RE: Potatoes

["dlawbailey" <dlawbailey@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

        Duncan wrote:

"-Now, I can see that this doubling of $1 to $2 would occur if this was the
only field in the whole of the world producing potatoes. Like, there was no
other supply. The total labour embedded would equal the SNLT. It just so
happens that it produced half the amount of potatoes that you expected.

However, if there was another field somewhere, then the VALUE in each
potato, the SNLT ( as an average ) would remain the same, no amount of
potato loss could change that? It would be the producers hard luck?"



        In your second paragraph you get right to the heart of the matter simply
and clearly.  A disaster or bumper crop in one potato field, even a big one,
may not have any effect on the Socratic ideal of the absolute value of the
potato.  Who cares?  It has an effect on the relative value of potatoes.  In
the market bundle of things to go with a steak or to make a gratin, scarcity
and price will move potatoes up and down, but most if not all of the
farmer's labor that went into the blighted potatoes is simply lost.  Labor
can be lost in the real world but not in the fundamentalist Marxian
equations.

        Marx assumed that we somehow are all compensating a potato farmer for 
the
"replacement cost" of the labor he puts in - the labor that Marx assumes we
would spend if we had to grow the potatoes ourselves.  If we all had to grow
our food ourselves we would starve.   Marx's "reproduction" assumption is
bogus.  We're not going to pay twice as much because the potato crop is cut
in half.  If you believe that, tell me how the labor that went into a potato
would influence your decision to purchase it. When commodities become scarce
you see huge increases relative to supply changes if there are fewer
replacements or some other reason for price insensitivity and small
increases relative to supply changes if there are replacement goods or price
sensitivity is high.

        Here's another thing to explain.  I like Snapple drinks.  At the local
teriyaki joint I'll pay $1.50 for one bottle (and so does everybody else).
At the supermarket I wouldn't consider paying that much.  Why, in terms of
labor, is that true?  Can it be explained in terms of labor?




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