate on ficticious capital that you are refering to,
but with respect to your last question I would say the following: the
notion of fictitious capital requires the ability to make a quantitative
comparison between the actual quantity of value and the quantity of value
ostensibly represented by things like stocks and bonds. You have
fictitious capital when the later exceeds the former as a result of
phenomena such as speculation. If you give up quantity as Toni does with
his assertion of the immeasurability of value then such a notion becomes
unsustainable. If you are content to work only with money as value you
could still do what some economists do, namely compare paper monetary
values with estimated real asset values and you could designate any excess
of the former over the later as amounting to "fictitious capital" - but of
course you would be giving up everything Marxist theory helps us to see
beyond/behind and within such surface categories.

H.

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