[OPE-L:5192] Re: Re: use-value as qualitative

["Gerald_A_Levy" <Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re Steve K's [5189]:

 

>  If Marx were a neoclassical, then it could of

> course be a qualitative concept. But since

> qualitative issues form no part of his core

> analysis (except when he reduces qualitative

>  differences to quantitative ones, as in the

> reduction of skilled to unskilled labour--of

> which more later), to become an issue in

>  Marx's political economy, use-value has to

> somehow in some circumstances be quantitative.

 

I strongly disagree with your premise that

qualitative issues lie outside of Marx's analysis.

Indeed, Marx's philosophy and method of abstraction

embodies a tension and dialectic between quality

and quantity. Rather than lying outside of his

theory of  capitalism, qualitative issues are at the

very heart of that understanding. To miss this point

is to confuse Marx with the political economists that

he was critiquing. E.g. he critisized Ricardo for

conflating exchange-value with value and thereby

conceiving of value as merely quantity. By doing so,

Ricardo was not able to comprehend how the

value relationship is an _expression_ of the social

relations of production associated with capitalism.

This internalization of quality and its dynamic

tension with quantity into the subject matter is

an _expression_ of Marx's historical materialism.

Yet, this same integration of quality and quantity

was well understood by Hegel and Hegelians of

various kinds.

> Marx's special perspective on use-value arises

> from its role in the circuit of capital, M-C-M.

> Here he is quite emphatic that use-value

> *MUST* be the explanation of the source of

> surplus value. This can only occur if, in this

> realm, use-value is quantitative.

 

All that is required is, rather, that the *commodity-

form* has both qualitative and quantitative

dimensions.  Use-value, in order words, need not

be quantitative but value must come to be

expressed quantitatively even though it incorporates

a qualitative side (i.e. the "socially necessary" in

SNLT).

 

> Conceptualising use-value as purely qualitative

> means it has no role in economics.

 

Why?

 

Political economy, at least Marx's and Marxist

political economy, is not merely about quantity.

*If the subject matter of economics is quantity

alone then, indeed, it is merely an applied branch

of mathamatics!*  Unfortunately, many economists

have come to view economics in precisely these

terms but it stands in stark contrast both to Marxian

theories and to heterodox theories generally.

 

In solidarity, Jerry