Re: [Marxism] RE: USSR, Democracy and the Environment

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Calvin Broadbent wrote:
> Hi Louis and Melvin,
> Thanks for your posts- much appreciated. Do you think, as some
> Trotskyists seem to have it, that given that (or 'if') the USSR was in
> competition with the capitalist West, and trying to 'outproduce' it and
> outperform the West economically, that the 'law of value', the
> determination of production according to the laws of exchange value, was
> still in operation?

This is a very complex question. I think it is difficult to extrapolate
"the law of value" in the absense of a capitalist class. Despite all the
attempts of people like Tony Cliff and Charles Bettelheim to explain the
USSR as a class society, I am more convinced by Alec Nove and others who
found the profit motive in short supply. Unless you have a market in
labor and the threat of unemployment, it is very difficult to generate
surplus value.

--
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org



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