Re: Jim on TRPF

[Kelley Bevans <kbevans@xxxxxxxxx>]

                On the value debate,


        It seems to me that this debate is too comfortably based on an
acceptance of value's being determined by the labor ACTUALLY used to create a
good.  In fact, that labor is moot.  The only labor-based value is the
cost of the inherently necessary labor used to REPLACE the item in
question.  As with many things, once a thing is done, it is done, and
labor spent cannot create a present value.  The only slight exception to
this might be some nostalgia for the past ("craftsmanship" in antique
furniture, for example), but this is true of so few goods relative to the
whole that it is insignificant.


        It seems to me that this forward-looking perspective is
essential.  It explains how the use value can influence the exchange
value, when the exchange value seems, necessarily, to remain very stable
and static.  People estimate the exchange value of the total product of
an economy while taking in to account the EXPANDED needs that will be
served, profits that will be taken, and wages that will be earned, in
other words the expanded use value of the economy going forward.  This
process of estimation degrades the value of goods that can be produced
more cheaply, or will have a greater future supply, raises the value
of technologies on the horizon that promise greater productivity and
raises the price of goods that are thought to anticipate little
competition and greater future use value.


        The business cycle exists because of the flawed nature of
estimating in general.  Inflation comes when people make inflated
estimates of future exchange power.  Recession comes when estimates are
unrealistically gloomy.   This process in naturally chaotic and sensitive
to initial condition.


        Capitalists love to expound the market as the mollifier of the
cycle because of its democratic nature.  They are correct, and it is
their undoing.  Alienation between consumer/worker and capital, creates
the same kind of instability that Stalinism was cited for.  Capital
markets are valued on future profit rather than future usefulness.
Fortunately for capitalism, this profit motive was a positive incentive
for early mercantilists, pushing complacent neo-feudalists to take
otherwise unnecessary risks on new technology.  However, as capital
becomes ever more costly, and needs are fulfilled to a greater extent,
capitalists once again become complacent, and start favoring highly
speculative industries like biotech and computer software.  They shy away
from necessary heavy industry, and propose an "information economy" with
a static "meritocracy" (a la "The Bell Curve").


        
        Falling rates of profit are a function of the market and
progression of technology.  An analogous thing would also take place
under any form of socialism.  People's needs are not static, nor should
they be.  Producers with better ideas have to be able to enter the market
freely in order that workers derive the maximum benefit from their
labor.   The fact that future capital always costs more is not an evil of
capitalism, but a reality of human economy.  In fact future capital may
be much less in "mass".  That is a desirable thing for socialists and
capitalists both. It is not true that there is a trend towards
ever-increasing complexity of production methods.  Capitalists would love
to spend as little as possible on capital equipment.  One need only look
at the huge emphasis on computer software in the capital markets to see
that.  However, new capital will always require more work, and may
require an increasing investment of time, thought, and willingness to
change from EVERY worker.  Here, capitalism is at a  disadvantage.
Capitalism is inherently such a hostile social relation, that it cannot
convince people to change their minds and hearts.   You cannot buy good
will.  Look at the bumbling attempts to instill a kind of "social
capitalism" that are popular today.  "Team" management and "work groups"
are sad admissions by the capitalist that he has won the material battle,
but lost the social war.



        Every previous social relation crumbled when the cost of
maintaining the system outweighed the cost of revolution.  Feudalism's
investment in social hierarchy was subverted by capitalism's reliance on
universal tender (money).  Capitalism's investment in ALIENATION will be
undone by socialism's reliance on democracy.




        peace,


                boddhisatva





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