[OPE-L:5169] Re: Re: was Marx an economist?

["Andrew Brown" <Andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Nicky, and all,

Well, I disagree with Chris's basic point - though I find it an
extremely fruitful and illuminating argument.

Value is congealed abstract labour. Only *because* of this does it
have to appear as money. Fetishism is the result of not recognising
this point.

Once we abstract from every sensuous particularity of a
commodity we are left with some'thing', viz. socially necessary
labour time.

'Thing' is in scare quotes above because it is true to say that value
is not a *sensuous* thing. But Chris disagree's with Marx (and me)
that we nevertheless are left with congealed abstract labour once
all particularity, all sensuousness, is abstracted from.

This makes it difficult to understand the very first few pages of
Capital except as a simple mistake, or as a Ricardian 'hangover'
(Reuten &Williams' interpretation). More importantly it jepordises
the quantitative dimension of value theory, since we cannot explain
money magnitudes by labour time. Chris tries to introduce labour
time (exploitation time) later in the presentation so as to overcome
this problem.

Best wishes,

Andy