[OPE-L:2225] Re: Re: Re: value-form theories

["Michael J Williams" <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A quick further response to Riccardo:
----- Original Message -----
From: riccardo bellofiore <bellofio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ope-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2000 9:17 AM
Subject: [OPE-L:2218] Re: : value-form theories


>I have argued that Marx tried an
>argument about value where money is the form of value and labour is its
>substance. The latter in Marx must be measurable in hours (as Marx said in
>the last version he revised, the French one) - and, in some meaningful
>theoretical sense, must be measurable before exchange. In Marx's argument,
>however, actual value comes into being in exchange, so any argument who
>says that abstract labour is fully constituted before exchange is plainly
>wrong.

Right-on to this last.

But as to what comes before, it is only the material-technical aspect of the
labour process that is, abstractly abstractly (sic) and indeed approximately
quantifiable in person-hours. If anything is the 'substance' of value (and I
have already indicating my scepticism about 'substance talk' in this
context) it is abstract labour  - that has only a social existence and
therefore only a social measure.

>At the same time, I think that VFT radicalised a (correct) Rubin's argument
>which in the end destroys Marx, and which breaks with Rubin himself. My
>point of view is based on the idea, to put it briefly, that the key problem
>in Marx is not in the transformation of value into prices, but rather in
>the theory of money. What should be done is to develop an argument which
>allows to maintain the labour theory of value in a theoretical setting
>where the theory of money is not based on a money-commodity, either in the
>first or in the last instance

I hope to get back to this 'over-radicalisation' thesis later. But as I see
it, VFT does indeed provide an attempt at what you are seeking in this last
sentence?

Comradely greetings,

Michael
____________________
Dr Michael Williams
Economics and Social Sciences
De Montfort University
Milton Keynes
UK
fax: 0870 133 1147
http://www.mk.dmu.ac.uk/~mwilliam
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