Statistics and LTV

["Donal" <donaloc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carroll: You can't "prove" marxism by
beginning with the premises of neoclassical economics, and that's what
you seem to be doing.

donal: Point taken, many thanks for your correction/observances. In regard
to the statistic I quoted, it reflected the disparity between the rate of
increase in productivity and the rate of increase of wages. I can now see
that a structuralist approach to labour market inequalities retains the
capacity to explain this statistic and as such the LTV is not proved by it.

Carroll: Value is a social relation. The theory of value is not a 'theorem'
in
neoclassical economics or a price theory or even a theorem in political
economy: it is a principle of the _critique_ of political economy. It is
a way of formulating class relations under capitalism -- more a theory
of culture than of economics in the modern (i.e. bourgeois) meaning of
economics.

donal:  This paragraph has said succinctly what I tried to write earlier in
a more long-winded manner. The concept of value is very broad in its utility
but concrete in its application - my understanding of the concept has
widened considerably over the past 24 hours (even). It just shows the value
of this forum and the space it gives clowns like me to launch polemics under
the gaze of all participants - who can then educate us through debate. I
wonder what Freire would say about this.

Domhnall.



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