Re: [Marxism] From here to there? The Road Forward

[Paul Cockshott <clyder@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Waistline2@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> In a message dated 12/27/03 5:42:17 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> clyder@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
> No Marx defines value as the 'common factor in the exchange relation, or
> in the exchange value of a commodity, is therefore its value. The
> progress of the investigation will lead us back to exchange-value as the
> necessary more of expression or form of appearance of value
>
> Reply
>
> The character of having value, when once impressed upon products, obtains
> fixity only by reason of their acting and reacting upon each other as 
> quantities
> of value. These quantities vary continually, independently of the will,
> foresight and action of the producers. To them, their own social action takes 
> the
> form of the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled
> by them. It requires a fully developed production of commodities before, from
> accumulated experience alone, the scientific conviction springs up, that all
> the different kinds of private labour, which are carried on independently of
> each other, and yet as spontaneously developed branches of the social 
> division of
> labour, are continually being reduced to the quantitative proportions in
> which society requires them. And why? Because, in the midst of all the 
> accidental
> and ever fluctuating exchange-relations between the products, the labour-time
> socially necessary for their production forcibly asserts itself like an
> overriding law of Nature. The law of gravity thus asserts itself when a house 
> falls
> about our ears. [29] The determination of the magnitude of value by
> labour-time is therefore a secret, hidden under the apparent fluctuations in 
> the
> relative values of commodities. Its discovery, while removing all appearance 
> of mere
> accidentality from the determination of the magnitude of the values of
> products, yet in no way alters the mode in which that determination takes 
> place.
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S2
>
> The law of value means the socially necessary amount of labor that goes into
> the production of commodities. There are of course disagreements over this
> formulation. What is being discussed is the law of value and not value as an
> abstraction. The law of value embraces that which defines its field of 
> operation
> and underlying impulse.
>


I do not dispute that the exchange value of commodities is determined by
their
value. That was the starting point of the argument, where I said there
was very
strong empirical evidence that this was still the case for the USA. You
were claiming
that value no longer determined exchange value for the USA. That is an
empirically
testable proposition. It would be manifest in a temporal decline in the
correlation coefficient between values and prices. As far as I know
nobody
has specifically addressed that question, but the last published figures
( From
Andrew Kliman) still show a strong correlation, as does the stuff that
Allin and
I published for the year 1987. It is possible that this has declined
over the
last ten years though. I doubt it, but you might be right.

More generally, the phrase 'Law of Value', is not one that marx uses.
The phrase
you quote "Because, in the midst of all the accidental
> and ever fluctuating exchange-relations between the products, the labour-time
> socially necessary for their production forcibly asserts itself like an
> overriding law of Nature. " is not quite a specification of a Law of Value.

What precisely do you mean by it?

I am not averse to using it provided we define our terms.

What is basically in dispute here is whether value still regulates
exchange
value in the USA, and whether value, (as opposed to exchange value ) is
still a relevant category for socialist economic calculation.

_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism